Ha.s.sAN I pray you, I pray you. Thrash no one's life out downwards from their feet, O master, and above all, not mine.

RAFI Ah, you heard me! Take courage. All that I require of my guests, good Ha.s.san, is genteel behaviour.

Ha.s.sAN Ah! Who are all these terrible men?

RAFI Beggars of Bagdad! Ten thousand more await my signal on the streets.

In a few minutes they will surprise the drowsy Palace Guards, sack Bagdad, kill the Caliph and make me King.

Ha.s.sAN (Stupefied) What has become of me this night! Just now I was in h.e.l.l, with all the fountains raining fire and blood.

RAFI Come, Ha.s.san, you are only just in time; the cold dawn which ends the revellers' dark day will soon be uncurtaining the blue.

One bowl to pledge me victory, O guests, for I must away and win it, and you shall lie here to sleep away the destruction of Bagdad.

At least you shall say this of your host--he gave us splendid wine.

(The FOUR SLAVES hand round the bowl; the CALIPH refuses.)

(To CALIPH) Sir, you do not drink.

CALIPH I obey the Prophet.

RAFI What wine do they grow in the desert of Meccah, or on the sandhills of Medina? Ah, had the Prophet tasted wine of Syria or the islands, the book would have been shorter by that uncomfortable verse.

JAFAR Come, host! I at all events will pledge you. There is ever fellowship between those who have drunk wine together, be they murderers or thieves or Christians.

MASRUR Host, on the day when I shall spill your blood, I shall drink a little in remembrance of this bowl of wine. Till then your health!

(Drinks.)

RAFI (Sarcastically) Ye are three jolly fellows of amiable disposition.

(Drinks.) I thank you, negro, I drink to yours.

Ha.s.sAN I drink to forget a woman, but will this little cup suffice?

RAFI Nor ten, nor ten thousand little cups like these, if you have loved.

Tonight I shall fill my bowl of the oblivion with the blood of the Caliph of Bagdad. Brother, will that great cup suffice?

Ha.s.sAN (In terror) Call me not brother, thou savage man, who dost talk of shedding the holiest blood in Islam!

RAFI When high office is polluted, when the holy is unholy, when justice is a lie, when the people are starved, and the great fools of the world are in high office, then dares a man talk of shedding the holiest blood in Islam?

CALIPH Also when one has a vengeance to wreak on the Caliph and a claim on a lady of his household.

MASRUR Why do you want to nail him in his coffin alive? Tell us the tale.

JAFAR Tell us, if would not have us think you a mad man or a buffoon.

CALIPH Tell us about the woman; what harm can do you since we are in your power?

RAFI (After hesitation) Yes, what harm can it do, if for my own sake, to relieve the heaviness of my heart, I tell you something of my story?

My name is Rafi. I come from the hills beyond Mosul, where the men walk free and the women go unveiled. There I was betrothed to Pervaneh, a woman beautiful and wise. But the very day before our marriage the Governor of Mosul remembered my country and invaded it with a thousand men. And little enough plunder they got from our village, but they caught Pervaneh walking alone among the pine woods and carried her away. When I heard this I leapt on my horse and galloped to Mosul, prepared to slay the Governor and all the inhabitants thereof single-handed, if evil had come to Pervaneh.

But there I found she had already been sent with a raft full of slaves down the Tigris to Bagdad. Whereupon I hired six men with shining muscles to row me there. We arrived at Bagdad at the end of the third night's rowing at the grey of dawn. I sprang out of the raft like a tiger, and ran like a madman through the streets, crying "The Slave Market!

Tell me the way, O ye citizens! The Slave Market, O the Slave Market!"

And suddenly turning a corner I came upon the market, which was like a garden full of girls in splendid clothes grouped in groups like flowers in garden beds and some like lilies, naked.

I ran around the market to find Pervaneh and all the women laughed at me aloud, and behold there she stood; she who had never worn a veil before, the only veiled woman in all the market, for she had sworn to bite off her lips if her master would not veil her: but I knew her by the beauty of her hands, and I cried: "O dealer, the veiled woman for a thousand dinars!" And the dealer laughed in the way of dealers at the presumption of my offer and demanded two thousand, and so I purchased for gold the blood of my own heart, and she lifted her veil and sang for joy and hung upon my neck, and all the slave girls clapped their hands.

But at that moment there entered into the market a negro eunuch, so tall and so disgusting that the sun was darkened and the birds whistled for terror in the trees. And all the dealers and the slaves bowed low before him. Coming to my dealer, he cried: "Why dost thou sell slaves before the Caliph has made his choice?"

Then turning to to Pervaneh, he said, "Go back to thy place."

And I cried, "She is my purchase." But the eunuch said, "Hold thy peace; I take her for the Caliph."

And suddenly two guards seized Pervaneh, and I drawing my sword was about to hew the eunuch into a thousand pieces, Pervaneh made a sign to me, and looking up I saw I was surrounded by men at arms. And Pervaneh cried in the speech of my country, as they carried her way: "I will die, but I will not be defiled: rescue me alive or dead, soon or late, and avenge me on this Caliph, may the ravens eat his entrails!"

That is my story, and for this reason I will nail the Caliph down in his coffin, bound and living and with open eyes.

CALIPH (In horror) Bound and living, with open eyes! Thou devil!

MASRUR Is that all the story?

JAFAR Will you tear up the Empire for the honour of a girl?

CALIPH (In fury) And set your worthless pa.s.sion in scale against the splendour of Islam!

RAFI Is this Haroun the splendour of Islam? Is the prosperity of these people, a rosy slave in his serai, or their happiness, a fish in his silver fountain?

JAFAR G.o.d will frustrate thee.

RAFI If he will. Farewell, my guests. I go to avenge Pervaneh, and to wash Bagdad in blood.

JAFAR And what of us?

RAFI It is well be used that you are my guests, for you are rich and proud, and eminently deserve destruction. But you are safe in his room as in an iron cage; you will only hear, as in a dream, the crash of the fall of the statue of tyranny.

CALIPH (Rushing to intercept him) By the thick smoke of h.e.l.l's Pit and the Ghouls that eat man's flesh, you shall not go, and we shall not stay.

RAFI Look twice before you touch me!

(He leaps behind the archway. The BEGGARS and the WOMEN are now lined close to the wall of the room and the GUESTS are isolated in the centre. From behind every pillar appears an ARCHER with bow drawn taut directed on the startled GUESTS.)

CHORUS OF BEGGARS AND DANCING GIRLS Today the fools who catch a cold in summer Will fly for winter in the windy moon.

To-day the little rills of shining water Will catch the fire of morning oversoon.

To-day the state musicians and court poets Will set new verses to a special tune.

Today Haroun, the much-detested Caliph Will find his Caliphate inopportune.