r your camels.
Come and start for holy Mecca.

Bel-Narb:

A curse on the desert.

Aoob:

The camels are rising. The caravan starts for Mecca. Farewell,
beautiful city.

[Pilgrims' voices off: "Bel-Narb! Bel-Narb!"]

Bel-Narb:

I come, children of sin.

[Exeunt Bel-Narb and Aoob.]

[The King enters through the great door crowned. He sits upon the
step.]

King:

A crown should not be worn upon the head. A sceptre should not be
carried in Kings' hands. But a crown should be wrought into a golden
chain, and a sceptre driven stake-wise into the ground so that a King
may be chained to it by the ankle. Then he would know that he might
not stray away into the beautiful desert and might never see the palm
trees by the wells. O Thalanna, Thalanna, how I hate this city with
its narrow, narrow ways, and evening after evening drunken men playing
skabash in the scandalous gambling house of that old scoundrel Skarmi.
O that I might marry the child of some unkingly house that generation
to generation had never known a city, and that we might ride from here
down the long track through the desert, always we two alone till we
came to the tents of the Arabs. And the crown--some foolish, greedy
man should be given it to his sorrow. And all this may not be, for a
King is yet a King.

[Enter Chamberlain through door.]

Chamberlain:

Your Majesty!

King:

Well, my lord Chamberlain, have you _more_ work for me to do?

Chamberlain:

Yes, there is much to do.

King:

I had hoped for freedom this evening, for the faces of the camels are
towards Mecca, and I would see the caravans move off into the desert
where I may not go.

Chamberlain:

There is very much for your Majesty to do. Iktra has revolted.

King:

Where is Iktra?

Chamberlain:

It is a little country tributary to your Majesty, beyond Zebdarlon, up
among the hills.

King:

Almost, had it not been for this, almost I had asked you to let me go
away among the camel-drivers to golden Mecca. I have done the work of
a King now for five years and listened to my councilors, and all the
while the desert called to me; he said, "Come to the tents of my
children, to the tents of my children!" And all the while I dwelt
among these walls.

Chamberlain:

If your majesty left the city now----

King:

I will not, we must raise an army to punish the men of Iktra.

Chamberlain:

Your Majesty will appoint the commanders by name. A tr