Quiet Please - Whence Came You?

Quiet, please.

The mutual broadcasting system presents Quiet, please, which is written and directed by Willis

Cooper and which features Ernest Chattel.

Quiet, please, what tonight is called, Prince came you.

I came from Jerusalem.

I've traveled knees to Good Deal in the last 20 odd years, and I flat on myself that

I know my way around.

So when I got off the plane at Cairo, I didn't start for the camp right away as a good storybook.

Archaeologists would have done, and I made a beeline for shepherds in the room I'd left

a couple of days before when I went to Jerusalem.

The bath, the gin and tonic, and the large batch of mails in the States, what more can a man

ask.

The Cairo on a Hot Night?

But of course it was too good to laugh at.

It's just going to run a knock.

Oh, way, go, way, go.

Hey Austin, wake up.

Ah, who the?

Hey, say felmen.

Hey, felmen.

Hey, hey.

Hi, Austin.

We got some sacred vettles.

What do I have to be darned?

Come on here.

What are you doing here?

What are you got there?

You got to round, don't I?

What are you doing here?

What do you got there?

You're getting around, don't I?

This is Gin and Tally, how are you?

Well, I'm fine, but come in.

Well sit down.

You're the last man in the world.

Yeah, take a Gin and Tally before I drop it.

Well, the time...

The time in spades, eh?

Fine, Gully, I'm glad to see you, boy.

Yeah, I'm glad to see you.

Well, I'm fine, but...

Come in.

Fine, Gully, I'm glad to see you, boy.

I'm glad to see you.

I've been looking here for three days waiting for you to come back.

Hey, that looks skinnier.

Well, you go out and dig holes out there for six months, lad.

You take off some of that fat dude.

Give me fat the hog away, you kiddin'.

Well, get your shirt out of here.

Let's go see the town.

Sit down.

Come on, what you're doing here?

Business? What kind of business?

Newspaper business, Nash.

What's cooking in the Middle East and stuff?

Say, how do you get more of these things?

We'll get on the bar in a minute. They're colder down there.

Well, go on, go on. Tell me about it.

Well, you know, Eddie Heffer can't just call me in

and said, draw some dough and go eastern.

Send up some stuff for the Sunday Feature section.

The trip's making a monkey out of us again.

So, I remember the dear old days on the midway, you and me,

and you're around here, so let's go see the town, alright?

I'll be done.

When did you leave Chicago?

Day before yesterday.

Oh, boy.

Yep, the loot's still there.

They still got the burly queue shows on South State Street.

The Michigan Avenue Bridge is always up.

The Cubs are in seventh place.

Now?

Now what?

Now we go see the town?

Come on, put on your pants.

You've never been in Cairo before, have you?

Me? Not me, why?

Well, if you had, you wouldn't care much about seeing up my boy.

Yeah? Yeah.

But women?

You had a good look at any of them?

Have I? Oh, boy.

What?

The one that's waiting for you downstairs.

Waiting for me?

Wow.

What are you talking about?

I don't know any women in Cairo.

Who is one who knows you?

You're crazy.

I'm telling you.

How do you know?

She's been waiting down there for three days.

I've seen her.

What'd she look like?

Oh, boy.

Not a native.

Leo, that's right.

Is this one of your bum jokes, Ed?

I'd give you my word of honor.

I don't get it.

Come on downstairs and you will.

So we went downstairs.

British colonel's American traveling salesman,

Egyptian army officers.

A fee for two, a bevy of the ugliest women in the world.

And I don't see any woman waiting for me.

There.

By the door to the bar.

And I look.

And here by the door stood the one most beautiful woman

I have ever seen in all my life.

She was no Egyptian native.

She might have descended from one of the marvelous

life-light paintings of a queen of the half-hour dynasty

that I've seen on the walls of Jones,

2,000 years old.

How can I describe her?

Your eyes were black.

Her hair was black.

And cut.

