SATNI. You demand it! You demand a miracle. Well, then, you shall have one, I will do this, but in the presence of all! Go! go! go throughout the domains--bring hither those you find bowed on the earth, or hung to poles for drawing water. Go you others, summon the slaves, the piteous workers--call hither the drawers of stones, bid them drop the ropes that flay their shoulders, bid them come. MIERIS. What would you do? SATNI. Convince them. MIERIS. Now of a sudden, brutally? SATNI. Brutally. RHEOU. Do you believe them ready? SATNI. You are afraid. RHEOU. Day comes not suddenly on night, between them is the dawn. _Delethi leads Mieris right under the peristyle._ SATNI. I would have day, broad daylight--Now, at once, for all! 'Tis a crime to _promise_ them reward for their suffering. How do we know that they will ever be paid? RHEOU. They are so miserable-- SATNI. The truth--is the truth good only for the rich? Will you add that injustice to all the others? Behold them! [_Gradually the slaves and workers of all kinds have entered till they fill the stage. Amongst them Pakh, Sokiti, Bitiou the Dwarf_] Yes, behold them, the victims, behold the wretched! I know you all. You, you are shepherd, you are worse nourished than your flocks, and your beasts, at least, are not given blows. They do not beat the cows nor the sheep. You, you sow and you reap; beneath the sun, tortured by flies, you gather abundant crops. You sleep in a hole. Others eat the corn you made grow, and sleep on precious stuffs. You, you are forever drawing water from the Nile; betwixt you and the ox they harness to another machine, there is no difference, and yet you are a man. You, you are one of those who drag great stones, to build the monuments of pride. You are a digger in the tombs, you live a month or more without sight of day. To glorify the death of others, you give your life. You are a trainer of lions for war; your father was eaten--they would have wept had the lion died--How can it be that you accept all this, when you see beside you happiness without work, and abundance without effort? I will tell you. 'Tis because, in the name of the god Ammon-Ra, they have said to you: "Have patience, this injustice will last but a life-time." Fools! nothing but that! All the time you are on earth, suffer, produce for others. Content ye with hunger, you who produce food. Content ye with worse usage than the swine, you who have guard of them. Content ye to sleep in the open, you who build palaces and temples. Content ye with all miseries, you carvers of gold, and setters of precious stones. Look without envy, without anger, on the welfare of those who do nothing, all this will last only the whole of your lives! After, in another world, you shall have the fulness of all the crops, and the joy of all the pleasures. Well, they lied to you: there is no island of souls, there are no happy fields, there is no life of atonement after this. [_Loud murmurs_] They