Suspense. And the producer of radio's outstanding theater of thrills, the master of mystery
and adventure, William N. Robeson.
A man must be born to be a king or trained for it. Daniel Dravet and P.C. Carnahan had
neither qualification. Indeed, all they had was ambition. But they made it and they learned
the hard way that uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Listen. Listen then as Dan
O'Hurley stars in Rudyard Kipling's great story, The Man Who Would Be King, which begins
in just a moment.
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And now, The Man Who Would Be King, starring Mr. Dan O'Hurley, a tale well calculated
to keep you in suspense.
I'm from Europe. My office door slowly opened. The man, no, a ghost stood there. His cheeks
were deep hollows above his staring round eyes. And his clothes were rags hung on a
frame of bone.
You don't know who I am, do you?
No, no, I haven't the faintest idea. But here you'd better sit down, old fellow. You
look in a bad way.
Yes, sir. Thank you. It's a whole year I've been walking. Right here in this very office,
we settled it. You sitting right there, giving us the maps, and laughing at us because we
wanted to be kings. And so we was. We was kings. And you've been sitting there all that
time. Three years.
No, no, a man couldn't change that much in three years. You're not Pitchy Carnahan.
Yes, and I was the King of Kefiristan. Me and Daniel Trafford, real crown kings we was.
Just as true as gospel.
What in the name of heaven have they done to you, Pitchy?
Pitchy? I knew Pitchy Carnahan was. He's a king. Wears a real golden crown on his head.
So help me, he does. He's dead now, though.
No, no, no, you are Pitchy Carnahan.
Yeah, yeah. Look, you've got to keep looking into my eyes. And maybe everything won't go
to pieces.
All right. Now tell me what happened to Pitchy.
Well, we left that caravan we was traveling with at Jagdala. We throck off into the hills
alone.
And so on. Oh, weeks it was we traveled. First there wasn't no roads. And after a while, no
food. But there was always the thrums.
Move along there. They don't even starve the same as ourselves. They'll go no further.
Then we'll go on without him. I've not come this far to die on the side of a mountain.
Wait, wait. Look, Daniel, over the edge of the rocks.
What?
Oh, men they are.
There's a score or more of them. Look, one has gone ahead of the rest and nothing but
bows and arrows. Make out a pair of the rifles, Pitchy.
Break out, Daniel. It's now that we start to become kings. Here you are.
Now then, Pitchy, I'll drop the straggler at the rear first and then we'll lay a few
at their feet. No arm to the one in front. We may need him.
Now.
There, I've got him by the old nick.
Hold it, Daniel, hold it.
Hey, look at them.
Aye, flat on their blooming faces. Their leader is coming out alone.
I await your command, O ye who speak in the voice of thunder.
By the Lord Arrapeachy we're in luck. That's the old Afghan tongue he speaks.
Speak up. Who are you? Where do you come from?
I am High Priest and Chief of the village of Baskay. A journey of only a few heartbeats.
What's your name? Mazulkand Abdaloo.
That's too long.
What do we call him, Pitchy?
Eh, do you know, do you know, he has the look about him of an old soldier and friend of
ours.
Yes? Billy Fish.
Oh, so he does, yeah. We bestow a name on you.
From now on, you'll be Billy Fish.
As you command, I obey.
All right, then put this on your drums. Tell them two kings have come out of the mountain
tops. Two kings that speak in words of thunder so the earth trembles.
Tell them two kings have come to Kapiristan.
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And now, starring Mr. Dan O'Hurley, act two of The Man Who Would Be King.
Hey you, Peachy. Daniel, why are you sitting here in the dark?
I've been thinking. A man has to stop and think sometimes.
About anything special, Daniel?
Look at him, Peachy. Look at him blinking campfires, gleaming in the dark like the jewels
in a crown.
Ah yes, Daniel. You've done a fine job for sure. All 23 villages, you joined together
as one.
Yeah, they're ours now. Every man, jacked woman and child, we own them, body and soul.
Aye, we're kings now, Daniel. Not proper kings yet, but we will be.
Sooner than you think, Peachy.
How's that?
Billy Fish told me something today that fair amazes me. These people know the craft.
What? You mean the Freemasons?
