SCENE: Damascus and the Mountains of Samaria. TIME: 850 B. C.

DRAMATIS PERSONE

NO. 2

SCENE I.-Night, in the garden of Naaman at Damascus. At the left, on a slightly raised terrace, the palace, with softly gleaming lights and music coming from the open latticed windows. The garden is full of oleanders, roses, pomegranates, abundance of crimson flowers; the air is heavy with their fragrance; a fountain at the right is plashing gently: behind it is an arbor covered with vines. Near the centre of the garden stands a small, hideous idol of the god Rimmon. Back of the arbor rises the lofty square tower of the House of Rimmon, which casts a shadow from the moon across the garden. The background is a wide, hilly landscape, with a highroad passing over the mountains toward the snow-clad summits of Mount Hermon in the distance. Enter by the palace door, the lady Tsarpi, robed in red and gold, and followed by her maids, Khamma and Nubta.

(Tsarpi remains on the terrace: Khamma and Nubta go down into the garden, looking about, and returning to her.)

КНАММА:

NUBTA:

There's no one here; the garden is asleep.

The flowers are nodding, all the birds abed,
And nothing wakes except the watchful stars!

Copyright, 1908, by Henry van Dyke. All rights reserved.
Copyright, 1908, by Charles Scribner's Sons. All rights reserved.

(Impatiently.)

(Smiling.)

(Khamma gives her the hand-glass.)

(Exeunt, Khamma and Nubta, laughing. Tsarpi descends the steps.)

(Enter Rezon quiet

ly from the shadow of

the trees. He stands

My guest is late; but he will surely come!
Hunger and thirst will bring him to my feet.
The man who burns to drain the cup of love,-
The priest whose greed of glory never fails,-
Both, both have need of me, and he will come.
And I,-what do I need? Why everything
That helps my beauty to a higher throne;
All that a priest can promise, all a man
Can give, and all a god bestow, I need:
This may a woman win, and this will I.

behind Tsarpi and listens, smiling, to her last words. Then he drops his mantle of leopard-skin, and lifts his high-priest's rod of bronze, shaped at one end like a star, at the other like a thunderbolt.)

REZON:

(Rising, and speaking angrily

(Slowly, and thoughtfully.)

Believe me, I repay his scorn

With double hatred,-Naaman, the man
Whom the King honors and the people love,
Who stands against the nobles and the priests,
Against the oracles of Rimmon's House,
And cries, "We'll fight to keep Damascus free!"
This powerful fool, this impious devotee
Of liberty, who loves the city more
Than he reveres the city's ancient god:
This frigid husband who sets you below
His dream of duty to a horde of slaves:
This man I hate, and I will humble him.

(Doubtfully.)

Of the Assyrian king has broken forth
Again to conquer us. Envoys have come

From Shalmaneser to demand surrender.
Our king Benhadad wavers, for he knows
His weakness. All the nobles, all the rich,

Would purchase peace that they may grow more rich:
Only the people and the soldiers, led

By Naaman, would fight for liberty.

Blind fools! To-day the envoys came to pay

Their worship to our god, whom they adore
In Nineveh as Asshur's brother-god.
They talked with me in secret. Promises,
Great promises! For every noble house
That urges peace, a noble recompense:

The king, submissive, kept in royal state
And splendor: most of all, honor and wealth

Shall crown the House of Rimmon, and his priest,
Yea, and his priestess. For we two will rise
Upon the city's fall. The common folk
Shall suffer; Naaman shall sink with them

The night grows dark; we'll perfect our alliance.

(Rezon draws her with him, embracing her, through the shadows of the garden. Ruahmah, who has been sleeping in the arbor, has been awakened during the dialogue, and has been dimly visible in her white dress, behind the vines. She parts them and comes out, pushing back her long dark hair from her temples.)

(Bewildered and distressed.)

RUAHMAH:

What have I heard? O God, what shame is this

Plotted beneath Thy pure and silent stars!

Was it for this that I was brought away

Captive from Israel's blessed hills to serve

A heathen mistress in a land of lies?