SCENE IV. _The Prison of the Palace.

_The place is dark except for a small barred window in the right wall, high up. Through this come the red rays of the setting sun, which fall on the wall, left—a brilliant patch creeping slowly higher and higher._

_Under the window in the shadow lies JAWAN, the highwayman, an unrecognisable heap._

_A moment of silence. Then the door is unlocked and unbolted and creaking loudly, to the rattle of keys, it admits KUTAYT, the Gaoler, a huge, dark-skinned man of brute force. He pushes open the door, and crosses to some chains fixed to an angle that juts out, left, under the patch of sunlight._

_Outside is heard the shuffle of feet and blows. HAJJ appears directly, pushed and driven by the FOUR BLACK ARCHERS. His mouth is still covered with the black bandage. The ARCHERS drag him to the wall, left, where KUTAYT stands ready to clap the chains on his wrists._

KUTAYT. (_Turning HAJJ round._) What outlandish garments have we here? Not Arabian. How? (_HAJJ gives a muffled reply._) (_KUTAYT pulling the bandage from his mouth._) How?

HAJJ. (_Breathless._) Moorish, O my master.

KUTAYT. Moorish! Hoo! Hoo! Wilt thou buy straw from me?

HAJJ. I have no money.

KUTAYT. No money?

HAJJ. Not a danik.

KUTAYT. (_Shouting._) Nothing? Shall I waste my breath sucking of an empty bottle? Here with thy paws, O misery! (_He claps the chains on HAJJ._) Yehh, what a life is mine, crushing lice! (_He throws HAJJ down on the ground._) Lie there, thou vermin. Moorish! (_He spits on HAJJ, then follows the others banging the door to behind him, bolting and locking it from without._)

(_A moment of silence._)

HAJJ. (_Groaning._) There is no majesty nor might save Allah! Is it this I have come to? (_Rattling the chains, he sinks down beating palm on palm in despair._) O thou purse! Thou little purse flung me at sunrise! Thou hast been mine undoing! Thou wast from Satan! From him, mine enemy. O Jawan! Jawan! As Allah is my witness, may thy soul be cast down into the fires of hell to burn and boil to infinity without end.

(_Out of the gloom of the opposite wall comes JAWAN’S sharp voice, half mockingly._)

JAWAN. Who calls me? Can it be thou, O Hajj?

HAJJ. (_Amazed._) Allah! (_He sits up._) Art thou an Ifrit speaking?

JAWAN. No Ifrit, O brother. No spirit of air or fire. But thy flesh-and-bones enemy, whom thou dost curse so sweetly.

HAJJ. Jawan—thyself—here?

JAWAN. Even as thou, O my friend of long ago.

HAJJ. (_He laughs._) Ha! Ha! By Allah! Thou here! And through me! For ’twas I who told Mansur of thee! My prayer is answered. We shall end side by side. ’Tis well. I die content.

JAWAN. Why art thou here?

HAJJ. For attempting the Caliph’s days.

JAWAN. The Caliph’s? Thou? Then art thou indeed dead.

HAJJ. Even as thou art.

JAWAN. Nay, I shall be free. I tell thee I shall live, live to see my son. Yehh! As clearly as I see him now with the eyes of the heart. As clearly as I saw him last with the eyes of the head. (_In an exalted strain._) There he stood, my Yusuf, in the wold and wild, by my tent, the dust-cloud of the coming foe walling the horizon. I made him kneel before me and blessed and kissed him. And as I did so an amulet hung forth from my breast. I broke it in half—a hand of Fatimah. (_He taps his chest._) Half I kept for myself, here. The other I fixed on the chain round his neck. By that broken half shall I find him again. I know it.

HAJJ. (_Laughing derisively._) Ha! Ha! After twenty-five years? Thou art in thy dotage.

JAWAN. Allah will give him back to me. I have gone to Mecca thrice. All my moneys have I spent in charity.

HAJJ. Charity? Will charity quicken my little son, whom thou didst slaughter? Charity restore the wife thou didst rob me of? I tell thee thou shalt surely die to-morrow. Thy blood and mine shall mingle together on the thirsty ground. That is my sole consolation, the honey in this my bitterness.

(_The lock is heard to turn and the door is unbolted. KUTAYT reappears with a document in his hand._)

(_The sunlight begins to fade._)

KUTAYT. (_Going to JAWAN, holding out the document._) The Commander of the Faithful has lent ear to the pleadings of the High Priest. Thou art pardoned and released.

JAWAN. Allah prolong the Caliph’s days of Glory!

KUTAYT. Canst thou climb the stairs unaided?

JAWAN. Where are my slaves?

KUTAYT. Thy slaves? Alas! When they saw thee prisoner they turned and fled!

JAWAN. Whoreson knaves! How shall I get me from here? (_Chinking a purse._) This purse of fifty dinars, an thou canst find me a litter.

KUTAYT. (_Obsequiously._) O my lord, there is a stretcher above to carry away the dead. Will that suffice thy graciousness?

JAWAN. Anything, so I need no longer weary thine hospitality. He! He! He!

KUTAYT. (_Laughing politely._) Hoo, Hoo! Hearing is obeying.

HAJJ. (_Eagerly._) Am I pardoned too? Am I free?

KUTAYT. Hoo! Hoo! Pardoned? Free? Wait till thy tongue’s torn out, thine eyes scorched to blindness, thy body nailed to the dome over the Gate of Destruction. Then wilt thou be free—indeed—at last! Hoo! Hoo!

HAJJ. (_Tugging at his chains._) Allah damn thee for thy mocking!

