Part 4 (1/2)

[_Exeunt_ QUESTIONERS.

So ... It _was_ the G.o.ds.

[_The acolytes are crouched upon the floor. He does not notice them since they ceased to moan._

The G.o.ds! With what dark and dreadful thing have they clouded the future?

Well, I will face it! But what is it? Is it one of those things a strong man can bear? Or is it----?

The future is more terrible than the grave, that has its one secret only.

No man, he said, could say that the G.o.ds had advised me ill when they bade me drink out of a poisoned cup.

What have the G.o.ds seen? What dreadful work have they overlooked where Destiny sits alone, making evil years? The G.o.ds, he said, who alone see future things.

Yes, I have known men who never were warned by the G.o.ds, and did not drink poison, and came upon evil days, suddenly like a s.h.i.+p upon rocks no mariner knows. Yes, poison to some of _them_ would have been very precious.

The G.o.ds have warned me and I have not hearkened, and must go on alone: must enter that strange country of the future whose paths are so dark to man ... to meet a doom there that the G.o.ds have seen.

The G.o.ds have seen it! How shall I thwart the G.o.ds? How fight against the shapers of the hills?

Would that I had been warned. Would I had heeded when they bade me drink of the cup the Amba.s.sador said was poisoned.

[_Far off is heard that merry bar of music blown by the_ AMBa.s.sADOR'S HERALD _on his horn._]

_Is it too late?_

There it stands yet with its green emeralds winking.

[_He clutches it and looks down into it._

How like to wine it is, which is full of dreams. It is silent and dreamy like the G.o.ds, whose dreams we are.

Only a moment in their deathless minds: then the dream pa.s.ses.

[_He lifts up his arm and drinks it seated upon his throne with his head back and the great cup before his face. The audience begin to wonder when he will put it down. Still he remains in the att.i.tude of a drinker.

The acolytes begin to peer eagerly. Still he remains upright with the great cup to his lips. The acolytes patter away and the_ KING _is left alone._

[_Enter the_ KING'S POLITICIAN _hurriedly._ _He goes up to the_ KING _and seizes his right arm and tries to drag the cup away from his lips, but the_ KING _is rigid and his arm cannot be moved. He steps back lifting up his hands._

POLITICIAN: Oh-h!

[_Exit. You hear him announcing solemnly_

King Hamaran ... is dead!

[_A murmur is heard of men, at first mournful. It grows louder and louder and then breaks into these clear words._

Zarabardes is King! Zarabardes is King! Rejoice! Rejoice! Zarabardes is King! Zarabardes! Zarabardes! Zarabardes!