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the bows we have on evening shoes, or anything else. But it's all right.
ARCHIE BEAL
Well, what are you putting them in heaps for?
JOHN BEAL
Because there's the other kind, the ones with wide mouths and rust round them.
ARCHIE BEAL
Rust? Yes, so there is. What do they do?
JOHN BEAL
They offer blood to them, ARCHIE. They pour it down their throats. Sometimes they kill people, sometimes they only bleed them. It depends how much blood the idol wants.
ARCHIE BEAL
How much blood it wants? Good Lord! How do they know?
JOHN BEAL
The priests tell them. Sometimes they fill them up to their necks--they're all hollow, you know. In spring it's awful.
ARCHIE BEAL
Why are they worse in spring?
JOHN BEAL
I don't know. The priests ask for more blood then. Much more. They say it always was so.
ARCHIE BEAL
And you're stopping it?
JOHN BEAL
Yes, I'm stopping these. One must. I'm letting them worship those. Of course, it's idolatry and all that kind of thing, but I don't like interfering short of actual murder.
ARCHIE BEAL
And they're obeying you?
JOHN BEAL
'M, y-yes. I think so.
ARCHIE BEAL
You must have got a great hold over them.
JOHN BEAL
Well, I don't know about that. It's the pass that counts.
ARCHIE BEAL
The pass?
JOHN BEAL
Yes, that place you came over. It's the only way anyone can get here.
ARCHIE BEAL
Yes, I suppose it is. But how does the pass affect these idols?
JOHN BEAL
It affects everything here. If that pass were closed no living man would ever enter or leave, or even hear of, this country. It's absolutely cut off except for that one pass. Why, ARCHIE, it isn't even on the map.
ARCHIE BEAL
Yes, I know.
JOHN BEAL
Well, whoever owns that pass is everybody. No one else counts.
ARCHIE BEAL
And who does own it?
JOHN BEAL
Well, it's actually owned by a fellow called Hussein, but Miss Clement's uncle, a man called Hinnard, a kind of lonely explorer, seems to have come this way; and I think he understood what this pass is worth. Anyhow, he lent Hussein a big sum of money and got an acknowledgment from Hussein. Old Hinnard must have been a wonderfully shrewd man. For that acknowledgment is no more legal than an I.O.U., and Hussein is simply a brigand.
ARCHIE BEAL
Not very good security.
JOHN BEAL
Well, you're wrong there. Hussein himself respects that piece of parchment he signed. There's the name of some god or other written on it Hussein is frightened of. Now you see how things are. That pass is as holy as all the gods that there are in Al Shaldomir. Hussein possesses it. But he owes an enormous sum to Miss Miralda Clement, and I am here as her agent; and you've come to help me like a great sportsman.
ARCHIE BEAL
O, never mind that. Well, it all seems pretty simple.
JOHN BEAL
Well, I don't know, ARCHIE. Hussein admits the debt, but . . .
ARCHIE BEAL
But what?
JOHN BEAL
I don't know what he'll do.
ARCHIE BEAL
Wants watching, does he?
JOHN BEAL
Yes. And meanwhile I feel sort of responsible for all these silly people. Somebody's got to look after them. Daoud!
DAOUD [off]
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