ibe of your
Majesty's fighting men must be summoned from Agrarva and another from
Coloono, the jungle city, as well as one from Mirsk. This must be done
by warrants sealed by your hand. Your Majesty's advisers await you in
the council-hall.

King:

The sun is very low. Why have the caravans not started yet?

Chamberlain:

I do not know. And then your Majesty----

King: [laying his hand on the Chamberlain's arm]

Look, look! It is the shadows of the camels moving towards Mecca. How
silently they slip over the ground, beautiful shadows. Soon they are
out in the desert flat on the golden sands. And then the sun will set
and they will be one with night.

Chamberlain:

If your Majesty has time for such things there are the camels
themselves.

King:

No, no, I do not wish to watch the camels. They can never take me out
to the beautiful desert to be free forever from cities. Here I must
stay to do the work of a King. Only my dreams can go, and the shadows
of the camels carry them, to find peace by the tents of the Arabs.

Chamberlain:

Will your Majesty now come to the council-hall?

King:

Yes, yes, I come.

[Voices off: "Ho-_Yo!_ Ho-_Yay!_ ...Ho-_Yo!_ Ho-_Yay!_"]

Now the whole caravan has started. Hark to the drivers of the
baggage-camels. They will run behind them for the first ten miles, and
tomorrow they will mount them. They will be out of sight of Thalanna
then, and the desert will lie all round them with sunlight falling on
its golden smiles. And a new look will come into their faces. I am
sure that the desert whispers to them by night saying, "Be at peace,
my children, at peace, my children."

[Meanwhile the Chamberlain has opened the door for the King and
is waiting there bowing, with his hand resolutely on the opened
door.]

Chamberlain:

Your Majesty will come to the council-hall?

King:

Yes, I will come. Had it not been for Iktra I might have gone away and
lived in the golden desert for a year, and seen holy Mecca.

Chamberlain:

Perhaps your Majesty might have gone had it not been for Iktra.

King:

My curse upon Iktra! [He goes through the doorway.]

[As they stand in doorway enter Zabra R.]

Zabra:

Your Majesty.

King:

O-ho. More work for an unhappy King.

Zabra:

Iktra is pacified.

King:

Is pacified?

Zabra:

It happened suddenly. The men of Iktra met with a few of your Majesty's
fighting men and an arrow chanced to kill the lead