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DROMEDARY MAN Their shrines were empty.
OORANDER Behold the gods of the mountain!
AKMOS They have indeed come from Marma.
OORANDER Come. Let us go away to prepare a sacrifice, a mighty
sacrifice to atone for our doubting. (Exeunt.)
SLAG My most wise Master!
AGMAR No, no, Slag. I do not know what has befallen. When I went by
Marma only two weeks ago the idols of green jade were still seated
there.
OOGNO We are saved now.
THAHN Aye, we are saved.
AGMAR We are saved, but I know not how.
OOGNO Never had beggars such a time.
THIEF I will go out and watch. (He creeps out.)
ULF Yet I have a fear.
OOGNO A fear? Why, we are saved.
ULF Last night I dreamed.
OOGNO What was your dream?
ULF It was nothing. I dreamed that I was thirsty and one gave me
Woldery wine; yet there was a fear in my dream.
THAHN When I drink Woldery wine I am afraid of nothing. (Re-enter
Thief.)
THIEF They are making a pleasant banquet ready for us; they are
killing lambs, and girls are there with fruits, and there is to be
much Woldery wine.
MLAN Never had beggars such a time.
AGMAR Do any doubt us now?
THIEF I do not know.
MLAN When will the banquet be?
THIEF When the stars come out.
OOGNO Ah. It is sunset already. There will be good eating.
THAHN We shall see the girls come in with baskets upon their heads.
OOGNO There will be fruits in the baskets.
THAHN All the fruits of the valley.
MLAN Ah, how long we have wandered along the ways of the world.
SLAG Ah, how hard they were.
THAHN And how dusty.
OOGNO And how little wine.
MLAN How long we have asked and asked, and for how much!
AGMAR We to whom all things are coming now at last.
THIEF I fear lest my art forsake me now that good things come without
stealing.
AGMAR You will need your art no longer.
SLAG The wisdom of my Master shall suffice us all our days. (Enter a
frightened man. He kneels before Agmar and abases his forehead.)
MAN Master, we implore you, the people beseech you. (Agmar and the
beggars in the attitude of the gods sit silent.)
MAN Master, it is terrible. (The beggars maintain silence) It is
terrible when you wander in the evening. It is terrible on the edge of
the desert in the evening. Children die when they see you.
AGMAR In the desert? When did you see us?
MAN Last night, Master. You were terrible last night. You were
terrible in the gloaming. When your hands were stretched out and
groping. You were feeling for the city.
AGMAR Last night do you say?
MAN You were terrible in the gloaming!
AGMAR You yourself saw us?
MAN Yes, Master, you were terrible. Children too saw you and they
died.
AGMAR You say you saw us?
MAN Yes, Master. Not as you are now, but otherwise. We implore you,
Master, not to wander at evening. You are terrible in the gloaming.
You are....
AGMAR You say we appeared not as we are now. How did we appear to you?
MAN Otherwise, Master, otherwise.
AGMAR But how did we appear to you?
MAN You were all green, Master, all green in the gloaming, all of rock
again as you used to be in the mountains. Master, we can bear to see
you in flesh like men, but when we see rock walking it is terrible, it
is terrible.
AGMAR That is how we appeared to you?
MAN Yes, Master. Rock should not walk. When children see it they do
not understand. Rock should not walk in the evening.
AGMAR There have been doubters of late. Are they satisfied?
MAN Master, they are terrified. Spare us, Master.
AGMAR It is wrong to doubt. Go, and be faithful. (Exit Man.)
SLAG What have they seen, Master?
AGMAR They have seen their own fears dancing in the desert. They have
seen something green after the light was gone, and some child has told
them a tale that it was us. I do not know what they have seen. What
should they have seen?
ULF Something was coming this way from the desert, he said.
SLAG What should come from the desert?
AGMAR They are a foolish people.
ULF That man's white face has seen some frightful thing.
SLAG A frightful thing?
ULF That man's face has been near to some frightful thing.
AGMAR It is only we that have frightened them, and their fears have
made them foolish. (Enter an attendant with a torch or lantern which
he places in a receptacle. Exit.)
THAHN Now we shall see the faces of the girls when they come to the
banquet.
MLAN Never had beggars such a time.
AGMAR Hark! They are coming. I hear footsteps.
THAHN The dancing girls. They are coming.
THIEF There is no sound of flutes; they said they would come with
music.
OOGNO What heavy boots they have, they sound like feet of stone.
THAHN I do not like to hear their heavy tread; those that would dance
to us must be light of foot.
AGMAR I shall not smile at them if they are not airy.
MLAN They are coming very slowly. They should come nimbly to us.
THAHN They should dance as they come. But the footfall is like the
footfall of heavy crabs.
ULF (in a loud voice, almost chaunting) I have a fear, an old fear and
a boding. We have done ill in the sight of the seven gods; beggars we
were and beggars we should have remained; we have given up our calling
and come in sight of our doom: I will no longer let my fear be silent:
it shall run about and cry: it shall go from me crying, like a dog
from out of a doomed city; for my fear has seen calamity and has known
an evil thing.
SLAG (hoarsely) Master!
AGMAR (rising) Come, come! (They listen. No one speaks. The stony
boots come on. Enter in single file a procession of seven green men,
even hands and faces are green; they wear greenstone sandals, they
walk with knees extremely wide apart, as having sat cross-legged for
centuries, their right arms and right forefingers point upwards, right
elbows resting on left hands: they stoop grotesquely: halfway to the
footlights they wheel left. They pass in front of the seven beggars,
now in terrified attitudes and six of them sit down in the attitude
described, with their backs to the audience. The leader stands, still
stooping. Just as they wheel left, OOGNO cries out.) The gods of the
mountain!
AGMAR (hoarsely) Be still. They are dazzled by the light, they may not
see us. (The leading green thing points his forefinger at the lantern,
the flame turns green. When the six are seated the leader points one
by one at each of the seven beggars, shooting out his forefinger at
them. As he does this each beggar in his turn gathers himself back on
to his throne and crosses his legs, his right arm goes stiffly upwards
with forefinger erect, and a staring look of horror comes into his
eyes. In this attitude the beggars sit motionless while a green light
falls upon their faces. The gods go out.
Presently enter the Citizens, some with victuals and fruit. One
touches a beggar's arm and then another's.)
CITIZEN They are cold; they have turned to stone. (All abase
themselves foreheads to the floor.)
ONE We have doubted them. We have doubted them. They have turned to
stone because we have doubted them.
ANOTHER They were the true gods.
ALL They were the true gods.
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