The People of the Cave By Taufiq al-Hakim: مسرحية أهل الكهف لتوفيق الحكيم

The People of the Cave

By Taufiq al-Hakim

(Act 1 of the play of that name – Ahl al-Kahf, First published Cairo, 1933)

 

Dramatis personae in Act 1:

Mishliniyya (the lover)

Marnush  (the married man)

Yamlikha  (the simple shepherd)

Crowd

 

(The cave at Raqim, Darkness, in which nothing is visible except specters, specter of two men squatting on the ground, and a dog stretching its fore pares by the entrance.) 

MISHLINIYYA (one of the two): Marnush !

MARNUSH: So you’re awake! What do you want?

MISH: Where are you? I can hear your disquieted voice, but I can’t see you! Oh! My back aches!

MARN: Don’t bother me! I too am in pain. My ribs hurt as though I had been lying on them for years!

MISH: Where is the Shepherd? Where is the third one of us, the Shepherd?

MARN: I can just make out the shadow of his dog here, stretching its paws.

MISH: Don’t you think the Shepherd is avoiding us? Where is he?

MARN: Perhaps he is at the mouth of the cave, watching the dawn, as shepherds’ will.

MISH: (stretching himself): Oh, my back aches! How long have we been here, Marnush?

MARN: Good heavens! You do annoy me with your questions!

MISH: Me too… if only someone as dim-witted as you could realize it. Marnush, how long have we been here?

MARN: A day, or part of one.

MISH: How do you know?

MARN: Can one sleep longer than that?

MISH: You’re right. (All is quiet… suddenly he says, in a fit of impatience) I want to get out of here!

MARN: Don’t be silly! Where to?

MISH: Do you want me to spend another night here?

MARN: Another two or three nights, till our lives are safe from Decianus.

MISH. (Shouting in protest): I can’t! I can’t!

MARN: Then how is it I can . . . and I have a wife and child whom I love and adore!

MISH: You are only living for them.

MARN: And you? Don’t you want to keep alive for the ask of…?

MISH: Yes, Marnush. But you see that I can’t bear being parted from her a single day!

MARN: Mishliniyya, have a care for yourself and for us! The slaughter is still on in the city. I won’t tolerate your rashness another day!

                 (A shape appears groping in the darkness)

MISH: Who’s there?

YAMLIKHA: I’m the Shepherd, master!

MISH: We had just noticed your absence.

YAM: I went to search for way out, without success.

MISH: Come and sit with us. Since you led us to this cave, you have been silent, as if you didn’t want to know us.

MARN: What’s your name, Shepherd?

YAM: My name is Yamlikha, master.

MISH: Why do you always call us master?

YAM: And how should I address the king’s tow closest friends?

MARN: Remarkable! Who told you we are friends of the king?

YAM: Are the tow ministers unknown then?

MISH: Had you seen us before?

YAM: Often.

MARN: Where?

YAM: In the city of Tarsus*-in the lions arena. You were on either side of the king in his box. All eyes were on you, and the crowds were whispering: ‘There’s the King, and those tow are Mishliniyya and Marnush.’

MISH: And did you recognize us when we came running to you, asking for a refuge and hiding-place?

YAM: I didn’t recognize you at first. But I heard one of you say to the other: ‘They are at our heels, Marnush, so let’s hurry!’ So he gave me the name at once. Then I left my sheep, and brought you to the Cave of Raqim.

MISH. (after a pause): Haven’t we made you neglect your sheep? 

YAM: It doesn’t matter! They are grazing safely, and nobody knows they belong to a Christian.

MARN: So you too were concealing your faith?

YAM: Yes, master.

MISH: Yamlikha, the word ‘master’ offends my ears. We are brothers and Christian’s here- so there are no masters and slaves.

MARN: Have you any family, Yamlikha?

YAM: I’ve only Qitmir?

MISH: And who is Qitmir.

YAM. (Pointing to the dog) : This dog of mine.

MARN: Then you are better off than either of us.

                                         (Pause)

YAM. (hesitantly) : If I may make so bold as to ask…?

MISH: Ask what you like, Yamlikha, and have no fear.

YAM: From the time I saw you running away from the slaughter. I conjectured and wondered. But the question of your escape put everything else out of my mind. Then we came to the cave, and I kept my own counsel, thinking about you, till I fell into a deep sleep…from which  I have only just awakened, feeling as if my ribs were broken.

