MICHAEL She'll keep her word. You'll never get 'em alive. ARRAM Never. I know that kind. You'd better clear out! FIRST SOLDIER Come on! We'll burst the door. [_They put their shoulders to the door and it begins to give_. ARRAM _makes a sign to_ MICHAEL, _urging him to interfere. A revolver shot is heard within. The men pause, and there is another shot._] ARRAM By God, she's done it! [_There is a booming of distant artillery._] MICHAEL Hear that! The enemy! Making a night attack! [_There is a loud bugle call without._] ARRAM There goes the bugle! [_They all rush out, except_ NANKO, _who looks out into the night after them, then closes the outer door, takes a crystallized plum from the table, crosses the room and stares at the floor, near the door on the right._] NANKO [_Calls aloud.]_ Rada, these plums are excellent. Don't you see Life is a battle! Survival of the fittest! Something red again. Trickling under the door? Blood, I suppose. Well, I don't think it's right To spoil a person's pleasure on Christmas Eve. I wonder how the gramophone does work? He said the tune that he was putting in Was just the thing for Christmas Eve. I wonder, I wonder what it was. [_He picks up the box from which the record was taken and reads the title._] "_A Christmas Carol Sung by the monks of St. Peter's monastery At midnight mass, on Christmas Eve_--ADESTE, FIDELES!" Fancy that! How wonderful! A Christmas carol on the gramophone! So all the future ages will be sure To know exactly what religion was. To think we cannot hear it! Well, no matter, These plums _are_ excellent. Everybody's gone. To think _I_ was the fittest, after all! Come, Rada, you're pretending! [_He accidentally starts the gramophone working and jumps back, a little alarmed. He runs to the door and knocks._] Rada! Rada! I've started it! Subka! Subka! Do you hear? The gramophone's working! [_He stoops down and looks at the floor again. The artillery booms like a thunder peal in the distance. Then the gramophone drowns it with the deep voices of the monks, a great chorus, singing_ ADESTE, FIDELES! NANKO _dips his finger in something on the floor and stares at it. A look of horror comes into his face. He stands with his mouth open, listening._] It's true! CAST of the first performance at the Christmas (1913) Festival of THE MACDOWELL CLUB OF NEW YORK CITY RADA _A Drama in One Act by Alfred Noyes_ (A Christmas Tragedy of the Balkans, being a plea for "Peace on earth, good will toward men.") * * * * * PERSONS OF THE PLAY RADA, _wife of the vilage doctor_, Miss Mirzah Cheslir SUBKA, _her daughter, aged twelve_, Miss Lenore Phelps ARRAM, } _two hostile soldiers quartered_ Mr. Henry Hull MICHAEL,} _on her house in time of war_ Mr. Wright Kramer NANKO, _a half-witted schoolmaster_, Mr. Charles White Whittlesey FIRST SOLDIER ....... Mr. Charles Douville Coburn SECOND SOLDIER ...... Mr. Harold Herts