SOKITI. I was not wrong--

NOURM. Yes! wait! I understand--If you steal, another may steal from you. Likewise if you kill--

SATNI. Right. And why is it necessary to be good?

NOURM. Wait [_To Sokiti_] If you do good to one whom you know not, another who knows you not, may do good to you.

STEWARD. Ah!--Do you understand, Sokiti?

SOKITI. I think so.

SATNI. Explain.

SOKITI [_after a great effort_] You do not want us to steal bracelets from you--

SATNI. I do not want you to steal from any one--Do you understand?

SOKITI. No.

STEWARD [_to Bitiou, who listens open-mouthed_] And you?

BITIOU. I--I have a pain in my head--

_Satni comes to the Steward. Bitiou and Sokiti slip off._

STEWARD. Look at them--

SATNI. The tree that was bent from its birth, not in one day can you make it straight?

STEWARD. We must leave it what it is, or tear it down?

SATNI. No, we must seek patiently to straighten it. [_With feeling_] And above all we must keep straight those that are young.

_Cries are heard outside._

STEWARD. What cries are those?

SATNI. Women in distress.

_Yaouma enters, leading Mieris. Both are agitated._

YAOUMA. Come, mistress--come--We are at the house of the potter, the father of Satni--Satni help--quick! quick! Run! your father, Satni!

SATNI. Mieris, Yaouma, how come you here?

YAOUMA. They will tell you--go!

MIERIS. Fly to the rescue, he is wounded!--I have sent to the palace for those who drive out the evil spirits.

YAOUMA. We were set upon by some men.

MIERIS. He defended us--But they will kill him--go!

_Satni and the Steward seize some arms left by Nourm and run out._

MIERIS. Yaouma! He is wounded! Wounded in saving us--

YAOUMA. Alas!

MIERIS [_listening_] Who is there?

NOURM. I, mistress.

MIERIS. Nourm! Run to the palace, bid them send hither those who drive forth the evil spirits--

YAOUMA. Alas! mistress, I do fear--already he has fallen--struck to earth.

MIERIS. They will save him, they will bear him hither--

YAOUMA. Will they bear him hither alive?

MIERIS [_to Nourm_] Run!--You hear!--Run to the palace, bid those who a.s.sist at the last hour be ready to come. If he have died defending us, the same honors shall be paid him as though ourselves were dead! Go!

[_Nourm goes out. A pause_] Now, Yaouma, lead me out upon the road to the Nile.

YAOUMA. Mistress, you seek to die? Many then must be your sorrows!

MIERIS. Alas! Alas! Why did you discover my flight? Why did you seek me, find me, and bring me back--

YAOUMA. Had I not guessed your purpose?

MIERIS. What have I left to live for?

YAOUMA. You have lived all these years in spite of your affliction, what is there that is changed?

MIERIS. What is there that is changed! You ask me what is changed! Until now I lived in the hope of a miracle.

YAOUMA. Perhaps it would never have come.

MIERIS. Even at my last hour I should have still looked for it.

YAOUMA. Then you would have died believing in a lie--if what they say be true.

MIERIS. What matter, I had smiled as I died, thinking death but the journey to a land where my lost child was waiting for me. The death of a child! No mother ever can believe, at heart, in that. It is too unjust--too cruel to be possible. One says to oneself: it is but a separation! Oh! Satni, thy doctrines may be the truth. But they declare this separation eternal; they make the death of our loved ones final, irreparable, horrible, therefore I foretell thee this: Women will never believe them! What is there that is changed?--Yesterday, children came playing close to us. You know how their cries and laughter made me glad--the voice of one of them was like the voice of mine. I made him come, I put out my hand, in the old way. I felt, at the old height, tossed hair, and the warmth of a living body. And I did not weep, but my voice spoke in my heart and said: "Little child, thy years are as many as his, whom she-who-loves-the-silence took from me. But in Amenti, where he is, in the island of souls, he is happier than thou, for he is safe from all the ills that threaten thee. He is happier than thou. He lives beneath a sun of gold, amid flowers of strange beauty, and perfumed baths refresh him. And when she-who-loves-the-silence takes me in my turn, _I shall see him, I shall see him_ for the first time--and I shall fondle him as I fondle thee, and none, then, may put us asunder.

Go, little child, the happy ones are not on this side of the earth!" Now have I lost the hope of a better life before death, and the hope of a better life beyond as well. If you took both crutches from a cripple, he would fall. Only this twofold hope sustained me. They have taken it from me. And so, it is the end, it is the end--'tis as though I were fallen from a height, I am broken, I have no strength left to bear with life: I tell you, it is the end, it is the end!

YAOUMA [_with intense fervor_] Mistress, they speak not the truth!

MIERIS. Our G.o.ds, did they exist, would already have taken vengeance.