MISH: What was it about us that confused you?

YAM: That Decianus, the Christians’ enemy, should not realize that his two ministers were Christians.

MARN. (deliberately) pressing the discussion forward:... and that he should also be unaware that his own daughter was a Christian . . . this man who ordered the slaughter of Christians?

YAM, (astonished): His own daughter? The Princes Priscal.

MISH. (in a shout of reproach and blame): Marnush!  

MARN: And what is the harm in telling Yamlikha about this... except that I may have brought back memories to you. Mishliniyya?

YAM: I beg pardon, master. There’s only one thing I would like to know: how did the King discover your secret? Was it trickery, or tale-telling?

MARN: It was you who told him. Mishliniyya.

MISH: I want to get out of here!

MARN: Again? What a nuisance you are to me!

MISH: I tell you, I can’t stay here a day longer!

MARN: You feckless man! Isn’t it enough that you have brought us to the present pass.

MISH: You are jealous of me, that’s what it is!

MARN: On the contrary, I thank God that your ill-fated letter contained only two names. (Mish makes no reply) Yes, it was my misfortune, the first letter... and the last.

MISH: Your misfortune indeed!

MARN: I was forever warning you against writing to Prisca.

MISH: Enough of that!

MARN: But this time, you threw all caution to the wind... So you wrote the letter, and handed it to a jealous maid who harboured malice towards the two of you. Don’t you remember the day I warned you against her, having noted certain suspicious things about her? Couldn’t you find any go-between, apart from this woman. (Mish, does not reply.) What a lack of prudence. Did you not tell me that, shortly before the ill-fated letter, you had handed Prisca a small gold cross which you had had made especially for her? Then what was to stop you handing her the letter also yourself? (Mish, does no reply.) But you claim that you couldn’t, as shortly afterwards you wrote to her urgently... Yes indeed!... to tell her that you were going with Marnush to say the Easter prayer in secret, and that you would remember her in your prayers (Mish does not reply.) With Marnush... those were your very words!

MISH: Yes, words I wish I had never written.

MARN: And then I would have escaped scot-free.

MISH: Yes, you would have escaped scot-free.

MARN: And I would not have lost my position with the King. And I would not have come to break my bones on the rough ground of this rough place tonight! And I would not have left my wife and child on their own, a prey to worry amidst the violent slaughter.

YAM. (after a moment’s silence): Master I have you, then, left you family in danger?

MARN: I thank God, nobody knows they are Christians or that they are in any way connected with me. The fact that I am married is a secret knows only to the three of us so far. Moreover, I have been hiding my wife and child in a remote spot for several years. No! I have no fear for them. Slaughters and massacres have raged before, without any harm touching them.

YAM: That is through Christ’s favour!

MARN: It would be truer to say that it is an ill fate that our secret became knows to the King, not two days after he had ordered the slaughter of Christians.

YAM: Yes, I can imagine how angry he must have been!

MARN: It is said that he began to roar with the letter still in his hand… He read it, laughing horribly, them called his daughter, and told her of it, shouting to those around him to prepare the savage lions’ cages, and saying that he would give them the feast of their lives!

YAM: How horrible!

MARN: If Princess Prisca had not slipped through the palace gate to await our coming, and tell us to flee. . .

YAM: It was Christ who willed you o escape.

MARN: Yes! But what sort of an escape is this separates me from my wife and child? Oh, even as I remember my son, a new day dawns and I do not see him!

YAM: How you love your family!

MARN: I live only through them and for them.

YAM: Be patient... God’s mercy is at hand.

MARN: I need, just us the sky is at hand near the earth. That mercy  which helps only those who can wait.

YAM: Don’t scoff; God is real!

MARN: God has no part with us here. We cast ourselves into perdition. Except that... I did not actually cast myself!

YAM: Everything on this earth is ordained by God.

MARN: Except our predicament - that happened through a man’s doing!  

YAM.( I disapproval): God forgive you! This is the sort of talk which should not come from a believer.

MISH. (trying to rise, but his muscles ache): Oh !... 

MARN: Where are you going?

MISH: I am going to right the wrong I did.

MARN: Have a care! What do you think you can do?

MISH: I will go to the King at once and say to him; I did an injustice to Marnush. His name in the letter is meaningless... and here I am, offering my own life instead!

