Caesar and Cleopatra | Page 5

we shall have our throats
cut presently, women, soldiers, and all.
PERSIAN (to Belzanor). I told you so.
THE SENTINEL (who has been listening). Woe, alas!
BEL AFFRIS (calling to him). Peace, peace, poor Ethiop: destiny is
with the gods who painted thee black. (To Belzanor) What has this
mortal (indicating the Persian) told you?
BELZANOR. He says that the Roman Julius Caesar, who has landed
on our shores with a handful of followers, will make himself master of
Egypt. He is afraid of the Roman soldiers. (The guardsmen laugh with
boisterous scorn.) Peasants, brought up to scare crows and follow the
plough. Sons of smiths and millers and tanners! And we nobles,
consecrated to arms, descended from the gods!
PERSIAN. Belzanor: the gods are not always good to their poor
relations.
BELZANOR (hotly, to the Persian). Man to man, are we worse than
the slaves of Caesar?
BEL AFFRIS (stepping between them). Listen, cousin. Man to man, we
Egyptians are as gods above the Romans.

THE GUARDSMEN (exultingly). Aha!
BEL AFFRIS. But this Caesar does not pit man against man: he throws
a legion at you where you are weakest as he throws a stone from a
catapult; and that legion is as a man with one head, a thousand arms,
and no religion. I have fought against them; and I know.
BELZANOR (derisively). Were you frightened, cousin?
The guardsmen roar with laughter, their eyes sparkling at the wit of
their captain.
BEL AFFRIS. No, cousin; but I was beaten. They were frightened
(perhaps); but they scattered us like chaff.
The guardsmen, much damped, utter a growl of contemptuous disgust.
BELZANOR. Could you not die?
BEL AFFRIS. No: that was too easy to be worthy of a descendant of
the gods. Besides, there was no time: all was over in a moment. The
attack came just where we least expected it.
BELZANOR. That shows that the Romans are cowards.
BEL AFFRIS. They care nothing about cowardice, these Romans: they
fight to win. The pride and honor of war are nothing to them.
PERSIAN. Tell us the tale of the battle. What befell?
THE GUARDSMEN (gathering eagerly round Bel Afris). Ay: the tale
of the battle.
BEL AFFRIS. Know then, that I am a novice in the guard of the temple
of Ra in Memphis, serving neither Cleopatra nor her brother Ptolemy,
but only the high gods. We went a journey to inquire of Ptolemy why
he had driven Cleopatra into Syria, and how we of Egypt should deal
with the Roman Pompey, newly come to our shores after his defeat by
Caesar at Pharsalia. What, think ye, did we learn? Even that Caesar is
coming also in hot pursuit of his foe, and that Ptolemy has slain
Pompey, whose severed head he holds in readiness to present to the
conqueror. (Sensation among the guardsmen.) Nay, more: we found
that Caesar is already come; for we had not made half a day's journey
on our way back when we came upon a city rabble flying from his
legions, whose landing they had gone out to withstand.
BELZANOR. And ye, the temple guard! Did you not withstand these
legions?
BEL AFFRIS. What man could, that we did. But there came the sound
of a trumpet whose voice was as the cursing of a black mountain. Then

saw we a moving wall of shields coming towards us. You know how
the heart burns when you charge a fortified wall; but how if the
fortified wall were to charge YOU?
THE PERSIAN (exulting in having told them so). Did I not say it?
BEL AFFRIS. When the wall came nigh, it changed into a line of
men--common fellows enough, with helmets, leather tunics, and
breastplates. Every man of them flung his javelin: the one that came my
way drove through my shield as through a papyrus--lo there! (he points
to the bandage on his left arm) and would have gone through my neck
had I not stooped. They were charging at the double then, and were
upon us with short swords almost as soon as their javelins. When a man
is close to you with such a sword, you can do nothing with our
weapons: they are all too long.
THE PERSIAN. What did you do?
BEL AFFRIS. Doubled my fist and smote my Roman on the sharpness
of his jaw. He was but mortal after all: he lay down in a stupor; and I
took his sword and laid it on. (Drawing the sword) Lo! a Roman sword
with Roman blood on it!
THE GUARDSMEN (approvingly). Good! (They take the sword and
hand it round, examining it curiously.)
THE PERSIAN. And your men?
BEL AFFRIS. Fled. Scattered like sheep.
BELZANOR (furiously). The cowardly slaves! Leaving the
descendants of the gods to be butchered!
BEL