nd dismay we should be with you.

THE SPIRIT OF HONOUR. I am so old a friend of you and yours, Cecil,
that you may surely trust me. I was your father's friend. Side by
side we stood in every crisis of his varied life. Together faced the
Dervish rush at Abu Klea, and afterwards in India took our part
in many a desperate unnamed frontier tussle. I helped him woo your
mother, spoke for him when he put up for Parliament, advised him when
he visited the city. In fact, I was his companion all through life,
and I stood beside his bed at death.

THE SPIRIT OF DUTY. I too may claim to have been as much your father's
friend as was my brother. Indeed, where one is, the other is never far
away. We do agree most wonderfully, and since our birth, no quarrel
has ever disturbed the harmony of our ways.

CECIL. Gentlemen, you have recalled me to myself. I had forgotten that
I was no more a child. I wanted to dance in the sun with the flowers,
and sing with the birds, to swim in the pool with yonder newt, and
lie down to dry in the long meadow grass among the poppies. Because I
might not do this and other things as fond and foolish, I was petulant
and peevish, like a spoilt child. I look to you, gentlemen, to help me
to be a man, and play a man's part in the world.

HONOUR. We will remain at hand, call us when you need us, we shall not
fail you.

(_The bombardment increases in intensity. Shrapnel bursts
overhead. Shells with increasing rapidity and accuracy
explode both short and over the trench. The hail of bullets is
continuous. An N.C.O. rushes by shouting "Stand to"; men rush
from the dug-outs and seize their rifles_; CECIL, _like the
others, grasps his rifle and sees that it is fully loaded._)

(_Curtain._)

ACT IV. SUNSET

SCENE. _The same, but the wall of sand-bags_ _bags is broken
in many places. The dead lie half-buried beneath them._ CECIL
_lies, badly wounded, against a gap in the wall, his rifle
by his side._ HONOUR _and_ DUTY _kneel beside him tenderly.
The last rays of the sun light up his painful smile._ THIRST
_stands gloomily over him, and the wild flowers are peeping
at him with sleepy eyes through the gap, while_ MOTHER EARTH
_calls to them to go to bed._ FATHER SUN _leans sadly over the
broken parapet._

CECIL (_slowly and with difficulty_). Honour, Duty, I thank you. You
did not fail me.

HONOUR. You played the man, Cecil, as your father