MARN: Sit down and stop babbling! You might just s well admit that you are going to see your sweetheart!

MISH: What a dreadul thing to say I.

MARN: What is so dreadful to you?

MISH: I never realized you were so malicious.

MARN: That’s enough. Sit down, and don’t be the cause of another misfortune. Whatever you told the King, he wouldn’t believe you. And he might make you reveal where I am by threats and torture.

MISH. (sitting down again, in despair) : God! Then what can I do for you?

MARN: Leave all to Christ.

MISH: If only Christ knew the load I have on my conscience!

YAM: Do you doubt that he knows? God forgive you! I believe that He knows and that He will give you relief.

MISH: When?

YAM: When? God have mercy on you! We don’t have the right to ask such questions. We must just believe.

MISH: I do admire your faith, Yamlikha.

YAM: I believe in Christ because he is real! All those human beings cannot have  thrown away their lives and shed their blood for something that is no real!

MISH: Were you born a Christian, or converted as an adult?

YAM: No! I was born a Christian.

MISH: Just like me then?

YSM: Yes! But true faith, the faith of certainty and conviction, only lit up the whole of my soul from the day I heard that monk speaking beneath the walls of Tarsus.

MISH: What monk?

YAM: It all happened five years ago when I was thirty. Previously all I had thought about was my sheep. I was a Christian in name only, through birth, not from feeling and conviction. Then one day I went to the City of Tarsus on business. Outside the walls I came across a monk talking to a small crowd. He was hidden from sight by old ruins and stones. I approached and bean to listen. In flash it was if I become a different man, as if my eyes noticed things they had not noticed before.

MISH: What was the monk saying?

YAM: I don’t remember one word of what he said. But I shall never forget what I felt at the time. It was a feeling that had taken hold of me only once before in my whole life – when I was coming down the mountain at sunset. Then I had witnessed a scene of nature more beautiful than I had ever seen before. I spent the night thinking, trying to remember where I had seen that picture before. Was it in childhood, or in dreams or before I was born? For the beauty, despite its strangeness, was not unfamiliar to me. I rose at dawn, and remembered the previous day’s picture. Then a thought suddenly flashed through my mind. This beauty had been there since the beginning of time – since the creation. This was the very same feeling I had when I listened to that monk. The words I was hearing from hem for the first time were, none the less, not new to me. Where and when had I heard them before? In my childhood? Or in a dream? Or before I was born? And there was born in my mind the conviction that these words were the truth, since I could not imagine the beginning of time – or the end of time – without them.

MISH. (somewhat astonished) : Marnush! Are you listening?

MARN: Yes.

MISH: What do you say about that?

MARN: I say that this shepherd is garrulous, and I don’t understand a word he says.

MISH: You understand nothing except that you have spent a night away from your wife and child.

MARN. (almost scornfully) : Then what did you understand from it?

MISH: I understood that we are far from God, and that our thoughts are preoccupied with other thing!

MARN: What’s wrong with that?

YAM. (shocked) : God forgive you! (He rises.)

MARN: Where are you off to, pious shepherd?

YAM. (hesitantly) :… I… am… to… I feel hungry. Shouldn’t I go to the city under cover of darkness and bring food for you two and myself?

MARN. (suspiciously) : And will you return to us?

YAM: I’ll leave Qitmir here.

MARN. (pointing to the dog in astonishment) : Look! Look! He’s getting up! Remarkable! Do you see how his form twists and stretches in the darkness! It seems to me as if everyone who has been sleeping in this cave is waking up, as if his limbs are broken! (A moment’s pause.) You are right, Yamlikha. You must buy us food. I feel as if my stomach is a vacuum, empty even of air. And you, Mishliniyya, aren’t you hungry? (Mish, does not reply.) Can’t you answer? Perhaps you are so preoccupied that you are oblivious even to hunger! (A moment’s pause) Yet I don’t feel as hungry as I ought to. I feel as though the muscles of my stomach have rusted up, or that they have slept the sleep of the dead, and need a clarion call to wake them up. Yamlikha, you would be doing a good fob of work if you were to bring us something to rouse our appetites. Have   you any money.

YAM: I have... 

MARN. (feeling on his pocket) : Wait a minute! If I rightly remember, I had some silver dirhems with me yesterday. They are still in my pocket. Take them ! (Yamlikha take the money and exit.)

