"Give ear to our afflictions," the old man piped. The king cocked his head and listened.

"I hear the groans of dying men," he said. "I hear the shriek of widows, the sobbing of the motherless, the mutterings of prayer and supplication."

"Supplication!" said the deity in the clouds. "That's the spirit." He patted himself on the chest.

"They had some kind of a virus," Mary Sarojini explained in a whisper. "Like Asian flu, only a lot worse."

"We repeat the appropriate litanies," the old priest querulously piped, "we offer the most expensive sacrifices, we have the whole population living in chastity and flagellating itself every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But the flood of death spreads ever more widely, rises higher and ever higher. So help us, King Oedipus, help us."

"Only a god can help."

"Hear, hear!" shouted the presiding deity.

"But by what means?"

"Only a god can say."

"Correct," said the god in his basso profundo, "absolutely correct."

"Creon, my wife's brother, has gone to consult the oracle. When he returns-as very soon he must-we shall know what heaven advises."

"What heaven bloody well commands!" the basso profundo emended.

"Were people really so silly?" Mary Sarojini asked, as the audience laughed.

"Really and truly," Will assured her.

A phonograph started to play the Dead March in Saul.

From left to right a black-robed procession of mourners carrying sheeted biers passed slowly across the front of the stage. Puppet after puppet-and as soon as the group had disappeared on the right it would be brought in again from the left. The procession seemed endless, the corpses innumerable.

"Dead," said Oedipus as he watched them pass. "And another dead. And yet another, another."

"That'll teach them!" the basso profundo broke in. "I'll learn you to be a toad!"

Oedipus continued:

"The soldier's bier, the whore's; the babe stone-cold Pressed to the ache of unsucked breasts; the youth in horror Turning away from the black swollen face That from his moonlit pillow once looked up, Eager for kisses. Dead, all dead, Mourned by the soon to die and by the doomed Borne with reluctant footing to the abhorred Garden of cypresses where one huge pit Yawns to receive them, stinking to the moon."

While he was speaking, two new puppets, a boy and a girl in the gayest of Palanese finery, entered from the right and, moving in the opposite direction to the black-robed mourners, took their stand, arm in arm, downstage and a little left of center.

"But we, meanwhile," said the boy when Oedipus had fin ished:

"Are bound for rosier gardens and the absurd Apocalyptic rite that in the mind Calls forth from the touched skin and melting flesh The immanent Infinite."

"What about Me?" the basso profundo rumbled from the welkin. "You seem to forget that I'm Wholly Other."

Endlessly the black procession to the cemetery still shuffled on. But now the Dead March was interrupted in mid-phrase. Music gave place to a single deep note-tuba and double bass- prolonged interminably. The boy in the foreground held up his hand.

"Listen! The drone, the everlasting burden."

In unison with the unseen instruments the mourners began to chant. "Death, death, death, death ..."

"But life knows more than one note," said the boy.

"Life," the girl chimed in, "can sing both high and low."

"And your unceasing drone of death serves only to make a richer music."

"A richer music," the girl repeated.

And with that, tenor and treble, they started to vocalize a wandering arabesque of sound wreathed, as it were, about the long rigid shaft of the ground bass.

The drone and the singing diminished gradually into silence; the last of the mourners disappeared and the boy and girl in the foreground retired to a corner where they could go on with their kissing undisturbed.

There was another flourish of trumpets and, obese in a purple tunic, in came Creon, fresh from Delphi and primed with oracles. For the next few minutes the dialogue was all in Palanese, and Mary Sarojini had to act as interpreter.

"Oedipus asks him what God said; and the other one says that what God said was that it was all because of some man having killed the old king, the one before Oedipus. Nobody had ever caught him, and the man was still living in Thebes, and this virus that was killing everybody had been sent by God-that's what ( scon says he was told-as a punishment. I don't know why all these people who hadn't done anything to anybody had to be punished; but that's what he says God said. And the virus won't stop till they catch the man that killed the old king and send him away from Thebes. And of course Oedipus says he's going to do everything he can to find the man and get rid of him."

From his downstage corner the boy began to declaim, this rime in English:

While the audience was still laughing, another group of mourners emerged from the wings and slowly crossed the stage.

"Karuna," said the girl in the foreground, "compassion. The suffering of the stupid is as real as any other suffering."

Feeling a touch on his arm, Will turned and found himself looking into the beautiful sulky face of young Murugan.

"I've been hunting for you everywhere," he said angrily, as though Will had concealed himself on purpose just to annoy him. He spoke so loudly that many heads were turned and there were calls for quiet.

"You weren't at Dr. Robert's, you weren't at Susila's," the boy nagged on, regardless of the protests.

"Quiet, quiet ..."

"Quiet!" came a tremendous shout from Basso Profundo in the clouds. "Things have come to a pretty pass," the voice added grumblingly, "when God simply can't hear Himself speak."

"Hear, hear," said Will, joining in the general laughter. He-rose and, followed by Murugan and Mary Sarojini, hobbled towards the exit.

"Didn't you want to see the end?" Mary Sarojini asked, and turning to Murugan, "You really might have waited," she said in a tone of reproof.

"Mind your own business!" Murugan snapped.

Will laid a hand on the child's shoulder. "Luckily," he said, "your account of the end was so vivid that I don't have to see ii with my own eyes. And of course," he added ironically, "His Highness must always come first."

Murugan pulled an envelope out of the pocket of those white-silk pajamas which had so bedazzled the little nurse and handed it to Will. "From my mother." And he added, "It's urgent."

"How good it smells!" Mary Sarojini commented, sniffing at the rich arua of sandalwood that surrounded the Rani's missive.

Will unfolded three sheets of heaven-blue notepaper em bossed with five golden lotuses under a princely crown. How many underlinings, what a profusion of capital letters! He started to read.

Ma Petite Voix, cher Farnaby, avait raison-AS usual! I had been told again and again what Our Mutual Friend was predestined to do for poor little Pala and (through the financial support which Pala will permit him to contribute to the Crusade of the Spirit) for the whole world. So when I read his cable (which arrived a few minutes ago, by way of the faithful Bahu and his diplomatic colleague in London), it came as no surprise to learn that Lord A. has given you Full Powers (and, it goes without saying, the wherewithal) to negotiate on his behalf-on our behalf; for his advantage is also yours, mine and (since in our different ways we are all Crusaders) the spirit's!!

But the arrival of Lord A.'s cable is not the only piece of news I have to report. Events (as we learned this afternoon from Bahu) are rushing towards the Great Turning Point of Palanese History-rushing far more rapidly than I had previously thought to be possible. For reasons which are partly political (the need to offset a recent decline in Colonel D.'s popularity), partly Economic (the burdens of Defense are too onerous to be borne by Rendang alone) and partly Astrological (these days, say theMa Peti Experts, are uniquely favorable for a joint venture by Rams-myself and Murugan-and that typical Scorpion, Colonel D.) it has been decided to precipitate an Action originally planned for the night of the lunar eclipse next November. This being so, it is essential that the three of us here should meet without delay to decide what must be Done, in these new and swiftly changing Circumstances, to promote our special interests, material and Spiritual. The so-called "Accident" which brought you to our shores at this most critical Moment of Time was, as you must recognize, Manifestly Providential. It remains for us to collaborate, as dedicated Crusaders, with that divine power which has so unequivocally espoused our Cause. So come at once! Murugan has the motorcar and will bring you to our modest Bungalow, where, I assure you, my dear Farnaby, you will receive a very warm welcome from bien sincerement votre, Fatima R.