SECOND SOLDIER
Locked out, by God! We'll have to break it down.
MICHAEL
She'll keep her word. You'll never get 'em alive.
ARRAM
Never. I know that kind. You'd better clear out!
FIRST SOLDIER Come on! We'll burst the door. [They put their shoulders to the door and it begins to give. ARRAM makes a sign to MICHAEL, urging him to interfere. A revolver shot is heard within. The men pause, and there is another shot.]
ARRAM By God, she's done it! [There is a booming of distant artillery.]
MICHAEL
Hear that! The enemy!
Making a night attack!
[There is a loud bugle call without.]
ARRAM There goes the bugle! [They all rush out, except NANKO, who looks out into the night after them, then closes the outer door, takes a crystallized plum from the table, crosses the room and stares at the floor, near the door on the right.]
NANKO
[Calls aloud.]
Rada, these plums are excellent. Don't you see
Life is a battle! Survival of the fittest!
Something red again. Trickling under the door?
Blood, I suppose. Well, I don't think it's right
To spoil a person's pleasure on Christmas Eve.
I wonder how the gramophone does work?
He said the tune that he was putting in
Was just the thing for Christmas Eve. I wonder,
I wonder what it was.
[He picks up the box from which the record was taken and reads the title.]
"A Christmas Carol Sung by the monks of St. Peter's monastery At midnight mass, on Christmas Eve—ADESTE, FIDELES!"