thes are torn, my hair is old. I am in rags.

Ludibras:

I am sure you are beautifully dressed.

Arolind: [full height]

Beautifully dressed! Of course I am beautifully dressed! But who is
there to see me? I am alone in the jungle, and here I shall be buried.

Ludibras:

But----

Arolind:

Oh, will you not leave me alone? Is nothing sacred to you? Not even my
grief?

[Exeunt Arolind and Carolyx.]

Harpagas: [To Ludibras]

What are we to do?

Ludibras:

All women are alike.

Ichtharion:

I do not allow my wife to speak to me like that.

[Exeunt Harpagas and Ludibras.]

I hope Tharmia will not weep; it is very distressing to see a woman in
tears.

[Enter Tharmia.]

Do not be unhappy, do not be at all unhappy. But I have been unable to
persuade the King to return to Barbul-el-Sharnak. You will be happy
here after a little while.

Tharmia: [breaks into loud laughter]

_You_ are the King's adviser. Ha-ha-ha! _You_ are the Grand High
Vizier of the Court. Ha-ha-ha. _You_ are the warder of the golden wand.
Ha-ha-ha O, go and throw biscuits to the King's dog.

Ichtharion:

What!

Tharmia:

Throw little ginger biscuits to the King's dog. Perhaps he will obey
you. Perhaps you will have some influence with the King's dog if you
feed him with little biscuits. You----

[Laughs and exits. Ichtharion sits with his miserable head in his
hands.]

[Reenter Ludibras and Harpagas.]

Ludibras:

Has her Sincerity, the princely Lady Tharmia, been speaking with you?

Ichtharion:

She spoke a few words.

[Ludibras and Harpagas sigh.]

We must leave Thek. We must depart from Thek.

Ludibras:

What, without the King?

Harpagas:

No.

Ichtharion:

No. They would say in Barbul-el-Sharnak "these were once at Court," and
men that we have flogged would spit in our faces.

Ludibras:

Who can command a King?

Harpagas:

Only the gods.

Ludibras:

The gods? There are no gods now. We have been civilised over three
thousand years. The gods that nursed our infancy are dead, or gone to
nurse younger nations.

Ichtharion:

I refuse the listen to---- O, the sentries are gone. No, the gods are
no use to us; they were driven away by the decadence.

Harpagas:

We are not in the decadence here. Barbul-el-Sharnak is in a different
age. The city of Thek is scarcely civilised.

Ichtharion:

But everybody lives in Barbul-el-Sharnak.

Harpagas:

The gods----