Act 2 — Scene I. The Hall in the Wazir Mansur’s Mansion.

The same scene as the last, but richly embroidered curtains have now been drawn between the columns to keep out the glare of the afternoon sun. This gives the room a more intimate feeling. Two large cushions have been placed on the floor and between them a low wine-table with beakers of wine, drinking bowls, fruits, sweetmeats, and a bunch of aromatic herbs.

Mansur is reclining on one cushion. Afife and Kafur are on the diwan. Two Slaves stand ready to replenish the cups.

On the cushion to the left is seated Hajj, in a brilliant fantastic Persian robe and a gorgeous turband. He sits up very erect, his eyes sparkling, his arms outstretched—evidently at the climax of his story.

Hajj. “Thereupon, O hearer, the fox saw his foe, the wolf, was slain; and henceforth he abode alone in the vineyard, secure to the hour of his death.” But Allah is all-knowing!

Mansur. In sooth, a pleasing tale!

(He drains his cup and holds it out to the Slave, who fills it up again.)

Kafur. Good! Good!

Afife. (Clapping his hands.) More! More! More!

Mansur. (Signing to the slave behind Hajj.) Nay, first another cup——

Hajj. (Putting his hand over his cup.) O my Lord, pardon me. I am not wont to drink wine.

Mansur. Tush! ’Tis nothing. Thin, red morning tipple. This night will we robe us in robes of gold and flame-colour and fall to quaffing in earnest; sweet Greek vintage that breeds gladness even to madness. (He holds out the cup, which the Slave fills. Then Mansur passes it to Hajj.) May I never be afflicted with thy loss.

(Hajj, bowing to Mansur, accepts the cup and kisses it.)

Hajj. The slave to thy wishes revealed or concealed. (He drains it and returns it to Mansur.)

Mansur. (Pointedly.) So thou sayest and hast said.

Hajj. Put me to the test, O my master. What tale dost thou desire?

Mansur. What tale? (Confidentially to Hajj.) Harkee, O Hajj. Thou hast wasted thy years. Thou canst turn the ear inside out by thy talk. Long ago thy wit should have won thee a wazirdom.

Hajj. I? Wazir?

Mansur. Yehh! Thou art marked for it by fate. Is this not so, O Kafur?

Kafur. Thou hast said it.

Mansur. (To Hajj.) Thou seest? There’s no escaping honours, O Hajj the Wazir! O the Wazir Hajj!

Hajj. (Stroking his moustachios.) The Wazir Hajj! O my lord, what stair will lead me to so high a minaret?

Mansur. What stair?

(The Attendant enters by the door.)

Attendant. ’Tis the hour of the diwan, O my lord.

Mansur. The diwan! ’Tis well. (Rises.) (The Attendant leaves.) I go to robe myself. Await me but a handful of moments, O my friend. When I return I shall open a gate undreamt of by thy dearest dream. Till then, Allah increase thee, O Wazir to be.

(Mansur goes off followed by Kafur, Afife, and the Two Slaves.)

Hajj. Wazir! Wazir! Another cup! A cup to thee, O Wazir Hajj, thou friend of the great, thou of the great thyself. (He drinks another cup and struts across the room.) Wazir! (He approaches the diwan.) Yehh! Why not? (He seats himself on the diwan.) Even such a seat was destined my limbs from eternity! (With a chuckle.) The Wazir Hajj!

(Miskah, a slave-girl, enters through the curtains at the back. She is, of course, veiled. She looks about cautiously, then glides to Hajj’s side, and throws herself at his feet.)

Miskah. O my master, my mistress bids me come kiss the dust of thy slippers.

Hajj. Yehh! Who may be the mistress of so fair a messenger?

Miskah. Hush! If we be heard ’tis death.

Hajj. Speak low then. What is it?

Miskah. ’Tis sooner told than mended. At noon-tide, lying within the lattice of the harim, my lady saw thee cross the courtyard—the servants bowing to earth before thy valiant stride.

Hajj. (Delighted.) Valiant stride! (He strokes his moustachios.) Yehh! Did she, forsooth?

Miskah. O noble stranger, who art thou? Whence comest thou? What is the measure of thy staying? Such and more would my mistress know. For from noon till now is all her being become one yearning question.

Hajj. And all my being from now to eternity one burning reply. So haste! Bring us together that we may spell a sweet completeness.

Miskah. Follow me, then. But by the life of thy head mark thy path. For we must step over the sleeping door-keeper of the harim. I have plied him with drugs. Three blessed hours will he lie thus in stupor—no longer. After me!

Hajj. Hold! I cannot leave. Any moment the Wazir may return. Might not thy mistress favour me with her coming?

Miskah. Hither?

Hajj. (Pointing to the door.) Thou couldst stand guard.

Miskah. I’ll take thy message, O my master. But her consent means madness. (She disappears through the curtains.)

Hajj. (Left alone, smiles.) “Madness!” “Valiant stride!” (He sits erect.) “Noble stranger!” O Hajj! Thou wast not so mistaken in thyself. There’s a something, a somehow about thee—no doubt of that!