MISH: Marnush, do you know what was turning over in this shepherd’s mind just now?

MARN: What?

MISH: Don’t you realize that he was in a hurry to leave this place, because he couldn’t stand listening to what you said?

MARN: I don’t blame him.

MISH: Yes, perhaps he was right in his opinion. I also suspect…  

MARN: What do you suspect?

MASH: That our self-love is greater than our love of God. In fact I am inclined to think that we haven’t much trust in God.

MARN: Didn’t we pray to Him?

MIDSH: Yes, You prayed to ask favours for your wife and child.

MARN: And you for Prisca.

MISH: Well at least we did pray to Him. But since we came to the cave, we have thought of no-one but... (correcting himself) you think of no-one but the one you love. And now you are reproaching me, God and Christ, and all who brought about your separation. By all means reproach me. Marnush, if you will. But God and Christ… because I am not thinking of any of you now.

MISH: Don’t you see? You’ve taken the words right out of my mouth. We don’t spare a thought for God now.

MARN: Mishliniyya, are you listening to me?

MISH: Yes.

MARN: God, who gave us hearts, has forfeited some of his rights over us.

MISH. (after a little thought, shouting gleefully): You may be right, Marnush… (in doubt), but…

MARN: Yes?

MARN: What of the shepherd, this shepherd who has just reminded us of God? Don’t you see how he is constantly mentioning God and Christ?

MARN: You friend the shepherd is a bachelor. So what’s the harm whether he makes a present of his entire soul to God or the Devil?

MISH. (reflecting, as if trying to convince himself) : You are right . . .

                                           (Silence.)

MARN. (suddenly) : Has the shepherd Yamlikha gone?

MISH: What do you want of him?

MARN: Why didn’t I tell him to call at my house on the way, to see my wife and child, and give them news of me, and of my impending return?

MISH: He doesn’t know your house. What would you say if I were to go? They very sight of me would completely reassure them!

MARN: I am afraid lest you make a mistake and get us into trouble.

MISH: Have no fear!

MARN: Oh! And of course you will go where you can see her, you scoundrel!

MISH: What harm is there in that? She is waiting for me. She also is waiting waiting for news of me. Do you remember the day she stood behind the door, urging us to flee? Do you know what she told me when she said goodbye to me, while you were pulling my arm to hurry me up? She said she would look out for me at her window, three days later, at sunrise.

MARN: And have three days elapsed already?

MISH: That makes no difference. I will go in any case to spy out the land, and then come back here.

MARN: And suppose someone spotted you and recognized you?

MISH: Never fear! I will sleep away in the darkness without letting a soul see my face.

MARN. (firmly and strongly) : No it would be dangerous for you to go out.

MISH. (choking with anger) : Are you trying to forbid me?

MARN: Yes.

MISH: How utterly selfish you are!

MARN: I?

MASH: Yes, you!

MARN: woe betide you! Have you so soon forgotten what I have always been to you, and in particular, what I have been to you in this love a affair of yours?

MISH: Today you have erased it all from my memory.

MARN: Because I showed some misgivings at the impetuosity of one in love like you?

MISH: No that: but because ever since we came here, you have thought of nothing but yourself, and what might endanger you.

MARN: And all you can think of is going to your beloved, even if it brought danger to those are with you. So which of which is the more selfish?

MISH: You!

MARN: I, do you say? How blind and ungrateful lovers are!

MISH: Speak for yourself – this applies equally to you.

MARN: I can see my own faults, and am not oblivious of other men’s virtues.

MISH. (scornfully) : If only the shepherd were here, he would tell you that you denied God and Christ, to say the least.

MARN: To say the least?

MISH: Yes! I don’t want to remind you of anyone else.

MARN: You are an evil-mended youth!

MISH: I?

MARN: Yes! Unlike you, I can’t obliterate everything good from my memory. I can’t forget, Mishliniyya, that you were the only one to help me in my secret marriage,  and to stand by me in my tricky position when this secret family of mine was started. I can’t forget that, with me, you furnished the house. With your hands, you brought us vegetables and fruit by night, because we had not confided our secret to any servant or slave. I don’t forget the day my son was born, either – how you had set about weaving his tiny clothes and hats with your own hands, shortly before he came into the world. Yes! But for you, I could not have... 

