I do not allow my wife to speak to me like that.

    [Exeunt Harpagas and Ludibras.]

I hope Tharmia will not weep; it is very distressing to see a woman in tears.

    [Enter Tharmia.]

Do not be unhappy, do not be at all unhappy.  But I have been unable to persuade the King to return to Barbul-el-Sharnak.  You will be happy here after a little while.

Tharmia:  [breaks into loud laughter]

You are the King’s adviser.  Ha-ha-ha! You are the Grand High Vizier of the Court.  Ha-ha-ha. You are the warder of the golden wand.  Ha-ha-ha O, go and throw biscuits to the King’s dog.

Ichtharion: 

What!

Tharmia: 

Throw little ginger biscuits to the King’s dog.  Perhaps he will obey you.  Perhaps you will have some influence with the King’s dog if you feed him with little biscuits.  You——­

    [Laughs and exits.  Ichtharion sits with his miserable head in his
    hands.]

    [Reenter Ludibras and Harpagas.]

Ludibras: 

Has her Sincerity, the princely Lady Tharmia, been speaking with you?

Ichtharion: 

She spoke a few words.

    [Ludibras and Harpagas sigh.]

We must leave Thek.  We must depart from Thek.

Ludibras: 

What, without the King?

Harpagas: 

No.

Ichtharion: 

No.  They would say in Barbul-el-Sharnak “these were once at Court,” and men that we have flogged would spit in our faces.

Ludibras: 

Who can command a King?

Harpagas: 

Only the gods.

Ludibras: 

The gods?  There are no gods now.  We have been civilised over three thousand years.  The gods that nursed our infancy are dead, or gone to nurse younger nations.

Ichtharion: 

I refuse the listen to——­ O, the sentries are gone.  No, the gods are no use to us; they were driven away by the decadence.

Harpagas: 

We are not in the decadence here.  Barbul-el-Sharnak is in a different age.  The city of Thek is scarcely civilised.

Ichtharion: 

But everybody lives in Barbul-el-Sharnak.

Harpagas: 

The gods——­

Ludibras: 

The old prophet is coming.

Harpagas: 

He believes as much in the gods as you or I do.

Ludibras: 

Yes, but we must not speak as though we knew that.

    [Voice-of-the-Gods (a prophet) walks across the stage.]

Ichtharion, Ludibras, and Harpagas:  [rising]

The gods are good.

Voice-of-the-Gods: 

They are benignant. [exit]

Ichtharion: 

Listen!  Let him prophesy to the King.  Let him bid the King go hence lest they smite the city.

Ludibras: 

Can we make him do it?