(He draws out his sword using the blade as a mirror by which to arrange his moustachios.)

(The curtains part again—Miskah re-enters.)

Miskah. She comes! (She glides rapidly to the door left and sits listening.)

(Kut-al-Kulub enters, a voluptuous woman of the ripe oriental type—she is about eight and twenty. Her dress is very rich, over it a gorgeous mantle. Her veil is of the thinnest.)

Kut-al-K. (Kneeling before him.) Welcome and well come to my illustrious lord.

Hajj. A thousand blessings on thy white forehead, O mistress of my days.

Kut-al-K. Allah, forgive me! Only the wildness of despair could drive me to break the bonds of my harim.

Hajj. I am earth to thy treading.

Kut-al-K. (With a sigh and exaggerated emotion.) Now, by my life! I knew mine eyes beheld a king the instant they lighted upon the grace of thy being. Help me! Help me! I am oppressed beyond endurance.

Hajj. Who art thou? One of Mansur’s wives?

Kut-al-K. (Springing up, indignantly.) One——? I am the Wife of wives!

Miskah. S—sh!

Hajj. His first? The great lady?

Kut-al-K. First in fact. Yet might I be the least and lowest—a blackamoor kitchen wench—were I to be ranked by his reckoning.

Hajj. Never tell me he ceases adoring thee even for the wink of an eye-lid.

Kut-al-K. (Shrilly.) Cease adoring! He!

Miskah. (Warningly.) S—sh!

Kut-al-K. (Turning to Hajj, with appeal.) Behold this arm! (She produces a gorgeous arm from her cloak.) Is this arm shrivelled? Shrunk?

Hajj. (Admiringly.) Shrivelled? What dog says shrivelled?

Kut-al-K. (Opening her cloak.) This bosom yellow?

Hajj. (Overcome.) Yellow, this field of lilies?

Kut-al-K. (Turning back.) Now tell me, by thine honour: callest thou me hump-backed?

(She drops the cloak and turns round revealing her form, provokingly clad in scanty splendour.)

Hajj. O thou copious beauty! Am I a boy that thou shouldst mock me thus?

Kut-al-K. (Unveiling her face.) Or is my face pock-pitted? My nose crooked? My mouth crumpled?

Hajj. Allah help me! What art thou doing to me, O cruel one?

Kut-al-K. (With a gliding step as she approaches him languorously.) And my gait? (Making slow gestures.) Is my motion like a popinjay’s on a perch? (Coming close to him and sitting on the diwan below him.) My glance the stare of a dead thing?

Hajj. O sun of the age! Dazzle not my sight to blindness! Strike not my senses to frenzy.

Kut-al-K. (Feigning surprise, veiling her face, and turning from him.) Woe upon me! Hath my rage disrobed me?

Hajj. O light of splendour, cloud not thy rays. Shut me not in blackest darkness.

Kut-al-K. (Lifting her veil a little from her face, coquettishly.) So much?

Hajj. More.

Kut-al-K. So much?

Hajj. More.

Kut-al-K. (Dropping her veil completely.) O thou man among men! Why must I obey thy bidding? (She looks down provokingly.)

Hajj. (Drawing close.) What is thy name?

Kut-al-K. Kut-al-Kulub, the food of hearts.

Hajj. In very sooth, thou art the food of hearts. I could feast on thy plenty for ever and yet be an-hungered still.

Kut-al-K. Alas! Why have I never heard words like thine till now?

Hajj. (Coaxing.) Never till now?

Kut-al-K. (Coyly.) By my head, never! All day and all night I sit alone under my silent dome, in the fever of my solitude; my tears my sole consolers.

Hajj. Tears! Thou must let me come to thee and kiss them away.

Kut-al-K. (Pretending horror.) Art thou mad?

Hajj. Aye, maddened by the insolence of thy beauty.

Kut-al-K. (Rising and turning from him, provokingly.) Allah! Kiss me? Thou? Out on thee! ’Tis easily seen thou art loved too much, by too many.

Hajj. (He follows her, comes close to her, and suddenly says in a very businesslike way.) When shall it be?

Kut-al-K. (Dropping all artifice, eagerly.) This evening—early—with the new risen moon.

Hajj. How shall I reach thee?

Kut-al-K. Come to this courtyard. My faithful slave of the firehole shall await thy coming and lead thee by an unknown passage under the baths straight to the heart of the harim.

Miskah. (Springing up, anxiously.) O mistress! (She points to the door.)

(Hajj kisses Kut-al-K. on the lips. She tears herself away and hurries off through the curtains followed by Miskah.)

Kut-al-K. (With a final glance.) Allah!

Hajj. (Flinging his arms out in ecstacy.) Allah!

(Hearing Mansur, he quickly resumes the position on the floor, in which Mansur left him.)

(Mansur re-enters clad in armour, followed by Kafur and Afife.)

Mansur. O Wazir Hajj—are thine eyes ready for me to open?

Hajj. Ready, O my master.

Mansur. Swear that thou wilt never reveal what I shall unveil. (He resumes his seat on the diwan.)

