ACT II
SCENE I
A great room. To the left three arches lead out onto the balcony where the personages CALIPH, JAFAR and HOST are collected. The interior of the room is blazing with lights, but empty. The architecture of the room is curious on account of the wide, low arches which cut off a square in the centre. The furniture of the room is in rich, rather vulgar Oriental taste.
CALIPH
Ishak, Ishak, we are waiting and waiting.
JAFAR
Ishak! Ishak! Perhaps he is faint.
CALIPH
Faint!
JAFAR
Let me go down and see what he is doing. I think I hear him talking.
CALIPH He is talking to shadows. He has one of his evil fits tonight. Do not trouble your head or mine about him. He presumes on our friendship, and forgets the respect due to us. Am I to be kept waiting like a Jew in a court of justice, I the Master…
JAFAR
(Quickly) We are not in Basra, Sir. But see, the rope has tightened.
(To MASRUR.) Haul, thou whose soul is white.
RAFI
(Helping with ropes to CALIPH who stands idle) God restore to you
the use of your arms, my brother from Basra.
(HASSAN rolls out of the basket, filthy and the inanimate.)
Yallah, Yallah, on what dunghill did this fowl die?
Is this your man of honour?