And the manner of the days of the shepherd kings

that ruled the valley of the Nile a thousand years

before the pyramids were built.

Red lips that smiled at me slowly.

I felt my niece tremble as she looked into my eyes.

Come on.

Let's go ask if she's got a friend.

Then when I look back at her.

Where'd she go?

It was midnight.

Then one o'clock and two and then three.

We still walk the streets of Cairo.

The waning moon was rising in the northeast

behind our shoulders as we turned our steps back to the hotel.

Twice.

I thought I'd seen her.

And twice she, if she it was,

disappeared into a narrow winding street

where we couldn't follow.

No, I never followed women about the streets

of a foreign city before.

Not in all my life.

Well, there's little enough of that in the life of an archaeologist.

The women we followed died a thousand,

ten thousand years before we were born.

We know them only by the portraits painted on the walls

of a musty tomb.

But what we find in great hermetically sealed stone cascets

wrapped in rust-colored linen

and smelling of the ghost of cinnamon and murder

and spike in heart.

I don't know why I had to this.

I know.

She wanted you to come after her.

That's ridiculous, Abe.

I heard her asked for you.

Before, but she wanted me.

When is a pretty guy usually one of a guy?

Drinks, something to eat, a good time?

As you could have had that for many, buddy.

Yeah, me, for instance.

But she wanted you, Austin.

Why?

Maybe she's a spy or something.

A spy?

Maybe she wanted to sell you something.

You know, you grave robbers.

And those with some old feral or somebody is planted.

That could be, I suppose.

Well, I'm for bad.

I got to get out of the digging's early.

Fine night we had.

Forget it.

You got a room, huh?

Yeah, right down the hall.

Well, knock on my door when you get up.

All right.

Good night.

Night.

Say they have this incense all the time around this place, huh?

What do you mean?

Don't you smell it?

It smells like a funeral.

I know.

Oh.

Yeah, I suppose.

Night.

Night, Austin.

I could have told him what the incense was.

I smelled cinnamon and murance blackened out too often

not to recognize it instantly.

When I opened the door to my room, the smell was almost overpowering.

Youth as I am.

To the funeral spices of ancient Egyptian tombs.

No.

No, I'm not going to tell you what a beautiful Egyptian princess of the days

of Hicksus was waiting for me at the darkness.

This isn't a ghost story.

It's a true story.

There wasn't anyone in the room.

I turned on the lights, hoping to window.

There wasn't anyone in the room.

So I went to bed, dreamed about sailing on Lake Michigan.

The storm came off and the thunder cramped.

And I was scared to death.

Then I woke up and the thunder was the servant knocking on my door

and then one morning cup of tea.

Even though I got in my Jeep and rode out of the excavation

it's quite a distance from Cairo.

What never mind just where it is because that's my business,

and the universities.

That right rear tire went flat just as I've been expecting.

I forgot to put air in the spare so we took quite a while getting it pumped up.

It was late afternoon when we got there.

Abe had never seen anything of this sort.

To see Abe, these places are built one on top of another,

almost every village in town in the east is.

Different periods of time, huh?

That's right.

There may be any numbers that he's built about the ruins of another.

What we do is dig out the top when you see,

recover everything we can,

that's a historical importance.

Then go on carefully down to the next.

What do you do with the stuff that's on top?

It has to be destroyed, naturally.

It's too bad, isn't it?

Well, we make careful records, photographs.

And then you just peel off the stuff and go on to the next.

That's right.

This is the fourth city from the top we're working on now.

See those big pile of rubble over there?

Yeah.

That's the remains of the other three cities.

That seems ashamed.

All those years of work and living and everything.

Well, we save artifacts, of course.

Save what?

Or things that people made,

potyards, fragments of wall paintings, decorations,

that sort of thing.

What do you do with the people you find?

People?

Yeah.

Well, mummy's various things.

We read the inscriptions.

Decide whether the fellow was important enough to investigate further.

The Egyptian government has a great deal to say about the contents of tunes, you know.

Find any gold?

Not here so far, but we probably will.

This part where we're standing was the necropolis of this particular city.

The cemetery, you see.

Oh, yeah.

It's reasonable to suppose that there are other tunes under here.

That's where you find the jewels and the golden stuff.

Generally, yes.

Say, Austin, why don't you get a steam shovel in here?

You'd move this stuff a lot quicker.

And probably smashed on priceless inscriptions or paintings into bits.

No, my boy, we do this gently.

And you can read this stuff.

Hieroglyphics?

Hieroglyphics comes from two Greek words originally meaning carving by pre.

Okay, Professor.

Can you read it?

Yeah, of course.

I can read a good deal of the later writings by Cycle and we get out of the real ancient stuff.

That's a little more difficult.

What does this say?

What?

This slab here.

Let's see.

Here was I, Hotepp, presented with, I guess you'd say, invested with, the working tools of those who build.

In my hand, I Hotepp did take, took the tools of the second grade of Workman in Stone.

The plumb, the square and the...

The level, huh?

How'd you know?

There were measles and mousse days.

For sure, how do you think they build all this stone stuff?

Hey, look at that.

What's that there?

It's a name.

Show them, it's probably Solomon.

Yeah, this was in Solomon's time.

Right alongside the name.

The middle stone of an arch, which is the secret.

The keystone.

These fellas didn't know how to build an arch.

That's right, they didn't.

Why are you so excited about it, though?

Hey.

What?

Look at that.

This?

Yeah, that's a very fine example of wall painting.

Look how the colors are still bright.

Look how they...

Yeah.

You see the same thing, I see.

Don't you?

You know what I saw.

You know whose portrait was painted on the edge of the slab that came from a tomb that

was old in the time of Augustus Caesar.

Go incidents are not.

Here was the face of the woman who waited for me the night before.

In Shepherd's Hotel.

It's amazing how racial characteristics persist through centuries in Egypt.

I have seen Egyptian men who might have been student commons' own brother.

I've seen women that you wouldn't blame me for feeling my hackles rise a little bit

as uncanny resemblance to the woman who disappeared.

I kept smelling morn, spike in art, cinnamon.

But I hadn't much time to think of it then.

Martin Weaver, who was in charge of the actual excavation, came up behind us.

Well, I'll land you back.

Oh, hello, Martin. How are we doing?

Stayed Felden, Martin Weaver.

Hi.

Hello.

What day before yesterday we broke through a place awesome that goes down to the city underneath this one.

You did?

Now, one of the workmen found a big sandstone slab and we cleared it away completely.

I've got the big shears rigged over it now and I thought we'd wait till you got here to lift the slab.

I want to do it tonight or what?

Oh gosh, let's do it now, Austin.

Well, what do you think?

Getting dark.

Let's have a look at it.

Okay.

I'm glad you're back.

Bring anything to drink with you.

We walked half a mile.

There was a little clearing at one corner of the Necropolis and the beams of the shears stood stock against the darkened sky.

There was something elemental, something definitely about them.

It's not an archaeologist's job to be sentimental or superstitious.

None of us would stand a job very long if we were.

But the half-inch steel cable was attached to a block of stone.

There's the only thing that's separated is from something that happened perhaps 40 centuries ago.

And there are times when a man's entitled to shiver a little in the wind that rises over the desert at sunset.

Abe was beside himself at excitement.

Let's pull it up, Austin.

Go on, let's pull it up, huh?

Go ahead, Martin.

Okay.

Glad we got the engine.

That slab weighs about 70 tons.

Go ahead.

A little higher.

Gosh.

That's the air from down there.

That area you're breathing, Abe, was breathed by Pharaohs long before Moses let his people out of this country.

Gee.

Okay, hold it, Martin.

Right.

You going down there, Austin?

Tomorrow.

Oh, I'm not now.

No, no, it's late.

Oh, gee, I'd like to go down there.

We will in the morning.

No, I wasn't.

Let's take your flashlight.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mummy case, some wall paintings.

Let me see.

Take the flashlight.

Oh, boy, oh, boy.

It isn't far down there.

I'm going to jump down.

No, no, wait.

I'll be alright.

I don't go running all over that place, tracking it up, Abe.

I don't want to play.

Stop down here.

Get a ladder, Martin.

Oh, okay.

You hear me, Abe?

I hear you, Abe.

Throw me your flashlight.

Oh, gone it.

That's the last time you.

Here.

Now stand still.

I'm standing still.

Hey, Austin.

What?

To the picture on the wall.

What picture?

Over here on the wall.

Turn it.

I dropped the light.

Well, stand still.

Martin will be back in a minute with his light.

Austin?

Why?

There's something in here.

It'll be careful.

It might be a snake.

No, it ain't a snake.

Abe.

Abe.

Abe.

Abe.

What happened?

Let's go, Austin.

Look out the slam.

What?

There's something in here.

It might be a snake.

No, it ain't a snake.

Abe.

Abe.

Abe.

Abe.

Abe.

Abe, what happened?

Let's go.

Austin, look out the slam.

Let's go, Austin.

Look out the slam.

We worked all night long.

Martin and I.

Slicing that steel cable and raising the heavy slab

that had imprisoned Abe in that place of event.

We had no hope

with what could we do when Miracle might have happened.

There might have been a chink between the slab and the opening

and covering and opening through which a few breaths of air

might have seeped into the tomb.

The snake might not have bitten them.

He might have killed it.

So we told each other,

all through the night,

the stubborn cable cut our hands

and defied our every effort.

The sun was just rising

when we had lasted made it fast

and Martin started the engine.

We had fastened the rope onto the cable

and we swung a great stone slab aside.

I was down in the kiln almost before it declared the opening.

It was too late.

Finally, seconds as I called the Martin,

he jumped down too.

Oh, Mike, good.

What happened to him?

I thought it was a snake.

No snake did that.

No.

I saw a pigeon once with a hawk had been at.

We...

We'd have been too late even if the slab hadn't fallen.

Well...

Awesome.

What?

At mummy case,

was the cover of it last night when you looked down here?

No.

Why, he couldn't have.

That lid weighs ten tons.

Then we looked down into the stone coffin.

I hope I shall never see a night again again.

What?

What is it?

The mummy of a man.

A tall man.

And a robe of gold cloth.

Not wrapped in women bindings just a robe of gold cloth

with strange symbols woven into the cloth.

And his head.

Not a man's head.

The head of a hawk.

No, not a mask.

We look carefully.

A man with a head of a hawk.

And the hawk's beak.

Hall dabbled with red.

I didn't believe it either.

It couldn't be.

But it was.

It was a father of all the Egyptian gods of Cyrus.

Well, Cyrus, the brother, husband of Isis,

the founder of the world's first empire.

Well, Cyrus, who was murdered 16,000 years ago.

And his body was hidden by Isis' wife

with a blasting curse on any who might find his tomb.

It was impossible.

It couldn't be.

But there it was.

And Martin, and I.

And a dead man.

Where there in his tomb with him.

And the curse hung heavy in the musty-air aromas.

And then the first rays of the sun reflected from something

above a stone down into the tomb.

And I saw the pictures on the wall.

I saw Cyrus with his hawk's head.

And the roby wore, and the miter on his hawk's head

was the same as the mummy wore in a casket.

I saw Isis his wife, weeping over the body of her murder fist.

And the beauty of the work of a long dead artist was unbelievable.

And I saw another picture.

There was the daughter of Isis and Osiris.

Yes, of course I could read the inscriptions.

Yes, of course I could recognize her face.

I had seen it before in the lobby of Shepard's hotel.

Now the inscriptions on the wall were terrifying.

There were secrets there that men would give their lives to this yesterday.

There were secrets there that we've only begun to imagine today.

I'm a scientist, I know.

Where do I?

We forgot the thing in the coffin we...

We forgot the thing on the floor.

And a group darker and darker in the tomb.

And I read on and on.

I stood before the painting of the one who was Osiris daughter.

Long black hair, red lips that smiled at me.

And my heart stopped at the inscription under the portrait.

I read it over again.

Be not afraid.

Ah, Oostin carved into the living rock of the ancient heretic characters

uncounted centuries ago.

Not by the hand of the artist.

I knew who would carve my name there.

Be not afraid, Oostin.

And I wasn't afraid at all when I discovered that the thing that was making a doc down there

was a great slab of sandstone, slowly swinging around and down to emphisonous all in the tomb

that the wife of Osiris had cursed.

Martin Weaver was a very brave man.

Martin Weaver didn't scream and cry in the heavy dark.

Martin Weaver talked to me quietly.

It'll be all right, Oostin.

They workman will be here before long.

And they'll see the slab.

And he brought him knows how to run the engine.

I hope so, Martin.

I hope there'll be in time.

There'll be in time.

He'll start the engine and pull the thing off all right.

I hope so, Martin.

Sure.

They'll know that something's wrong.

Where are you?

Right here.

Oostin still.

I am standing still.

I thought I heard you move.

No.

You afraid, Osiris?

Are you?

Not particularly.

But I.

Yes.

The thing in the...

Where are you going?

I'll have a move.

Why?

Thought I thought you were hand on my arm.

No.

Sit still, don't you set the air?

Well, you said still.

I tell you I didn't move.

Something's moving.

It couldn't be.

Osiris?

What?

Martin.

Martin.

Martin.

Answer me, Martin.

And there was nothing but silence.

And in another footstep.

And I felt a hand on my arm and I screamed with terror.

But it was a gentle hand and it let me gently away from where I stood in the dark.

And I followed.

I hit my head on the solid stone wall.

My feet dragged as I followed you over.

It was through a door.

But I knew it couldn't be there.

And the voice breathed in my ear.

Oostin.

When I smelled cinnamon from earth and spike in heart.

When I followed on.

And soon it was a glimmering of light ahead of me.

And I thought the hand released my arm.

And I walked down toward the light.

Then in a little while.

And at a little room, you and out of the solid rock.

And a light burning.

A little bronze lamp at the head of a monochrome piece of black-red painted wood.

And the portrait image on the lid of the sarcophagus.

The same face.

The smile.

And I came closer to read the inscription I knew would be there.

An inscription put there so many, many years ago.

I have freed you.

Oostin.

Now free me.

My hand went to the fascinating of the lid.

When I looked up at the wall above.

The portrait again.

But with a difference.

The same costume.

The same jewelry.

The same headdress.

What the head.

What the head of a hawk.

The head of a little Cyrus daughter.

So I sit here.

And a little bronze lamp is flickering low.

No.

I haven't opened the coffin.

I'm afraid to.

You have listened to quiet plays.

Which is written and directed by Willis Cooper.

The man who spoke to you was Dennis Kent.

And the Murray Ford's played eight Feldman.

Martin Weaver was Don Briggs.

As usual, the original music for quiet plays is composed and played by Albert Berman.

Now for a word about next week's quiet please.

Here is my good friend.

I write a director.

Willis Cooper.

I'm going to story by you next week called Put on the Deadman's Coat.

It's by the man who had an idea that wasn't good for him.

We'll found the Deadman's Coat.

The title of next week's quiet plays.

And so until next week at this time.

I am quiet to yours.

Dennis Chappell.

Quiet please come to you from New York.

This is multiple broadcasting systems.

I'm going to show you.

I'm going to show you.

I'm going to show you.

Thank you very much.