MISH: I don’t want you to remember all that! All I want you to remember is that today you have added to my present difficulties by causing me pain and pangs of conscience, by your constant repetition and suggestions that I am the cause of your predicament.

MARN. (in blame and reproach) : Is this the first time I have exposed myself to danger in your interests? (Mish. Does not reply.) Won’t you, for once admit to the lover’s defect from which you suffer? Blindness, ingratitude, forgetfulness? That’s how you are, to put it mildly, aren’t you? Admit it!

MISH. (becoming calm) : I admit that you did indeed expose yourself to danger no my account.

MARN: All right then! Won’t you allow me a little innocent irritation when I am in distress?

MISH: And I? When did I let you down?

MARN: Love certainly swallows up everything – even friendship – yes, even faith!

MISH: Even faith?

MARN: Yes, because it is itself a faith, stronger than any other faith.

MISH: I see what you are getting at . . .

MARN: What am I getting at?

MISH: Were it not for your Christian wife, you would not have become a Christian... you, the convinced pagan. Decianus’ right-hand man in the previous massacre!

MARN: And ere it not for you, Princess Prisca would not have become a Christian either, as she followed the faith of her father Decianus .

MISH. (concealing his jay) : Marnush, do you think she really gave up her religion for this reason?

MARN: Can there be any doubt about that?

MISH: You always give me to understand that.

MARN: Because you yourself are reluctant to understand it, you silly man!

MISH. (in happy reminiscence) : Yes! I will never forget that night, about which I have long been telling you; the night she was dressed in white, venturing into the Hall of Pillars, where our trysting-place was when all was quiet in the palace. Throwing caution to the wind, I said to her; ‘You are an angel from heaven.’ She looked at me in astonishment, and asked what angels were. I said to her, in confusion: ‘It is a name Christians give to beings higher and kinder than human beings.’ Then I remained silent for a moment, then said to her, in pretence; ‘I wish you were a Christian.’ She said: ‘why?’ I said; ‘So that I could become your betrothed before God; so that there would be between a moment, then said, simply and modestly: ‘Then I, too, wish I were a Christian.’

MARN:  And shortly afterwards, you were at my door like on mad with joy!

MISH: Yes! Then you at once began to think for me, and make plans . . .

MARN: And the plan was that the two of you should go in secret to the monk, so that he could admit her into the religion.

MISH: Yes! Thanks to your idea and your help. Marnush, I truly do not forget how serious our situation was then. After we had gone, you stayed watching for our return. When Decianus asked about his daughter, you told him she was with her maids at the baths. And you told her worried maids that she was with her father. Yes indeed! But there is nothing terrifies me so much as the memory of Decianus, when he once surprised me in the Hall of Pillars, waiting for Prisca with the Bible in my hand. I can still hear the voice of the King saying to me – and I was past worrying any more – ‘What is this book you have?’ At that point you came up, Marnush, and snatehed it out of my hand, and said, in reply: ‘This is my book, your majesty. I left it in this hall.’ That was when I realized that you might sometime be prepared to risk your life for me.

MARN: Not for you, but for the sake of a lover and fiancé that I wanted to save for his fiancé.

MISH: Thank you, Marnush, but…  

MARN: But what?

MISH: But I still can’t say thank you for what you have said today.

MARN: Must we go over all that again?

MISH. (reflecting) : Yes!... (after a moment) I don’t know… How strange is man’s make-up! Sometimes we have strength to the point of greatness and martyrdom: sometimes we are weak to the point of d’gradation and egotism.

MARN: All this to-do because I am forbidding you to go and see her today?

                    (A shout echoes through the depths of the cave.)

MISH. (pricking up his ears) : Sh…

MARN: What’s that?

THE VOICE (coming nearer and shouting ) : Ho there, you two ministers!

MARN: Who’s there?

THE VOICE: Yamlikha.

MARN: The shepherd? Why are you shouting like that?

YAM: Because you are in the darkness awaiting the dawn, when the sun is high in the sky!

MARN: Where’s that?

YAM: Outside the cave. I came across the entrance, and there it was, open all the time, and we didn’t know it. But the remarkable thing is that the light and heat don’t penetrate through it to us, as if the sun avoided us in its course.

MARN: Is that all you have done? Where is the food?

YAM: If you only knew what I have seen and heard!

MARN: Tell us!

