war cannot continue on such a scale. Or if it does, mankind is destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar has rendered war ridiculous.

OZIAS (laughs; then half to himself, sarcastically). What is heavier than lead, and what is the name thereof, but an aged fool?

CHABRIS (descending again, self-centred). It remains that I cannot eat pulse without water to drink. (To Ozias.) And surely Bethulia has more wells than any other city of Judea.

OZIAS. The wells are at the foot of the hills, and Holofernes has seized them all.

CHABRIS. That is not fighting.

OZIAS. It is war.

CHABRIS. No, no! In my time soldiers fought fairly.

OZIAS. And killed each other. Why should Holofernes sacrifice thousands of lives to take the heights when he can reach the same result by letting his men sit still and watch?

CHABRIS. I say this is not war. Once I travelled many days to Nineveh. It is a city of extravagance, and when I beheld its mad, new-fangled ways, I knew that the last day was nigh. I was right. Three thousand and five hundred years since Jehovah created Adam, and Eve from his rib ... Too long! Too long! And what is pulse without water? I must have water.

OZIAS. It is thirty-four days since Holofernes took the wells. If you have received water up to yesterday your great-grandchild must indeed have thirsted that you might drink. I have distributed water by measure, but now the cisterns are empty, and women and young men fall down in the streets, and there is no water in Bethulia. We are all in like case, the high and the lowly.

CHABRIS. Then give me your bottle.

OZIAS. What bottle?

CHABRIS. I saw you put it from your lips as I came.

OZIAS. It behoves you to understand, old man, that my solemn duty as governor is to maintain my own strength, for if I fell the city would fall. Without me to inspire them the populace would yield in a moment. What is the populace? Poltroons, animals, sheep, rabbits, insects, lice!

CHABRIS. Give me the bottle.

OZIAS. It is as empty as the cisterns.

CHABRIS. Give it to me, or I will cry through the streets that you are concealing water. (Ozias gives him the bottle. Chabris drinks. Ozias snatches the bottle away and conceals it.) Ah!

(A figure is glimpsed in the tent on the roof of Judith's house. Ozias starts.)

CHABRIS. What is that up yonder?

OZIAS. Nothing.

CHABRIS. Whose house is this?

OZIAS. It is the house of Judith, the daughter of Merari.

CHABRIS. Ah! Merari, the son of Ox, the son of Oziel—Oziel and I were little playful boys together—the son of Elcia, the son of Raphaim, the son of Eliab, the son of Nathanael, the son of——

OZIAS. Old man, your memory is terrible. Have pity!

CHABRIS. The draught has revived me. So Merari married and had a daughter. What manner of woman is she?

OZIAS. She is the widow of Manasses, who died of the heat in the barley harvest. And she is childless. And she is very rich; for Manasses left her gold and silver and menservants and maid-servants and cattle and lands. And she has remained a widow in her house three years and four months, and never has she come forth. And there is none to give her an ill word, for she fears the Lord greatly.

CHABRIS. Yes. But what manner of woman is she?

OZIAS. She is beautiful to behold.

CHABRIS (to himself). Oh! That manner of woman!

OZIAS. And she has fasted all the days of her widowhood, except the eves of the Sabbaths and the Sabbaths, and the eves of the new moons and the new moons, and the feasts and solemn days of the House of Israel.

CHABRIS. You are most deeply versed in her life. Is she exceeding beautiful?

OZIAS. She is exceeding beautiful.

CHABRIS. Then it was she who peeped (with a peculiar emphasis on the word) from the tent a moment since.

OZIAS. Old man, you have eyes.

CHABRIS. It is the draught of water.

OZIAS. She is said to take the air in her tent daily at this hour.

CHABRIS (accusingly). And that is why you are here, Ozias.

OZIAS. No! I come here to reflect upon my plans for the saving of the city, and because of this vantage-point, to view the army of the Assyrians.

CHABRIS. This vantage-point is new since my day. You have built it here, not to see the Assyrians, but to see Judith. And that is why you have set a guard to keep the street empty.

OZIAS. And if it be so, what then? Old man, you are so old that to confess in your ear is sweet, like murmuring secrets into the grave. If I do come to this place to watch for the marvellous vision of Judith, what then?

CHABRIS. What then? And the populace of Bethulia dying of thirst?

OZIAS. The populace!... Mice! Rats! Beetles! (He makes the motion of crushing with his foot.)

CHABRIS. Yet the city is doomed. You can have no hope.

OZIAS. No hope? Am I then a dead body? Am I a rotting corpse? True, the city will be taken, and when the city is taken I may be killed. But in your meditations, old man, has it not occurred to you that death must be highly interesting? Or I may be seized for a slave. But either I should cease speedily to be a slave, or I should become the most powerful slave in Babylon. (Reflectively.) We might be enslaved together.

CHABRIS. Who?

OZIAS. Judith and I. The history of the world is full of miracles. Meanwhile, I live, and the strong savour of life inflames my nostrils; and the ever-increasing magnificence and terror of war is like wine in my mouth. I shake with delight at the vastness and the mystery of the future.... And there is woman!

CHABRIS. I feel I can eat my pulse now.

OZIAS. There is still woman.

A fracas is heard, back. Enter Rahel, running, followed by two soldiers and a mixed group of Bethulians, including Charmis, an elder.

RAHEL (to Chabris, like a termagant). Why did you go forth alone, grandad, frightening me when I looked and could not find you? At your age! Come back with me this moment.

CHABRIS. Ay! There is still woman!

OZIAS (angrily, to first soldier). Did I not give an order to bar the street?

FIRST SOLDIER. My lord, some of these are elders of high authority, and would pass. As for the girl——

RAHEL (to Chabris). This moment! (She faints and falls.)

CHABRIS (indifferently, as Charmis moves towards Rahel). Let her lie. She will come to of herself—or not, as God wills.

OZIAS (to the soldiers, with cold fierceness). Get back to your places. (Exeunt soldiers.)

CHARMIS (looking at Ozias and indicating Rahel). She is the fourteenth I have seen faint from thirst in the streets this day.

OZIAS (soothingly). Alas! And you or I may be the next. We are all in like case. But what is to be done?

(Confused feeble exclamations from the group of citizens: 'We want to know. We are come for that. There is but one thing to be done.')

OZIAS (still soothingly). Who among you will be the spokesman?

CHARMIS. We are all spokesmen.

OZIAS. Even the children?

CHARMIS. Even the children. In our extremity we are all spokesmen.

OZIAS. But not all at once. Will you begin, honourable Charmis? You know that I am the servant of the citizens.

CHARMIS (nervously oratorical). Lord Ozias, may the God of Israel judge between us and you, for you have done us a great injury. (Looks round for approval. The group approves.)

OZIAS. An injury? I? Have I not said that I am the servant of the citizens?

CHARMIS (more confidently). And I say again that you have done us a great injury, in that you have not asked peace of the Assyrians. For we have no helper, and the God of Israel has sold us into the hands of the Assyrians. We are thrown down before them with thirst and with great destruction.