But, Vizier. Who are those outside making all that noise? Go out and stop them at once. I must have peace.
If it please Your Majesty, there is a famine in Nagapatam and the headmen of the villages are praying to be allowed to see your face.
My time is short, Vizier. I must have peace.
They say their time is shorter. They are at death's door. They, too, want peace,—peace from the burning of hunger.
Vizier! The burning of hunger is quenched at last on the funeral pyre.
Then these wretched people——
Wretched!—Listen to the advice of a wretched King to his wretched subjects. It is futile to be impatient, and try to break through the net of the inexorable Fisherman. Sooner or later, Death the Fisherman will have his haul.
Let me have the Pundit, and his Book of Renunciation.
And in this scarcity——