Chamberlain: 

A little gold perhaps from evil-doers for justice.  Or a little money to decide the dispute of some righteous wealthy man; but no more till the King returns, whom God prosper.

Zabra: 

God increase him.  Will you yet try to detain him?

Chamberlain: 

No.  When he comes by with his retinue and escort I will walk beside his horse and tell him that a progress through the desert will well impress the Arabs with his splendour and turn their hearts towards him.  And I will speak privily to some captain at the rear of the escort and he shall afterwards speak to the chief commander that he may lose the camel-track in a few days’ time and take the King and his followers to wander in the desert and so return by chance to Thalanna again.  And it may yet be well with us.  We will wait here till they come by.

Zabra: 

Will the chief commander do this thing certainly?

Chamberlain: 

Yes, he will be one Thakbar, a poor man and a righteous.

Zabra: 

But if he be not Thakbar but some greedy man who demands more gold than we would give to Thakbar?

Chamberlain: 

Why, then we must give him even what he demands, and God will punish his greed.

Zabra: 

He must come past us here.

Chamberlain: 

Yes, he must come this way.  He will summon the cavalry from the Saloia
Samang.

Zabra: 

It will be nearly dark before they can come.

Chamberlain: 

No, he is in great haste.  He will pass before sunset.  He will make them mount at once.

Zabra:  [looking off R.]

I do not see stir at the Saloia.

Chamberlain:  [looking, too] No—­no.  I do not see.  He will make a stir.

    [As they look a man comes through the doorway wearing a coarse
    brown cloak which falls over his forehead.  Exit furtively L.]

What man is that?  He has gone down to the camels.

Zabra: 

He has given a piece of money to one of the camel-drivers.

Chamberlain: 

See, he has mounted.

Zabra: 

Can it have been the King!

    [Voice off L.  “Ho-Yo!  Ho-Yay!”]

Chamberlain: 

It is only some camel-driver going into the desert.  How glad his voice sounds.

Zabra: 

The Siroc will swallow him.

Chamberlain: 

What—­if it were the King!

Zabra: 

Why, if it were the King we should starve for a year.

    [One year elapses between the first and second acts.]

Act II

    [The same scene.]

    [The King, wrapped in a camel-driver’s cloak, sits by Eznarza, a
    gypsy of the desert.]

King: 

Now I have known the desert and dwelt in the tents of the Arabs.