a sign from Judith, Haggith re-enters the house.)

OZIAS. Your face is turned from me, because of the youth. Yet you came out to see the governor of the city, and the governor could do no other than I have done.

JUDITH (looking at him). Ozias, you have shown me your heart.

OZIAS. Yea!

JUDITH. And in the moment when the youth came you asked of me my counsel.

OZIAS. Yea!

JUDITH. Hear me now, for the words you have spoken before the people this day are not right.

OZIAS. What words?

JUDITH. This promise that you have uttered to deliver the city to our enemies, unless within five days the Lord turn to help. Who are you that seek to stand instead of God among the children of men?

OZIAS. Stand instead of God!

JUDITH. Who are you that have tempted God this day? For you cannot find the depth of the heart of man,—how then shall you search out God or comprehend his purpose? Brother, provoke not the Lord our God to anger. For if he will not help us within these five days, he has power to defend us when he will, even every day. Do not bind the counsels of God. For God is not as man that he may be threatened, neither as the son of man that he should be wavering. Therefore let us wait for salvation from him, and he will hear our voice,—if it please him. Moreover, this city is the key and the gateway to all Judea. If it be obstinate in resistance, Judea is not defiled, but if it be taken the whole land shall lie waste and God will require the profanation of it at our mouth.

OZIAS. All that you have spoken is truth, and there is none to gainsay your words. From the beginning of your days we have known your wisdom, and your understanding is manifest.... (With significance.) But we are thirsty.

JUDITH. If we are thirsty, let us give thanks to the Lord our God, who tries us, even as he did our fathers.

OZIAS. The people in the extremity of their thirst compelled me to an oath, which I will not break.

JUDITH. Say you the people, Ozias? As for them, you hold them lightly, and they are as naught in your eyes. So much you have avowed.

OZIAS (in a new tone). It is true. This day I hold the people lightly. But when the great madness and desperation of thirst comes at last upon them, who shall hold them? In that day they will seize the things forbidden, and they will drink the wine sanctified and reserved for the priests that serve the Lord. And to avert from me the wrath of Joachim, the high priest of Jerusalem, I have sent already a messenger to Jerusalem to bring a licence that this matter may be lawful.

JUDITH (shocked). Nay!

OZIAS. I say it will be so.

JUDITH. It shall not be so.

OZIAS. Then pray you to the Most High for the city, even for all of us, and the Lord will send rain for our cisterns and we shall faint no more. Pray, for you are a godly woman, and the God of Israel shall listen.

JUDITH (with supreme impressiveness). Hear me again, Ozias. This night I will do a thing which shall go throughout all the generations to the children of Israel. You shall stand this night in the gate of the city, and I will go forth from the city with my waiting-woman; and within the days that you have promised to deliver the city to our enemies the Lord will visit Israel by my hand.

OZIAS. On what errand will you go?

JUDITH. Enquire not of my act, for I will not declare it until the things are finished that I do. But this I declare, that the Lord has inclined himself to me, and now he has sent Achior for a sign.

OZIAS. You go to Holofernes!

JUDITH. To Holofernes.

OZIAS. Do not go!

JUDITH. But why shall I not go?

OZIAS. The perils of the heathen will surround you, and harm will surely befall you, for Holofernes will work lamentable evil upon you. And I cannot suffer it.

JUDITH (smiling). Did not Ozias say that Holofernes was a great warrior and had compassion in his greatness?

OZIAS (insistent). I cannot suffer it, for if any shame come upon you I will not live.

JUDITH. God will not see his handmaid shamed. Moreover I regard not myself in this thing, but the welfare of the people of Israel.

OZIAS (kneeling). Judith, I entreat you! For you are the light of my eyes, and without you the world is not.

JUDITH (softly). I know it. Think you that in these years I have not seen the depths of your heart, Ozias? Think you that I was blind in my tent? Think you that I watched not upon you? You were comely in my sight. But this day you have revealed your pride. For you seek not God, but the vanity of the earth, and you would make all Israel the instrument of your glory, denying the Lord. And I am sad.

OZIAS. Forgive me, Rose of Sharon.

JUDITH (softly). Who am I, to forgive my brother? Peace be upon you! (She turns towards her house.)

OZIAS (rising,). Stay!

JUDITH. I go to prepare myself for that which I have to do. (Exit into the house.)

(A soldier shows himself, back.)

OZIAS. Friend!

FIRST SOLDIER (approaching and saluting). Lord! Your command!

OZIAS. Send to me the officer of the watch.

FIRST SOLDIER. Lord, the honourable lieutenant lies sick.

(Haggith appears at the door of the house.)

OZIAS. Thirst has overcome him?

FIRST SOLDIER (bowing). He raves on the bed, lord, and his tongue is like the tongue of a dog.

OZIAS. Who then commands the watch by the watchfires this night?

FIRST SOLDIER. I, lord. The watchfires wait the torch.

OZIAS. Will you, too, faint, and will your tongue be like the tongue of a dog?

FIRST SOLDIER (grimly), Not mine, lord.

OZIAS. DO the people complain?

FIRST SOLDIER. Lord, they whine and snivel mightily.

Enter Haggith with a small sack.

OZIAS. Is the secret way shut?

FIRST SOLDIER. Shut and barred, lord.

OZIAS. It must be opened.... Stand! I will see to it.

FIRST SOLDIER. AS my lord wills.

OZIAS. Has the watch aught to drink?

FIRST SOLDIER. My lord knows that no drop is left in the gourds.

(Ozias waves him away, and he retires.)

OZIAS (to Haggith, who is busy with the sack). Woman, has the lady Judith perchance dreamed a dream?

HAGGITH (enigmatically). My mistress has dreamed no dream. Why does the lord Ozias ask?

OZIAS. It seemed to me—(stops)

HAGGITH. Dreams lift up fools. (Exit into the house.) (Exit Ozias, L.)

(The soldier strolls forward. Twilight begins to fall.)

(Enter Haggith from the house with more baggage.)

HAGGITH (to the soldier; curtly; not looking at him). So thou hast no water?

FIRST SOLDIER (with genial freedom). Yea, Haggith, we have still a little.

HAGGITH. Then thou has lied to the governor?

FIRST SOLDIER. Him? (With a jerk of the shoulder!) He knows! In truth now, thinkest thou he would expect us soldiers to keep guard without water? He knows! But he is a great lord, and in seemliness he asks for a lie, and that which he asks is given to him—in seemliness.

HAGGITH. But the officer raving as thou hast said with thirst?

FIRST SOLDIER. Ah! It is the business of a worshipful officer to scorn deceit and to suffer.

HAGGITH. And all the people?

FIRST SOLDIER. The people are the people. But we soldiers are soldiers—and must drink, or we cannot guard. (Yawns.) Eh! I could lie down and snore for seven years, but I am appointed to watch all night.

HAGGITH (suddenly caressing). Sweet warrior! Would I could rest thee!

FIRST SOLDIER (startled by the change in her demeanour). Haggith! Thou art marvellously and desirably changed.

HAGGITH. I am practising to thy profit for that which lies before me and my mistress.

FIRST SOLDIER.