The Freemasons? Oh, Daniel, it can't be possible. So will me. It's gospel true. He gave me
the grip and everything. It's old, Mason Reyes. It's older than the memory of man.
And up here in the hills, they've been preserving it all these years. Why, some of the high
priests know up through the fellow craft, but they don't know the third degree. See it,
Peachy? They don't know the third degree, but we do.
Daniel, what is it you're fixing to do?
Do? We're going to be proper kings. We've got them going and coming. Now, I'm going
to turn the whole country into one grand lodge, raise some of the priests to third degree,
and for me, I'll be the grand master of Cafieristan.
You haven't got the right to. We've never been officers in no lodge.
Yeah, right. What's a king got to do with asking for a right?
I'm against it, Daniel. It's no good to go fooling around with the craft. You talk like
an old woman. The thing will work. I know it will. We'll make it a blooming ceremony.
Regular aprons with the symbols and the marks. Oh, for us, Peachy, the kings of Cafieristan.
Everything is prepared, and the priests and the people wait.
They have much longer, Billy. Here now, Peachy, how do you like my apron?
It's a wondrous sight for fair, Daniel. It made of white ermine skin it is, and the
master's marked with emeralds. Come along now. You ready, Peachy?
Right with you, Daniel. Then out we go and onto the temple steps.
We'll give them what for. Knock their blinking eyes out. That's what we'll do.
Look at them, Peachy. Right down on their booming knees and yelling their full heads
off. Oh, it's just a good thing to be a king, Daniel.
A mark! He holds the mark! She's a sign!
Come in, friends, a pebble! Stand where you are, master. They recognize
the mark. That great stone on the floor. Why don't
they turn it over? Wait.
Speak up, Billy Fish. What's the meaning of it?
See for yourself. Look. Daniel.
Carved on the back of the stone. Yeah. It is the master's mark, all right.
And the same as the sign you wear. Only a few of the priests have known of the
hidden mark on the stone. What does it mean?
Many who have doubted you were a god doubt no longer.
Now, and you, Billy, what do you think? I, master, I think that now it is the time
for these. Daniel.
Golden crown. How they glitter.
Fit for the brow of a king. Oh, it is what we come for.
Here, now, put them on and we'll crown ourselves in our own right.
Listen to them. You know something, Peachy? We come here to be kings and that's what we
are all right. But blame your bling. We ain't a couple of blooming gods to boot with a million
people bowing on their knees before us.
Mark that wind outside, Peachy. Winter's about due to strike and fill the trails with snow.
There'll be little moving about before spring.
You're right. I've been thinking. A man gets lonely in the winter and cold.
Why? So, Peachy, I've decided to take a wife.
A wife? Who?
My room. The girl who brings the food. She's a well-favored wench.
You can't do it, Daniel. We made a contract with each other.
That was until we was kings. Well, kings we've been these many months now.
It's no good. It's no good. I'll tell you now I'm against it.
Against it? You was against using the craft, too. But look what it done for us.
This is different. Billy Fish will tell you all the same as I do.
Billy Fish, yeah. Who's the king here, him or me?
Me mind's made up. Three days from now I shall have me a wife.
And you can put it on the drums and tell every blighter out there in the hills
the kingdom of Kafiristan is going to have a queen.
Who's keeping her, Peachy? They should have brought her in here half an hour ago.
I don't know, Daniel.
How about you, Billy Fish? You put them up to stall in half deliberate light?
Certain preparations must be made, Master.
She's across the court with some of the priests.
Maybe they're trying to hearten her up a bit, Daniel.
She thinks she's going to die, you know.
Die, indeed? Master, it is against the laws of heaven for a woman to marry a god.
I'm not a god. I'm a man. You know that by now, Billy.
I should not want to think so, Master.
But either way this can mean only trouble. I beg you to reconsider.
I beg you to shut up, Billy. I'm through with waiting. I'm going over there.
Master, please. We've got to go with him, Billy. Come on.
Go on now, you bumbling fools. Bring out the girl.
Well, now that's better. There, girl.
This is no way for a bride to behave. Hold on a smile now.
Give us a kiss.
That witch has bitten me. The blood, Master. Don't let them see the blood.
Look! Blood!
Hold on a second.
The blood of the devil! He is only a man!
