“I think I wrote you I was about to go up the line again after our little rest. We are now in the trenches again, and though I feel very sleepy, I just have a chance to answer your letter, so I will while I may. It’s really my being lucky enough to bag an inch of candle that incites me to this pitch of punctual epistolary. I must measure my letter by the light....” The date of the postmark on this letter is April 2, when the writer was already dead. LAURENCE BINYON. MOSES A PLAY (1916) PERSONS MOSES _An Egyptian Prince_ ABINOAH _An Overseer_ TWO HEBREWS KOELUE _Abinoah’s Daughter_ MESSENGER MOSES SCENE I.: _Outside a college in Thebes. Egyptian students pass by._ MOSES _alone in meditation_. [_Enter_ MESSENGER.] MESSENGER [_Handing papyrus._] Pharaoh’s desires. MOSES [_Reads._] To our beloved son, greeting. Add to our thoughts of you, if possible to add, but a little, and you are more than old heroes—not to bemean your genius, who might cry “Was that all!” We pile barriers everywhere: we give you idiots for tools, tree stumps for swords, skin sacks for souls. The sixteenth pyramid remains to be built: we give you the last draft of slaves. Move! Forget not the edict. PHARAOH. MOSES [_To_ MESSENGER.] What is the edict? MESSENGER The royal paunch of Pharaoh dangled worriedly, Not knowing where the wrong: viands once giant-like Came to him thin and thinner—what rats gnawed? Horror, the swarm of slaves! The satraps swore Their wives’ bones hurt them when they lay abed, That before were soft and plump: the people howled They’d boil the slaves three days to get their fat, Ending the famine. A haggard council held Decrees the two hind molars, those two staunchest Busy labourers in the belly’s service, to be drawn From out each slave’s greased mouth, which soon From incapacity will lose the habit Of eating. MOSES Well, should their bones stick out to find the air, I’ll make a use of them for pleasantness— Droll demonstrations of anatomy. MESSENGER And when you’ve ended find ’twas one on sharks. [MOSES _signs to_ MESSENGER _to go. Exit_ MESSENGER.] MOSES