Hajj. I give thee the bond of Allah, to whom belong honour and glory.

Mansur. ’Tis well. How prompt art thou to do a deed?

Hajj. (Kneeling.) Order me do, and ’tis done.

Mansur. (After a pause.) Kill the Caliph.

Hajj. (Thunderstruck.) The—Caliph?

Mansur. I said what I said.

Hajj. The Caliph! The Viceroy of the Prophet! Shed his sacred blood?

Mansur. Sacred? Abdallah? A toy to a tutor? Prince Omar should be reigning in his stead.

Hajj. Prince Omar!

Mansur. Yehh! He’s no parchment-worm! He’s a man, a warrior, a king to the core.

Hajj. And were Prince Omar Caliph—how would that help my cause?

Mansur. The hour he’s proclaimed Caliph, that hour am I Grand Wazir. Once Grand Wazir, there’s no favour too lofty for thee to climb to.

Hajj. Yehh! But why choose me for the deed? Me, from all the servants that encircle thee as the white of the eye doth the black.

Mansur. I wish to honour thee.

Hajj. (Not without humour.) Honour me less, I pray thee.

Mansur. Wouldst thou have me pick a fool for such work? I tell thee, thou art the man.

Hajj. (Confused.) Awah! The Caliph! To attempt to approach him surrounded as he is ever by a body-guard of ready scymitars!

Mansur. Nought so easy. He holds his diwan after mid-afternoon prayer, dealing decrees to great and small, bidding and forbidding. Didst thou not say erstwhile thou knewest how to juggle?

Hajj. Trick on trick! Oft I play them at my corner! A wizard from Morocco was my teacher.

Mansur. The very device! Even such another Moorman shalt thou stand to-day before the Caliph seeking protection as a stranger. I’ll turn it so that he bids thee unfold these tricks of thine. Do thou, by thy skill, draw him step by step from his throne, till he pass beyond the circle of safety and stand unguarded, unheedful by thy side. Then sudden plunge thy dagger.

Hajj. The guards would cut me down.

Mansur. Once the Caliph killed, the command of the guards falls unto me.

Hajj. Ask aught else. This I cannot.

Mansur. (Half aloud as to himself temptingly.) Hajj, the Wazir! The Wazir Hajj!

Hajj. I cannot kill Allah’s messenger. Cut off my hand and let me go.

Mansur. (Rising.) Let thee go? Now? Thy hand to ransom thee with such a secret in thy heart? By the Venger of villainy, thou shalt not leave this house alive! ’Tis either my cup companion, or (pointing) down into the vaults of oblivion.

Hajj. Was it for this I was raised to favour?

Mansur. (Sneeringly.) For thy beauty—mayhap?

Hajj. (Clenching his hands.) The Caliph. I cannot! I cannot!

Mansur. Thou art a coward.

Hajj. Not for myself. But I have others in my life. Affections that bind me. I have a daughter. Awah! (He grovels on the ground.)

Mansur. (With a sudden look at Kafur.) Young? Unmarried?

Hajj. Unmarried. Awah!

Mansur. Fair?

Hajj. Fairer than fair. With a voice like a nightingale’s. A thousand songs are hers. When she dances—the gates of Paradise are opened.

Mansur. (Doubtfully.) Sayest thou so. (He makes signs to Afife and Kafur, unobserved by Hajj.)

Hajj. I tell thee she is a slice of the moon! With lips tender, and waist slender, and graces countless, no tongue can render.

Mansur. By Allah! Thou hast set me afire. I’ll take her to wife.

Hajj. (Overcome.) Thou? The Wazir Mansur—my Marsinah?

Mansur. Even so.

Hajj. (Rising—still doubting.) Wife?

Mansur. Yea, wife—not concubine. My other wives will I put away from me. She shall be first of them all.

Hajj. Thou’lt swear it?

Mansur. Swear it? (He raises his right hand.) The Opening Chapter of the Koran be between me and thee upon this. Afife, Kafur, be ye sponsors to our compact before the Most High. (He holds out his right palm.)

Hajj. (Putting his right palm against Mansur’s.) Ye have heard.

Afife and Kafur. (Together.) We have heard.

Mansur. So be it. I’ll make her mine at sunset. The eunuchs of the harim shall bring her hither this self-same hour.

Hajj. Nay, let me go with them. Such tidings shall she learn from none save her father. (He moves to the door.)

Mansur. Hold! A little question! How stand we as to the Caliph?

Hajj. The Caliph? Now thou hast sworn to marry my daughter, by Him the Most High, the One, the Omnipotent, here do I swear to stab the Caliph to death this day.

Mansur. (To the others.) Ye have heard?

Kafur and Afife. (Raising their right hands together.) Amin!

Mansur. (Raising his hand.) Amin!

Hajj. (Raising his hand.) Amin! (A moment’s silence. From the distant minaret comes the call to prayer.)

Mansur. (Sanctimoniously.) O my brothers, the call to prayer.

Hajj. (In the same tone.) Prayer!

(With one accord they all kneel and bend devoutly to Meccah.)

[Curtain]