YAM: Scarcely had I gone two steps, when I saw ahead of me a rider wearing stranger clothes. He looked a hunter. So I showed him some of the silver I had with me and offered to buy some of his game. He didn’t understand me, but seethed terrified, and spurred his horse to gallop away. I seized his horse’s reins and stopped him. In the end he took a coin from me cautiously, and began to examine it, while I was watching him, in a mixture of thoughtfulness, fear, and astonishment as he turned it over with his fingers. ‘Decianus!’ he exclaimed, ‘minted in the reign of Decianus.’ Then he raised his head, and plucking up courage said to me; ‘Have you a lot of these?’ I took out all I had, and he said: ‘Where did you find them?’ ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘This old coins’, he said, ‘this treasure!’ I thought  the man was mad, so I snatched the coin from him, and left him. He watched me go with a surprised, quizzical, and apprehensive look. Then he spurred his horse,   and was soon out of sight.

MARN: You are right. Your fried was mad.

MISH: No, Marnush, don’t jump to conclusions.

MARN: What do you mean?

MISH: I feel some doubt.

MARN: What about?

MISH: About the length of time we have been in this cave. Don’t you remember I came here clean-shaven? And now I have a long beard and hair hanging down. I have only just noticed it when I scratched my head.

YAM: Yes, yes! I too noticed, while taking out a silver coin for that man, that my finger-nails were of unprecedented length. Who knows? Perhaps the man was scared by my untidy disheveled hair. Here in the dark we don’t notice anything, and can’t even each other.

MISH: Do you think we have been here a week without realizing it?

MARN. (touching his head) : You are both right! I also don’t think I came to this cave with all this hair and beard. This is astounding! Mishliniyya, if only you could see in the dark! With this beard, I must look rather like the sains, as I imagine them…

YAM: Perhaps we have been here a month!

MARN: Don’t be silly! What have we been doing all that time?

YAM: Sleeping.

MARN: Does that make sense?

YAM: Why not? When I was young, I heard from my grandmother and mother that a certain shepherd once took refuge from a deluge in a cave… He had faith in God and Christ… He slept a month till the flood subsided. Then he woke up, and emerged safe and sound, as when he had entered cave, without being aware of the passage of time.

MARN: Old wives tales!

YAM: I believe this tale, and can’t see anything odd in it. It said that corpses don’t decompose fast in caves, because of the damp. So why shouldn’t the story be true, since it happened in a rainy month. And why not, when the will of God and Christ wanted that believer to survive!

MARN. (half scoffing) : And what about our situation? What do you say to that? Is it rain and flood, or the will of God and Christ? The cave in miraculous fashion? Wasn’t that so that its heat would not harm our bodies? It was the will of God and Christ that willed this miracle, to save believers.

MARN. (in mild mockery) : Believers, did you say? Thank you, Yamlikha! I think that, but for your presence with us, God and Christ would not have willed this miracle for us.

MISH. (rising suddenly) : Marnush.

MARN: Where are you going , Mishliniyya?

MISH: Whichever way we look at it, the three days must certainly have elapsed.

MARN: You mean you are going to…?

MISH: And no power on earth shall prevent me.

MARN. (mocking mildly) : Nor in heaven, either?

 

               (An uproar is heard from outside the cave.)

YAM: Sh… Do you hear?

MARN: What’s this?

YAM. (pricking up his ears) : That’s the sound of a great number of people!

MARN. (leaping up) : Heaven help us! This is the end of us!

MISH: The end!

MARN: Yes, without a doubt they will be Decianus’ men come to take us. Don’t you see, Yamlikha? That distressed man went and revealed where we are. Didn’t I tell you that no-one should go out without making sure it was safe? And you,  Mishliniyya, are the one who was just about to go out!

 

                      (The sound of the people outside grows nearer.)

THE COWD (shouting, off-stage) : You man with the treasure! Show yourself to us, you man with the treasure! Don’t be afraid! Come out to us, and don’t be afraid!

MARN: What treasure? Who is the man with treasure?

YAM. (whispering to the others to keep silent) : Sh… Sh…!

MISH. (whispering) : I am afraid they will come in and get us!

THE CROWD (approaching the cave entrance) : There’s a cave here! This is the  entrance to a cave!

ANOTHER GROUP: Bring torches!

MARN. (whispering) : What can we do?

YAM. (whispering)