cheat some lord coming to buy silk and ornaments
in a city than to cheat death in the desert. Oh, the desert, the
desert, I love the beautiful cities and I hate the desert.

Aoob: [pointing off L]

Who is that?

Bel-Narb:

What? There by the desert's edge where the camels are?

Aoob:

Yes, who is it?

Bel-Narb:

He is staring across the desert the way that the camels go. They say
that the King goes down to the edge of the desert and often stares
across it. He stands there for a long time of an evening looking
towards Mecca.

Aoob:

Of what use is it to the King to look towards Mecca? He cannot go to
Mecca. He cannot go into the desert for one day. Messengers would run
after him and cry his name and bring him back to the council-hall or
to the chamber of judgments. If they could not find him their heads
would be struck off and put high up upon some windy roof: the judges
would point at them and say, "They see better there!"

Bel-Narb:

No, the King cannot go away into the desert. If God were to make me
King I would go down to the edge of the desert once, and I would shake
the sand out of my turban and out of my beard and then I would never
look at the desert again. Greedy and parched old parent of thousands
of devils! He might cover the wells with sand, and blow with his
Siroc, year after year and century after century, and never earn one
of my curses--if God made me King.

Aoob:

They say you are like the King.

Bel-Narb:

Yes, I _am_ like the King. Because his father disguised himself as a
camel-driver and came through our villages. I often say to myself,
"God is just. And if I could disguise myself as the King and drive him
out to be a camel-driver, that would please God for He is just."

Aoob:

If you did this God would say, "Look at Bel-Narb, whom I made to be a
camel-driver and who has forgotten this." And then he would forget
you, Bel-Narb.

Bel-Narb:

Who knows what God would say?

Aoob:

Who knows? His ways are wonderful.

Bel-Narb:

I would not do this thing, Aoob. I would not do it. It is only what I
say to myself as I smoke, or at night out in the desert. I say to
myself, "Bel-Narb is King in Thalanna." And then I say, "Chamberlain,
bring Skarmi here with his brandy and his lanterns and boards to play
skabash, and let all the town come and drink before the palace and
magnify my name."

Pilgrims: [calling off L.]

Bel-Narb! Bel-Narb! Child of two dogs. Come and untethe