MASRUR
(Banging on the wall) Eyyah! Help, help, men of Bagdad!
The Caliph is in danger! The Caliph is in prison!...
Come up and save the Caliph, the Master of Men, the Shaker of the World!...
(Silence.)

CALIPH
There comes no answering cheer...

JAFAR
I had forgotten the height of this room above the streets:
and on either side stretches the empty garden of this house!

(The CALIPH, JAFAR and MASRUR rush around as though trying to find
a way out of their prison, and banging on the iron walls.
HASSAN takes his seat on the carpet.)

CALIPH
Allah! and this room is a box within a box like a Chinese toy.
And that man will surprise my soldiers in the chill of dawn,
and sack my palace and burn Baghdad. He will discover my identity
and bury me alive!

JAFAR
Alas, Master! What shall we do?

CALIPH
Thou dog! Thou dirt! Thou dunghill! Thou dustheap!
Did I make thee Vizier to ask counsel or to give it?