If: A Play in Four Acts, Lord Dunsany [any book recommendations TXT] 📗

ARCHIE BEAL

O, never mind that. Well, it all seems pretty simple.

JOHN BEAL

Well, I don't know, ARCHIE. Hussein admits the debt, but...

ARCHIE BEAL

But what?

JOHN BEAL

I don't know what he'll do.

ARCHIE BEAL

Wants watching, does he?

JOHN BEAL

Yes. And meanwhile I feel sort of responsible for all these silly people. Somebody's got to look after them. Daoud!

DAOUD [off]

Great master.

JOHN BEAL

Bring in some more gods.

DAOUD

Yes, great master.

JOHN BEAL

I can't get them to stop calling me absurd titles. They're so infernally Oriental.

[Enter DAOUD.]

ARCHIE BEAL

He's got two big ones this time.

JOHN BEAL [to ARCHIE]

You see, there is rust about their mouths. [To DAOUD]: They are both unholy.

[He points to R. heap, and DAOUD puts them there. To DAOUD.]

Bring in some more.

DAOUD

Great master, there are no more gods in Al Shaldomir.

JOHN BEAL

It is well.

DAOUD

What orders, great master.

JOHN BEAL

Listen. At night you shall come and take these gods away. These shall be worshipped again in their own place, these you shall cast into the great river and tell no man where you cast them.

DAOUD

Yes, great master.

JOHN BEAL

You will do this, Daoud?

DAOUD

Even so, great master.

JOHN BEAL

I am sorry to make you do it. You are sad that you have to do it. Yet it must be done.

DAOUD

Yes, I am sad, great master.

JOHN BEAL

But why are you sad, Daoud?

DAOUD

Great master, in times you do not know these gods were holy. In times you have not guessed. In old centuries, master, perhaps before the pass. Men have prayed to them, sorrowed before them, given offerings to them. The light of old hearths has shone on them, flames from old battles. The shadow of the mountains has fallen on them, so many times, master, so many times. Dawn and sunset have shone on them, master, like firelight flickering; dawn and sunset, dawn and sunset, flicker, flicker, flicker for century after century. They have sat there watching the dawns like old men by the fire. They are so old, master, so old. And some day dawn and sunset will die away and shine on the world no more, and they would have still sat on in the cold. And now they go... They are our history, master, they are our old times. Though they be bad times they are our times, master; and now they go. I am sad, master, when the old gods go.

JOHN BEAL

But they are bad gods, Daoud.

DAOUD

I am sad when the bad gods go.

JOHN BEAL

They must go, Daoud. See, there is no one watching. Take them now.

DAOUD

Even so, great master.

[He takes up the largest of the gods with rust.]

Come, Aho-oomlah, thou shalt not drink Nideesh.

JOHN BEAL

Was Nideesh to have been sacrificed?

DAOUD

He was to have been drunk by Aho-oomlah.

JOHN BEAL

Nideesh. Who is he?

DAOUD

He is my son.

[Exit with Aho-oomlah. JOHN BEAL almost gasps.]

ARCHIE BEAL [who has been looking round the tent]

What has he been saying?

JOHN BEAL

They're—they're a strange people. I can't make them out.

ARCHIE BEAL

Is that the heap that oughtn't to be worshipped?

JOHN BEAL

Yes.

ARCHIE BEAL

Well, do you know, I'm going to chuck this hat there. It doesn't seem to me somehow to be any more right here than those idols would be at home. Odd isn't it? Here goes.

[He throws hat on right heap of idols. JOHN BEAL does not smile.]

Why, what's the matter?

JOHN BEAL

I don't like to see a decent Christian hat among these filthy idols. They've all got rust on their mouths. I don't like to see it, Archie; it's sort of like what they call an omen. I don't like it.

ARCHIE BEAL

Do they keep malaria here?

JOHN BEAL

I don't think so. Why?

ARCHIE BEAL

Then what's the matter, Johnny? Your