Here they are, black people. What is this rot?
Master, he's too old.
They're coming with us. They can't do this. I'm the king.
We must do run for it, Master. Run, Daniel. Come on.
The Black Man
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And now, starring Mr. Dan O'Hurley, act three of The Man Who Would Be King.
Confounded heathens. I'll come back. I'll come back and beat their blasey-dits in, that's what I'll do.
Oh, yes, Daniel, yes. We'll be back, all right.
How much further, Billy?
Only a short way beyond this ridge, Master.
Oh, so far so good. At least them blooming drums have stopped.
At the top now, Daniel.
Where the right good climate's been.
Wait. Look.
It seems the drums have come before us, Master.
Cattle.
No less than a thousand of them standing there, quiet like with them wicky long knives in their ends.
There'll be no getting past them, Daniel.
No. We're done for.
Go on back, Billy Fish, take your men away with you.
Go with him, Pitchy. It's me they want.
I did it. Me. The king.
No, Daniel. We made a contract, you and I.
Billy Fish, you clear out.
I am your friend. I stay with you.
Oh, you're a good man, Billy.
A common no, Daniel.
Take Pitchy.
No, no, no, no, forget it, Daniel. I forgive you freely and fully.
All right, then let them come.
There's one thing they can't change, Pitchy.
We've been kings. Kings in our own right.
Kings of all Capiristan.
Hurry up.
Yes. This sliced open poor Billy Fish.
Like a blooming heron, the dead.
There in the snow and the rocks.
Oh, Lord, man.
But you, Pitchy, you got away from them.
Got away from them, did I?
Oh, no, no. Strung me out on a tree.
Drove nails right through me hands, they did.
See?
But I fooled them all right,
because morning came and I wasn't dead.
And then I made them think that I'd lost my senses.
And they was afraid to harm me,
because crazy men is protected by Allah.
They cut me down then, and after a while they let me go.
You poor devil.
What happened to Daniel?
Daniel?
Daniel's a king and he wears a golden crown.
But now what happened to him?
He's never left me.
All them long months walking on the road back, he kept me safe.
The mountains, they danced at night.
But Daniel held up his hand and Pitchy came along, bent double.
I never let go of Daniel, and Daniel never let go of me.
He's with me now, here, in this bundle.
You knew all, Daniel, sir.
You knew he was a king once.
Look at him now.
Oh, Mark.
Oh.
Well, and now you've seen that we was really kings.
I'd be on my way.
You'll pardon me, sir.
I let him go.
There was little else to do.
He was only hours away from his death.
I sat there and stared at the contents of the bundle he had left lying on my desk.
Stared as the pale shafts of dawn struck fire in the red beard.
Stared at the golden crown sitting too large and too heavy
upon the wrinkled mummified head of Daniel Dravet, the man who would be king.
Suspense, in which Mr. Dan O'Hurley starred in William and Robson's production
of The Man Who Would Be King, adapted for radio by Les Crutchfield
from a story by Rudyard Kipling.
In a moment, the names of our supporting players and a word about next week's story of suspense.
A bunch of the boys are whooping it up every weekday on CBS Radio.
Variety spices the airwaves with fun every time CBS Radio turns them loose.
The boys are Pat Butram, Art Linkletter, and Galen Drake.
Here's a threesome that's really awesome for its total output of sheer pleasure.
The remarkable wit of Butram, Linkletter's unending imagination in creating stunts and surprises,
Galen Drake's way with words and stories.
Put them all together and you have a distinctly flavored different sound
only a network could assemble for your weekday pleasure and only the CBS Radio network does.
Listen in daily or as often as you like.
With these boys whooping it up as you move about the house,
one thing that's out the window with the dust is boredom.
The Galen Drake Show, Art Linkletter's house parties from Hollywood,
and Pat Butram's Just Entertainment.
One at a time or all together, they're good clean fun in every weather.
Try them often.
Supporting Dan O'Hurley and The Man Who Would Be King were Lillian Bief, Ben Wright, Jane Novello, and Richard Peele.
Listen. Listen again next week when we return with Mr. Raymond Burr
starring in Edgar Allan Poe's great classic of terror, The Pit and the Pendulum.
Another tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Get the complete news first on the CBS Radio Network.