Page:Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsany.djvu/77

 ZARB I think that they are playing at dice again.

FIRST SLAVE I do not see Argimēnēs.

ZARB No, because he was crouching as he walked. The slave-guard is on the sky-line.

SECOND SLAVE What is that dark shadow behind the slave-guard?

ZARB It is too still to be Argimēnēs.

SECOND SLAVE Look! It moves.

ZARB The evening is too dark, I cannot see. (They continue to gaze into the gathering darkness. They raise themselves on their knees and crane their necks. Nobody speaks. Then from their lips and from others further off goes up a long deep Oh! It is like the sound that goes up from the grand stand when a horse falls at a fence, or in England like the first exclamation of the crowd at a great cricket match when a man is caught in the slips.)

THE FALL OF BABBULKUND I said: 'I will arise now and see Babbulkund, City of Marvel. She is of one age with the earth; the stars are her sisters. Pharaohs of the old time coming conquering from Araby first saw her, a solitary mountain in the desert, and cut the mountain into towers and terraces. They destroyed one of the hills of God, but they made Babbulkund. She is carven,