[Exeunt KHAMMA and NUBTA laughing, TSARPI descends
the steps.]

TSARPI: 
    My guest is late; but he will surely come! 
    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.

[Enter REZON quietly from the shadow of the trees. 
He stands 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.]

REZON: 
    Tsarpi!

TSARPI:  [Bowing low before him.]
              The mistress of the house of Naaman
    Salutes the master of the House of Rimmon.

REZON: 
    Rimmon receives you with his star of peace,
    For you were once a handmaid of his altar.

[He lowers the star-point of the rod, which glows
for a moment with rosy light above her head.]

And now the keeper of his temple asks
The welcome of the woman for the man.

TSARPI:  [Giving him her hand, but holding off his embrace.]
    No more,—­till I have heard what brings you here
    By night, within the garden of the one
    Who scorns you most and fears you least in all
    Damascus.

REZON: 
              Trust me, I repay his scorn
    With double hatred,—­Naaman, the man
    Who stands against the nobles and the priests,
    This powerful fool, this impious devotee
    Of liberty, who loves the people 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.

TSARPI: 
    I think I hate him too.  He stands apart
    From me, ev’n while he holds me in his arms,
    By something that I cannot understand. 
    He swears he loves his wife next to his honour! 
    Next?  That’s too low!  I will be first or nothing.

REZON: 
    With me you are the first, the absolute! 
    When you and I have triumphed you shall reign;
    And you and I will bring this hero down.

TSARPI: 
    But how?  For he is strong.

REZON: 
                            By this, the hand
    Of Tsarpi; and by this, the rod of Rimmon.

TSARPI: 
    Your plan?

REZON: 
                You know the host of Nineveh
    Is marching now against us.  Envoys come
    To bid us yield before a hopeless war. 
    Our king is weak:  the nobles, being rich,
    Would purchase peace to make them richer still: 
    Only the people and the soldiers,