POLITICIAN: Had your Majesty scorned the Emperor it were better. He is
old and durst not take vengeance.
KING: I have decided, and the man is banished.
[_A_ HERALD _marches in and blows his trumpet._
HERALD: The Ambassador of the Emperor.
[_Enter the_ AMBASSADOR. _He bows to the King from his place near the
door._
KING: For what purpose to my Court from Eng-Bathai comes thus the
Ambassador of the Emperor?
AMBASSADOR: I bring to the King's Majesty a gift from the great Emperor,
[AMBASSADOR _and his men bow_] who reigns in Eng-Bathai, the reward of
obedience to his edict, a goblet of inestimable wine.
[_He signs and there enters a page bearing a goblet of glass. He has a
pretty complexion and yellow hair falling as low as his chin and curling
inwards. He wears a cerise belt round his tunic exactly matching the
wine in the goblet he carries._
He prays you drink it, and to know that it was made by vintners whose
skill is lost, and stored in secret cellars over a hundred years; and
that the vineyards whence it came have been long since whelmed by war,
and only live now in legend and this wine.
KING: A gift, you say, for obedience.
AMBASSADOR: A gift from the old wine-gardens of the sun.
KING: How knew the Emperor that I had thus obeyed him?
AMBASSADOR: It has not been men's wont to disobey the Emperor.
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