Queen: 

I go to pray to a very secret god.

Zophernes: 

What is his name?

Queen: 

His name is secret like his deeds.

    [She goes to door.  Silence falls.  All watch her.  She and
    Ackazarpses slip out.  For a moment silence.  Then all draw their
    wide swords and lay them before them on the table.]

Zophernes: 

To the door, slaves.  Let no man enter.

1st Duke of Ethiopia: 

She cannot mean to harm us!

    [A Slave comes back from door and abases himself.  Loq.]

Slave: 

The door is bolted.

Rhadamandaspes: 

It is easily broken with our swords.

Zophernes: 

No harm can come to us while we guard the entrances.

    [Meanwhile the Queen has gone up the stairs.  She beats with a fan
    on the wall thrice.  The great grating lifts outwards and upwards
    very slowly.]

Zophernes:  [to the Two Dukes]

Quick, to the great hole.

Stand on each side of it with your swords.

    [They lift their swords over the hole.]

Slay whatever enters.

Queen: 

    [on the step, kneeling, her two arms stretched upwards]

O holy Nile!  Ancient Egyptian river!  O blessed Nile!

When I was a little child I played beside you, picking mauve flowers.  I threw you down the sweet Egyptian flowers.  It is the little Queen that calls to you, Nile.  The little Queen that cannot bear to have enemies.

Hear me, O Nile.

Men speak of other rivers.  But I do not hearken to fools.  There is only Nile.  It is the little child that prays to you who used to pick mauve flowers.

Hear me, O Nile.

I have prepared a sacrifice to god.  Men speak of other gods:  there is only Nile.  I have prepared a sacrifice of wine—­the Lesbian wine from fairy Mitylene—­to mingle with your waters till you are drunken and go singing to the sea from the Abyssinian hills.

O Nile, hear me.

Fruits also I have made ready, all the sweet juices of the earth; and the meat of beasts also.

Hear me, O Nile:  for it is not the meat of beasts only.  I have slaves for you and princes and a King.  There has been no such sacrifice.  Come down, O Nile, from the sunlight.  O ancient Egyptian river!

The sacrifice is ready.  O Nile, hear me.

Duke of Ethiopia: 

No one comes.

Queen:  [beats again with her fan]

Harlee, Harlee, let in the water upon the princes and gentlemen.

[A green torrent descends from the great hole.  Green gauzes rise from the floor; the torches hiss out.  The temple is flooded.  The water from under the doors rises up the steps, the torches hiss out one by one.  The water, finding its own level, just touches the end of the Queen’s skirt and stops.  She withdraws the skirt with catlike haste from the water.]

Queen: