Speaker 1: Escape.
Speaker 2: It's time to escape into the world of adventure. Time
Speaker 2: to forget for the next half hour the four walls
Speaker 2: of today and escape beyond the horizons of the mind
Speaker 2: Yesterday and tomorrow. CBS and it's affiliated stations present Escape.
Speaker 3: Tonight.
Speaker 2: We escape with Rudged Kipling and the two gentle scoundrels
Speaker 2: he created in his immortal story. The man who would
Speaker 2: be king the time some time before yesterday, the place
Speaker 2: the north of India, the man who tells the story
Speaker 2: Rudyard Kipling.
Speaker 4: One Saturday night, it was my unpleasant duty to put
Speaker 4: the paper to bed alone. It was a pitchy, black knight,
Speaker 4: as stifling as night can be in India in June.
Speaker 4: It was very still, save for the ticking of the
Speaker 4: clock above my desk, which seemed to shatter the black
Speaker 4: heat of the night. As the hands crept toward three
Speaker 4: a m. And then from the passage outside my door,
Speaker 4: I heard voices.
Speaker 5: And it would be here, open the door.
Speaker 3: Who's there? Who are you? He don't remember us standing?
Speaker 6: He let me down?
Speaker 5: How could he forget avenus turned back of the job.
Speaker 5: Poor boarder told the authorities. We was impersonating Newspiper reporter
Speaker 5: as he did.
Speaker 4: Wait, that flaming red beard and that boy head. Why
Speaker 4: for your Daniel Dravitt and Peachy Canahan the same? Well,
Speaker 4: what do you want? If it's money, I haven't any.
Speaker 4: If it's a fight, it's simply too beastly hot.
Speaker 7: You can rest yourself easy, sir, because we've come asking
Speaker 7: for nought.
Speaker 6: Accept some information.
Speaker 5: We've been all over this country and we've concluded that
Speaker 5: India isn't big enough for such as Daniel and me.
Speaker 5: So we are going away to be king things in
Speaker 5: our own divine right.
Speaker 6: What I we shall be king?
Speaker 5: We've signed a solemn contract each day up the other,
Speaker 5: and neither obviously take a look at the liquor or
Speaker 5: women until we become king.
Speaker 4: I've never heard of such a fantastic idea. But what
Speaker 4: is it you want of me?
Speaker 7: Nough not to look at such maps of Kaffiist down
Speaker 7: as you might have about maps of Kafirist Tan.
Speaker 3: That's where we decided to go.
Speaker 4: But don't you realize that not one single Englishman has
Speaker 4: ever gone into the Kafiristan mountains and lived to come
Speaker 4: out again. If you're really mad enough to go there,
Speaker 4: you're a good deal more likely to become men and kings.
Speaker 4: We shall see anyway. I don't believe you had the
Speaker 4: slightest intention of traveling a nile outside of Delhi.
Speaker 5: Then you should come down to the Serai market place
Speaker 5: in the morning, down where the caravans leave.
Speaker 3: For the north.
Speaker 7: Yes, come down to the Serai in the morning and
Speaker 7: see then if we be liars.
Speaker 8: Oh, thieves, robbers, liars, the blessing of beer, colorful pigs,
Speaker 8: dogs and berturos.
Speaker 9: Who you should not laugh at him? Shabe, the witless
Speaker 9: are under the protection.
Speaker 5: Of a lad.
Speaker 4: Quite so, boy, who is the fellow anyway?
Speaker 2: A mad pre Shabe who has arrived only this morning,
Speaker 2: framishmir Ah.
Speaker 7: Yes, I come to look at my camels loaded with
Speaker 7: toys to please the eye of an amir.
Speaker 4: Oh here, now go about your business.
Speaker 2: I haven't any use for toys.
Speaker 10: These are one us toys.
Speaker 7: Indeed, Sahib, fit for a king of Kaffir Ristan.
Speaker 3: What good lord Daniel Gravitz, come along.
Speaker 6: I have two camels just beyond the wall.
Speaker 7: Here the blessings of peer can on the gracious Sahib
Speaker 7: who consents to look at the poor toys of a
Speaker 7: priest from Ashmir.
Speaker 11: Over this way, where's Conahan?
Speaker 3: Here?
Speaker 12: We are?
Speaker 10: Permit me to present my servant?
Speaker 6: Has he a mere car?
Speaker 3: At your service? Good night? Well, i'll be Did you
Speaker 3: like our disguises? Do they pass?
Speaker 4: If they fool this crowd in the Serai, they're probably
Speaker 4: good enough to get you across the border, and good
Speaker 4: enough to get you killed.
Speaker 7: Getting killed, there is no part of the contract pitching
Speaker 7: me drawed up, although perhaps killing fits in with our
Speaker 7: plans in a different sense. Feel around underneath the toys
Speaker 7: they are in the camel bags. What go ahead?
Speaker 3: Good lord? Rifles?
Speaker 5: Twenty brand new Martinis with ammunition to.
Speaker 4: Match, and twenty good re is to make your death certain?
Speaker 4: Any pathon of the hill tribes would kill his own
Speaker 4: mother to get a rifle?
Speaker 6: Now, who would harm a poor mad priests?
Speaker 10: Sahib Ella protects me?
Speaker 3: Mad is right?
Speaker 7: Then, so was Lord Clive and Rhodes and Buonaparte. Drive
Speaker 7: out the camel's preachy. We've a long way to go
Speaker 7: before we become kings.
Speaker 4: Why as I stood and listened to the camel bells
Speaker 4: fade away in the distance, I wondered, wondered if it
Speaker 4: might not be a glorious thing to go to kafiristand
Speaker 4: and be a king three years, passing India as much
Speaker 4: as they pass in any other land. It grows hot.
Speaker 4: Then the rains come, and then the heat again. Some
Speaker 4: colonel at the hill station puts down an uprising. A
Speaker 4: you Viceroy comes out from London, and the pad records
Speaker 4: the death of a sultan in Rajputana, and the trees
Speaker 4: in the courtyard grow a few feet taller. Finally, time
Speaker 4: in its circle turned up another night, much like the
Speaker 4: one three years before. Once again I sat alone in
Speaker 4: the office, listening to the clock and waiting for some
Speaker 4: unimportant item to come over the wire from Europe. It
Speaker 4: was long after midnight when my office door slowly opened.
Speaker 4: I say, look here, you you might knock first, you know, we.
Speaker 3: Look good, lord man? What's wrong?
Speaker 13: I You don't know who I am?
Speaker 3: Do you? No? No?
Speaker 4: I haven't the faintest idea. But here you'd better sit down,
Speaker 4: old fellow. You're in a bad way, yes.
Speaker 13: Sir, thank you. It's a whole year. I've been walking.
Speaker 14: Right here in this very office were Saturday, you sating
Speaker 14: right there and giving us the maps. You you've been
Speaker 14: sitting there ever since three years?
Speaker 4: No, oh, no, man couldn't change that much in three years.
Speaker 4: You're not Peachy Conahan.
Speaker 13: I was king of Kafirstan, Me and Daniel dravit, real
Speaker 13: crown kings. We was just as true as gospel.
Speaker 4: What in the name of heaven had they done to you?
Speaker 3: Peach Pechee?
Speaker 13: I knew Peachy cohnon once he's a king? Where's a
Speaker 13: real golden crown on it?
Speaker 3: So it does?
Speaker 11: He is dead?
Speaker 4: No, no, no, you're you're Peachy Conahan. You must pull
Speaker 4: yourself together, pull myself.
Speaker 13: You could keep looking into my eyes, then maybe everything
Speaker 13: won't go to pieces.
Speaker 3: All right? Now, tell me what happened, Peach.
Speaker 13: We left the caravan at Jagdala. We'll struck off into
Speaker 13: the hills alone, go on Wicks. It was we travel,
Speaker 13: Daniel and me.
Speaker 3: First. There wasn't no roads. After a while, no food,
Speaker 3: but there was always the drums.
Speaker 5: Sometimes there was close and sometimes farther off.
Speaker 3: But most of the time we can hear them somewhere.
Speaker 10: Yeah, now there's no place to be stopping up with you.
Speaker 3: I'm fearing it's no use, Daniel.
Speaker 10: What's got into them?
Speaker 5: The poor beasts are done in and starved, same as ourselves.
Speaker 3: They'll go no further. Then we'll go on without them.
Speaker 6: I've not come this far to die on the side
Speaker 6: of a mountain.
Speaker 5: Wait, look, Daniel, over the edge of the rocks. Oh men,
Speaker 5: there'll be a score of more than one goes ahead
Speaker 5: of the rest, and nought but those and arrows.
Speaker 6: Break out a pair of the rifles, Peachy Wright, Right, Daniel,
Speaker 6: it's now that you start to become kings.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And some countries is too.
Speaker 9: Eating our Peachy.
Speaker 7: I'll drop the stragger at the rear first, and then
Speaker 7: we'll lay a few at their feet.
Speaker 6: No arm to the one in front.
Speaker 9: We may need him.
Speaker 15: Now you look at them, I flat on their blooming faces, Alida.
Speaker 3: He's command alone.
Speaker 7: Well and good, and we'll go part way to meet him, Peachy,
Speaker 7: But keep your rifle by you.
Speaker 3: Got dam Daniel. He'd be as fair as us with
Speaker 3: yellow hair. So he does.
Speaker 10: Part of the lost tribes.
Speaker 3: These people are he stopped.
Speaker 10: The lord rry, Peachy, we're in luck.
Speaker 6: It's the old Afghan tongue.
Speaker 3: He speaks, speak up, who are you?
Speaker 10: And whence do you come?
Speaker 9: And the chief of the villager flush Hire a journey
Speaker 9: above me.
Speaker 10: A few hot beat this spash guy. How many people
Speaker 10: they are numbered in the Posan.
Speaker 16: There are more villages in the hills more than a
Speaker 16: man has fingers and pods.
Speaker 6: Here That Peachy is our kingdom made to order.
Speaker 10: And you you're going to take us to Bashkui. Do
Speaker 10: you understand? I understand the voice of thunder that you speak.
Speaker 6: For He's a smooth one, Peachy. He knows a thing
Speaker 6: or two.
Speaker 10: What's your name? That's too long? What we call him Peachy?
Speaker 5: He has a look about him of an old soldiering
Speaker 5: friend of ours, billy fish.
Speaker 10: So he does We bestow a new name on you.
Speaker 16: From now on, you will be Billy Fish as you
Speaker 16: come out, all right, put this on your drums. Tell
Speaker 16: them two kings have come out from the mountaintops, two
Speaker 16: kings that speaking words of thunder.
Speaker 10: So the earth trembles. Tell them, two kings have come
Speaker 10: to Kafiristan.
Speaker 3: That you preachy, damn you might be? You said here
Speaker 3: in the dark, I've been thinking.
Speaker 7: A man has to stop and think sometimes out anything special, Danion.
Speaker 7: Look at them, Peachey, look at their blinking campfires and
Speaker 7: gleaming in the dark.
Speaker 6: Right the jewels in a crown.
Speaker 5: Aye Daniel You're done a fine job, for sure. All
Speaker 5: twenty three villages you joined together.
Speaker 6: As one tis the army you trained. To be thanked
Speaker 6: for it. Two thousand men with a fair knowledge of
Speaker 6: bearing arms.
Speaker 7: Suom's a bit green at it yet that wells Now,
Speaker 7: every man, jackwoman and child, we own a body and soul.
Speaker 3: I we're kings now, Daniel, not proper kings yet.
Speaker 6: But we will be sooner than you think.
Speaker 7: Peachey, how's that Billy Fish told me something today that
Speaker 7: fear amaze me? These people know the craft? You mean
Speaker 7: they're freemasons, Daniel. It ain't no wise possible.
Speaker 6: So help me's gospel true, He give me the grip
Speaker 6: and everything.
Speaker 3: It's all.
Speaker 6: The craft is older than the memory of man, and
Speaker 6: up here.
Speaker 7: In the hills they've been preserving it all these years.
Speaker 7: Why some of the high priests know up through the
Speaker 7: fellow craft, but they don't know the third degree, see it, peachy,
Speaker 7: They don't know the third degree.
Speaker 3: That we do. Daniel, What is it you're fixing to do? Do?
Speaker 6: We are going to be proper kings. We're going to
Speaker 6: get them going and coming. Now.
Speaker 7: I'm going to turn the whole country into one grand lodge,
Speaker 7: raise some of the priests a third degree, and for me,
Speaker 7: I'll be the grand master of kafira Stan.
Speaker 3: But you ain't got the right door. We never been
Speaker 3: officers in no lodge.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 6: What's a king got to do with asking for a right.
Speaker 5: Or I'm against it, Daniel. It's no good to go
Speaker 5: falling around with the craft.
Speaker 6: Ah, you talk like an old woman. The thing will work,
Speaker 6: I know it will.
Speaker 7: We'll make it a blooming ceremony, regular aprons with the
Speaker 7: symbol and the marks, all of us peachey, the kings
Speaker 7: of Kafiristan.
Speaker 9: Everything is prepared, Master, and the priests and the people wait.
Speaker 6: Too well, they don't have to wait much longer. Billy
Speaker 6: here now, Peachy, how do you.
Speaker 3: Like my apron?
Speaker 5: It's a wondrous sight for pair, Daniel.
Speaker 7: Made of white herm in skin it is, and the
Speaker 7: Master's mark with emeralds studded the mark.
Speaker 3: You know the meaning of the mark that I do?
Speaker 3: What's got into you, Billy?
Speaker 1: Not?
Speaker 9: But tis a thing that's passing strange.
Speaker 5: Master, Traine and Rubbish come along now ready, Peachy, right
Speaker 5: with you, Daniels, Then out we go onto the temple steps.
Speaker 6: We'll give them what fork, not their blinking eye.
Speaker 7: Now that's what we'll do.
Speaker 8: Nuther of Peachy, right down on their blumi nas and
Speaker 8: yelling their fore heads of all and our victim.
Speaker 3: I think, Daniel, the time the promise ones have come.
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 3: Know what's wrong with the priest? Billy?
Speaker 6: It looks I trouble, Daniel, stand where you are, Master?
Speaker 9: They recognized the mark.
Speaker 3: That great stone in the floor.
Speaker 10: Why do they turn it over?
Speaker 9: Wait?
Speaker 12: It's the same.
Speaker 10: Speak of Billy fish.
Speaker 7: What's the meaning of it?
Speaker 9: See for yourself?
Speaker 5: Look, Daniel, carved on the back of the stone is
Speaker 5: the Master's mark, all right?
Speaker 9: And the same as the sign you wear. Only a
Speaker 9: few of the priests have known of the hidden mark
Speaker 9: on the stone?
Speaker 3: What does it mean?
Speaker 9: The many who have doubted you were a god? Doubt
Speaker 9: no longer? And you, Billy, what do you think? I must?
Speaker 9: I think that now?
Speaker 17: It is the time for these, Daniel, golden crowns, y,
Speaker 17: how they glitter fit for the brow of a king.
Speaker 3: 'tis what we came for here?
Speaker 6: Now put them on. We'll crown ourselves in our own right.
Speaker 10: Well, listen, Tom, you know something, Peachy.
Speaker 16: We come here to be kings, and that we are
Speaker 16: all right, but blamed if we ain't a couple of
Speaker 16: blooming gods to boom with.
Speaker 10: A million people bowing on their knees before us.
Speaker 4: Well enough, peachy. So it was God who became as
Speaker 4: well as kings. But then what happened? What became of breath?
Speaker 13: I knew Daniel dragt once he's a king. Now Daniel is,
Speaker 13: where's a golden crown?
Speaker 3: Conan was with him?
Speaker 4: Pity, try to pull yourself together outside. Now you became kings,
Speaker 4: You and Daniel kings of al Kafinistan.
Speaker 3: He was a fine figure.
Speaker 13: Daniel was with his red head, wearing that golden crown,
Speaker 13: kept himself aloof from the people, so to speak. And
Speaker 13: when he walked afore the temple, the fair crawled on
Speaker 13: their stomachs to worship.
Speaker 3: But what happened? Man happened? Well a figure?
Speaker 13: Mostly it was winter coming on. The winds were started up,
Speaker 13: and the clouds was blowing down from the north. Oh,
Speaker 13: come blow pishtle that window wind?
Speaker 6: Eh?
Speaker 9: Who's out there?
Speaker 5: At you?
Speaker 10: Billy?
Speaker 3: Confounded?
Speaker 7: Anyway?
Speaker 3: Here?
Speaker 11: Now?
Speaker 3: What's this?
Speaker 10: I have brought you food? Muster you the wife sheep with.
Speaker 3: Curry and rice.
Speaker 7: Up off your knees, girl, bring it inside?
Speaker 6: Thank you? Er place it there?
Speaker 3: Hmm.
Speaker 7: Now you're a well favored wench.
Speaker 13: I do not understand.
Speaker 7: Why were you crawling on your knees?
Speaker 9: Tis a fitting way to approach the god of kafirra'sa
Speaker 9: what's your name?
Speaker 15: Girl?
Speaker 6: Marumadanger? Marmy you married.
Speaker 3: Hi?
Speaker 6: He does not yet been my happy fortune?
Speaker 3: Muster you afraid of me? You are a god? I mean,
Speaker 3: how do I seem to you? Do you find me pleasing?
Speaker 3: Or what? Your face?
Speaker 9: It's more wondrous than a noonday sun, and you'll look
Speaker 9: a look of eagles.
Speaker 7: Hm hm, very well.
Speaker 6: You may leave now, think you must.
Speaker 3: Hm? No room?
Speaker 6: Eh hee, chep hey chip that you're calling me?
Speaker 3: Daniel? Oh the food yer ain't good?
Speaker 7: Not that window outside. Winter's about due to strike and
Speaker 7: fill the trail with snow. There'll be a little moving
Speaker 7: about afore a spring, right, you are peeche. I've decided
Speaker 7: to take a while, but you can't do it, Daniel.
Speaker 7: We made a contract that was till we was kings, Well,
Speaker 7: kings we've been many months now.
Speaker 3: But it's no good.
Speaker 5: I tell you now. I'm against against it.
Speaker 6: You was against using the craft too, but look what
Speaker 6: it's done for us.
Speaker 3: But this is different.
Speaker 5: Billyfish will tell you nod too, the same as I do.
Speaker 3: Billyfish.
Speaker 6: Who's the king here? Him or me? The mine's made
Speaker 6: up three days from now.
Speaker 7: I salla me a wife. And you can put it
Speaker 7: on the drums and tell every blighter out there in
Speaker 7: the hills the Kingdom of Kafiristan is going to have
Speaker 7: a queen.
Speaker 3: What's keeping her pitchy?
Speaker 10: They should have brought her in here.
Speaker 3: Half an hour ago.
Speaker 5: I don't know, Daniel, how about you, Billyfish.
Speaker 6: You put them up to stolen off, deliberate.
Speaker 9: Like, certain preparations must be made, Master.
Speaker 5: She's across the court with some of the priests. Maybe
Speaker 5: they're trying to harden her up a bit, Daniel. She
Speaker 5: thinks she's going to die.
Speaker 3: You know ah, Indeed, Master.
Speaker 9: It is against the laws of heaven for a woman
Speaker 9: to marry a god.
Speaker 10: I'm not a god.
Speaker 6: I'm a man. You know that man, now, Billy No,
Speaker 6: And I.
Speaker 9: Should not want to think so, Master, But either way
Speaker 9: this can mean only trouble. I beg you to reconsider,
Speaker 9: and I beg you to shut up.
Speaker 4: Billy.
Speaker 6: I'm through waiting. I'm going over there, muster priest.
Speaker 5: We've got to go with him, believe, and I'm thinking
Speaker 5: it's going to mean trouble. How many men can you defend?
Speaker 3: Depend on?
Speaker 9: No more than twenty with rifles. Most of my men
Speaker 9: are in Bashkuai.
Speaker 3: And what shall we do?
Speaker 9: We shall have to make a run for it. I
Speaker 9: fear we might be safe in bashkai.
Speaker 10: God, now you markling food, bring out the girl.
Speaker 6: Well it's better here, girl.
Speaker 7: This is no way for a bride to Behave a
Speaker 7: smile now and give us a kiss.
Speaker 10: Wenches, don't let them see the blood for year plus?
Speaker 3: What is this?
Speaker 10: Broster?
Speaker 3: This light mark dangle?
Speaker 9: Are coming with naive?
Speaker 1: Say, can't do this.
Speaker 10: I'm a king.
Speaker 3: I'm run one tangle.
Speaker 6: Rounded, Heather, I'll come back.
Speaker 10: I'll come back and feat them blasted heads.
Speaker 5: And that's what I'll do, Daniel, We'll be back, all right,
Speaker 5: How much for Billy?
Speaker 9: Only short way beyond this, rich Master.
Speaker 6: Well, so far, so good.
Speaker 7: Last them blooming.
Speaker 3: Drums are stopped.
Speaker 5: We're at the top, Daniel, Right, good climate's been Oh wait, look.
Speaker 9: It seems the drums have come before us.
Speaker 3: Master cut off.
Speaker 7: Oh less than a thousand of them standing there quiet
Speaker 7: like with them wicked long knives in their hands.
Speaker 3: There'll be no getting past. Damn Daniel, we.
Speaker 7: Are done for Go back, Billy Fish and take your
Speaker 7: men away with you. Go with him, Peachey, it's me
Speaker 7: they want.
Speaker 3: I did it neither King, no Dan. I'm sticking with you, Millyfish.
Speaker 3: You'll clear out.
Speaker 9: I am your friend.
Speaker 3: I stay with you.
Speaker 6: You're a good man.
Speaker 5: Billy maybe coming now, Daniel, Peachey, forget it, Daniel life,
Speaker 5: I give you freegan.
Speaker 6: Then let them come. There'll be one thing they can't change, Peachy.
Speaker 9: We've been kings, kings, and are right kings of all copys.
Speaker 11: Time I.
Speaker 13: Sliced open poor belly fish like blowing head, and the
Speaker 13: dead they're in the snow in the rocks.
Speaker 3: Good lord man. But you pitchy, you got away from
Speaker 3: them like no way did I get away from He
Speaker 3: is for fair all right.
Speaker 13: Struck me out on a tree, drove nails right through
Speaker 13: my hands.
Speaker 3: They did see.
Speaker 13: But I've fooled them all right. Because morning came. I
Speaker 13: wasn't no wise dead. Then I made them think I
Speaker 13: lost my senses. I was afraid toll me because I
Speaker 13: was protected by Allah.
Speaker 11: They cut me down then and after a while they
Speaker 11: let me go, you poor devil. But what a drabbit?
Speaker 4: What happened to Daniel?
Speaker 3: Dank Daniel is a king. He wears the golden crown.
Speaker 3: But now what happened to him? He's never left me?
Speaker 3: All them long months walking on the road back, he
Speaker 3: kept me safe the mountains.
Speaker 13: They danced at night, but Daniel held up his hands
Speaker 13: and Peachey came.
Speaker 3: Along bent double.
Speaker 13: I'd never let go Daniel's hand, not Daniel's head, but
Speaker 13: they gave me in the temple as a present.
Speaker 3: It's with me now here in this buntle. You knew
Speaker 3: old Daniels him that was a monoch once look at him.
Speaker 3: Now ah, oh well, and now you've seen that we
Speaker 3: was really kings, and be.
Speaker 11: On the way.
Speaker 13: U.
Speaker 3: You'll pardon, sir.
Speaker 11: I let him go.
Speaker 3: There was little else to do.
Speaker 11: He was only ours away from his death.
Speaker 4: I sat there and stared at the bundle he had
Speaker 4: left lying on my desk, stared as the pale shafts
Speaker 4: of dawn struck fire in the red beard, stared at
Speaker 4: the golden crown, sitting too large and heavy upon the
Speaker 4: wrinkled mummy fied head of Daniel drabat the Man Who Would.
Speaker 3: Be King.
Speaker 12: Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robeson. Tonight's
Speaker 12: story rodyerd Kipling Is The Man Who Would Be King
Speaker 12: was adapted for radio by Les Crutchfield and featured Raymond
Speaker 12: Lawrence's Peachy, Eric Snowden as Daniel Grabatt, and Herbert Rowlinson
Speaker 12: is Kipling. Musical effects were created and conducted by Cy Fewer.
Speaker 12: Next week, CBS at its affiliated stations invite you to
Speaker 12: escape in Operation florid Ly, an episode from the files
Speaker 12: of the OSS, and all good night until a week
Speaker 12: from tonight, when again we invite you to escape. This
Speaker 12: is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System
Speaker 13: H