Page:Joseph and His Brethren A Pageant Play.djvu/121



IMHOTEP: Why will ye not let me die in peace?

ENENKHET: Here, my lord? Where none could be witness? Would you cheat the people of a holiday?

IMHOTEP: What have I done, that I should be torn from my wife and children and put away in this foul den?

ENENKHET: That is for the judge to say.

IMHOTEP: There was no poison in the cup I drank from.

ENENKHET: But when the Pharaoh handed the cup to his physician—having been warned….

SERSERU: Who warned him? Who warned him?

ENENKHET: Then the cup was full of poison.

IMHOTEP: [Furiously, to SERSERU.] Thou had'st the cup after me!

SERSERU: Thou liest! I touched it not. My sleeve brushed against it.

IMHOTEP: Thy sleeve was poisoned!

SERSERU: Would I could crush thee with these chains!

ENENKHET: Sirs, sirs, this is unseemly. What! Great lords wrangling! Fie, sirs, ye shall back to your cells.

SERSERU: [With abject horror.] Not to those dreams!

IMHOTEP: Not to that darkness! It is peopled with visions.

ENENKHET: [Cheerily.] Folks do say men see visions when they are about to die.

[The third cell opens, and JOSEPH appears on the threshold. He wears a tunic of camel's-hair, and he is girdled with a rope. He is not chained.]

JOSEPH: [With his uplifted arms.] I praise God for the light. I praise God for the sweet air. I praise God for His mercies!