Plays of Near Far | Page 9

cloak as it streams in the
wind. We must throw up our heels as we run to make our shoes twinkle.
We must show gaily in the little street. Afterwards we can run more
easily.
HUZ: Aye, in the street we must run beautifully.
MOOMOOMON: I think that I should give the word when we rattle
our scabbards and all drum with our heels; but I waive the point. But I
do not think that the Queen can run far. She has never left the palace.
How could she run over the moor as far as Aether Mountain. She will
faint at the end of the street and we shall come up with her and bow and
offer her our assistance.
MELIFLOR: Good, good. It would be cold and rocky on Aether
Mountain.
MOOMOOMON: The Queen could never go there over the moor.
HUZ: No, she is too dainty.
XIMENUNG: They say she could.
MELIFLOR: They; what do they know? Common workers. What
should they know of queens?
XIMENUNG: They have the old prophesies that came over the fields
from the dawn.
MELIFLOR: Yet they cannot understand the Queen.
XIMENUNG: They say her mother went there.

MELIFLOR: That was long ago. Women are quite different now.
XIMENUNG: Well, give the word.
MELIFLOR: Nay. You shall give the word, Moomoomon. When you
raise your hand we will all drum with our heels together and rattle our
scabbards together, and frighten the Queen.
MOOMOOMON: I honour your courtesy, lord of the deep meadows.
MELIFLOR: We are ready then. When you raise your hand----
[A gust of laughter is heard off, from a far part of the palace.
MOOMOOMON: Hark! Hark!
MELIFLOR: It is the Queen! She laughed.
HUZ: Could she have guessed...?
MOOMOOMON: I trust not.
MELIFLOR: She--she--cannot have been thinking of us.
MOOMOOMON: She--she--seldom laughs.
HUZ: What can it be?
MOOMOOMON: Perhaps it was nothing and yet ...
MELIFLOR: Yet it makes me uneasy.
MOOMOOMON: It is not that I fear, but, when a queen laughs--it
makes a feeling in the palace--as though all were not well.
HUZ: It makes one have forebodings. One cannot help it.
MELIFLOR: Perhaps; perhaps later we could return to our gallant
scheme; for the present I think I'll hide a while.

MOOMOOMON: Yes, let us hide.
MELIFLOR: So that if there be anything wrong in the palace it will not
find us.
[Exeunt MOOMOOMON and MELIFLOR.
HUZ: Let us hide.
[Exeunt all but ZOON and OOMUZ.
[ZOON has sat always with bent head at table. He sits so, still.
ZOON (bitterly): They would follow the Queen.
OOMUZ: Mighty Highness----
ZOON (still to himself): They will come back boasting that they dared
follow the Queen.
OOMUZ: Mighty Highness.
ZOON: Yes, good Oomuz.
OOMUZ: In other times once princes followed a queen and came back
boasting. Master, the workers were angry. Be warned, Master, because
you and I went together once to the hoard beyond the marshes. Be
warned. They were angry, Master.
ZOON: I care not for the workers.
OOMUZ: Master, be warned. It was long ago and they say they were
very angry.
ZOON: I care not, Oomuz. I come not boasting back from the hills
under Aether Mountain. I shall not halt till I have told the Queen my
love. I shall wed with her who is less only than Fate, if less she be. I am
not as those, Oomuz. Who weds the Queen is more than the servant of
Fate.

OOMUZ: Master----
[He stretches out his hands towards ZOON imploringly.
ZOON: Well, Oomuz?
OOMUZ: Master. There is a doom about the Queen.
ZOON: What doom, Oomuz?
OOMUZ: We know not, Master. We are simple people and we know
not that. But we know from of old there is a doom about her. We know
it, Master; we have been told from of old.
ZOON: Yes, there could well be a doom about the Queen.
OOMUZ: Follow not after, Master, when she goes to Aether Mountain.
There is surely a doom about her. A doom was with her mother upon
that very peak.
ZOON: Yes, Oomuz, a doom well becomes her.
OOMUZ: Doubt it not, Master; there is a doom about her.
ZOON: Oomuz, I doubt not. For there is something wonderful about
the Queen, beyond all earthly wonders. Something like thunder beyond
far clouds or hail hurling from heaven; there should be indeed a terrible
doom about her.
OOMUZ: Master, I have warned you for the sake of the days when we
raided the golden hoard beyond the marshes.
ZOON (taking his hand): Thank you, good Oomuz.
[He goes towards door after the others.
OOMUZ: But where go you, Master?
ZOON: I wait to follow the Queen when she goes to Aether Mountain.

[Exit. OOMUZ weeps silently on to the Queen's Treasure.
CURTAIN.

SCENE II