Great master.

JOHN BEAL

Bring in some more gods.

DAOUD

Yes, great master.

JOHN BEAL

I can’t get them to stop calling me absurd titles.  They’re so infernally Oriental.

[Enter Daoud.]

ARCHIE BEAL

He’s got two big ones this time.

John Beal [to Archie]

You see, there is rust about their mouths. [To Daoud]:  They are both unholy.

[He points to R. heap, and Daoud puts them there.  To Daoud.]

Bring in some more.

DAOUD

Great master, there are no more gods in Al Shaldomir.

JOHN BEAL

It is well.

DAOUD

What orders, great master.

JOHN BEAL

Listen.  At night you shall come and take these gods away.  These shall be worshipped again in their own place, these you shall cast into the great river and tell no man where you cast them.

DAOUD

Yes, great master.

JOHN BEAL

You will do this, Daoud?

DAOUD

Even so, great master.

JOHN BEAL

I am sorry to make you do it.  You are sad that you have to do it.  Yet it must be done.

DAOUD

Yes, I am sad, great master.

JOHN BEAL

But why are you sad, Daoud?

DAOUD

Great master, in times you do not know these gods were holy.  In times you have not guessed.  In old centuries, master, perhaps before the pass.  Men have prayed to them, sorrowed before them, given offerings to them.  The light of old hearths has shone on them, flames from old battles.  The shadow of the mountains has fallen on them, so many times, master, so many times.  Dawn and sunset have shone on them, master, like firelight flickering; dawn and sunset, dawn and sunset, flicker, flicker, flicker for century after century.  They have sat there watching the dawns like old men by the fire.  They are so old, master, so old.  And some day dawn and sunset will die away and shine on the world no more, and they would have still sat on in the cold.  And now they go. . .  They are our history, master, they are our old times.  Though they be bad times they are our times, master; and now they go.  I am sad, master, when the old gods go.