KUTAYT. Hoo? Curse me, O thou? That for thee, thou offal, thou stench. (_He strikes HAJJ over the head with the huge door-key. HAJJ with a cry totters, then sinks on his knees and faints._) How? Fainted? Hoo! Hoo! Fainted. Rose-water for the Princess! Rose-water and fumes and ambergris! Fainted! (_Turning and bowing obsequiously to JAWAN._) O my lord, thy litter shall be with thee on the instant.

(_He goes off and slams the door, bolts and locks it._)

(_Silence._)

HAJJ. (_After some groans, slowly returning to consciousness, in the whining tone of the beggar, not realising where he is._) Alms for the love of Allah! For the love of—— (_He awakes slowly to his surroundings; with a cry of horror._) Ah! I am here! I am here. ’Tis over—is it? Is it over?

JAWAN. He! He! He! ’Tis not yet begun.

HAJJ. ’Tis not? (_Coming to the full realisation of things._) Thou! Now I know. Thou! Oh! The sun is setting! Red! Red! (_With a sudden cry._) Mansur!—Thou fiend of lowest hell! “Even as the day ends red, so shall she end red this day!” O Marsinah! O Marsinah! And I in prison—in chains!

JAWAN. He! He! He!

HAJJ. Laugh! Thou canst laugh? Thou the beginning—thou the end of my sufferings! (_Tugging at the chains._) O Allah! Give me strength. Make these strong arms doubly, trebly strong! Put all the power of a lifetime into these sinews; only for once, O Allah, that I may snap these maddening chains in twain!

JAWAN. Never! Never! (_He laughs jeeringly._) He! He! He!

HAJJ. Once! Only once! (_He tugs, he twists, then with a wild cry of delight he has broken himself free._) Free! Free! The Granter hath granted!

JAWAN. (_With terror—breathless._) Wah——

HAJJ. (_Sitting up, very quietly._) At last!

JAWAN. (_Trembling._) What—what art thou thinking?

HAJJ. (_Rises._) What—what? (_He crouches slightly and slowly, step by step, like a wild beast, creeps over to JAWAN’S corner._)

JAWAN. No nearer! I have a knife.

HAJJ. A knife—hast thou?

JAWAN. ’T has served me a thousand times. Luck’s written on the blade.

HAJJ. Luck? I take my luck. (_With a cry._) Allah is all great! (_He springs into the dark at JAWAN._)

(_A fierce struggle as of two panthers fighting. Groans, hisses, heavings and cries. After a minute—silence. Then HAJJ emerges from the dark._)

HAJJ. (_Breathless and fervently._) O Allah mine, thou hast given me this hour. Behold my sacrifice to thee. At last, at last, I am avenged! Avenged! (_Laughing bitterly._) But my Marsinah!—Oh spare her, O Lord of justice, spare her from Mansur and the horror of his harim. (_A thought striking him._) The harim! Kut-al-Kulub! The Wife of wives! Even now she is waiting for me! If I could reach her! She’d help me to save Marsinah! She’d— (_He goes to the door pounding on it desperately._) Free! Free! Free!—(_He stops and turns hopelessly._) Madness! (_Looking at JAWAN’S body._) They’ll find him the moment the litter comes, and then—(_With sudden inspiration._) The litter! Allah! Dost Thou open the door of escape? Dost Thou? (_Wildly._) Ha! Ha! Ha! If it succeed! If it succeed! (_He goes into the corner to the body._) The cloak! The turband! The purse! In his sleeve,—his breast? (_He comes across the chain on his breast._) The chain! The broken hand of Fatimah! (_Imitating JAWAN._) “I shall see my son again! I shall find him!” Wilt thou? (_He takes off the chain._) Wilt thou? (_Putting it over his own neck._) Hang thou here on my neck now thou broken hand of Fatimah! I shall find him, so Allah will it. I shall! Ha! (_He finds the purse and chinks it._) Fifty dinars! For the gaoler! Good! Now off with thy cloak. What? (_He stops and listens._) Nothing. Nothing. Keep thine eyes cool and clear, O Hajj. Cool and clear. (_He returns to the body._) So! So! _Thou_ shalt play the Moorman now, O my king. Dead. Ha! Ha! Thou art dead, dost thou hear? And yet, O dead one, ’tis thou shalt draw me out of my grave—me thy slayer! (_He drags the body to where he lay fainting when the gaoler went out and covers it with his own cloak._) So! Lie thou there! Quiet! Budge not, I pray thee. Faint! (_He turns to JAWAN’S cloak and turband._) Now for mine own beautifying! (_As he picks up the garments he sees the knife which he discarded._) The knife! Luck’s written on the blade. (_He puts the knife into his belt._) Luck! So be it. Luck shall carry me into the street. Luck let me leap from the litter! Luck bring me to the harim and to thee, O my Marsinah, O my——(_The door outside is unlocked._)

(_HAJJ throwing the cloak over himself, hurries into JAWAN’S dark corner and lies down. KUTAYT reappears with a lanthorn, followed by two men with a rough stretcher._)

KUTAYT. The stretcher, O my lord.

HAJJ. (_Coughing and imitating JAWAN’S voice._) Here! (_He throws the purse._)

KUTAYT. (_Picking it up and examining it by the light of the lanthorn._) Allah bless thy journey. (_To the men as they lift up HAJJ._) Carefully. Lift the Sheikh of sheikhs carefully. (_He chinks the purse and turns to the dead body._) How? Still fainted! Hoo! Hoo! Look, O my lord—(_He goes to the body and raises up an arm._) Still fainted!

HAJJ. (_As the litter is lifted up and carried out, imitating JAWAN’S laugh._) He! He! He! (_He is carried through the door._)

KUTAYT. (_Dropping the arm._) Rose water! (_Kicking the body._) Rose water! Hoo! Hoo!

HAJJ. (_From the staircase, without._) He! He! He!

(_KUTAYT turns slowly and follows the litter, slamming the door behind him._)

[CURTAIN]

_End of Act II_