JUDITH (subtly and sweetly).  And?

OZIAS (in an outburst).  What am I without you, O Judith?  Before Manasses loved you, did I not love you?  For three years have I not watched over you in all honour and respect, and troubled you not with my importunity until this day, which is the day of days?  What am I without you, and what shall be my dominion and my satrap’s throne if you do not sit in majesty by my side, O Rose of Sharon and matchless among women?

Judith (as before).  My lord, you are like a rushing river.

OZIAS.  You have seen my heart.

JUDITH.  I have seen it.

OZIAS.  And what say you?

There is the sudden sound of a disturbance.  Enter, from back, soldiers, holding Achior, and a group of excited citizens.  Haggith appears at the house-door.

OZIAS (fiercely).  What!  Are my commands no more than the wind in the corn, and is there to be naught but tumult within the walls of this city?

VOICES IN THE GROUP.  An Assyrian!  An Assyrian!

FIRST SOLDIER.  Lord Ozias!  We saw this man lying bound at the foot of the hill, and we descended and loosed him and brought him privily into Bethulia by the secret way.  And now we present him to my lord.

OZIAS Fools!  Then no longer is the secret way secret.

VOICES.  Slay him!  Stone him!  Whip the dog!

JUDITH (nobly scornful, to the crowd).  Oh!  Brave!  Oh!  Men of courage and high valour!

OZIAS (to Achior).  Who are you?

ACHIOR.  Achior.

OZIAS.  Your condition?

ACHIOR (with calm, genial candour).  Captain of all the Ammonites in the army of Holofernes.

JUDITH.  Let them loose him, Lord Ozias.  His eyes are not the eyes of treachery.

OZIAS (to the soldiers).  Loose him. (To Achior.) And how come you here?  Speak the truth—­and fear.

ACHIOR.  My mouth shall say truth, but I will not fear.

OZIAS.  My hand is terrible.

ACHIOR.  Thus it happened.  When the children of Israel had shut up the passages of the hill country and had fortified all the tops of the high hills, Holofernes was very angry.  And he called the captains of Ammon and said to them:  Tell me now, ye sons of Chanaan, who these Israelites are that dwell in the hill country, and wherein is their power and strength, and why they have determined not to come and meet me, more than all the inhabitants of the west?  And I, Achior, answered the question of Holofernes.

OZIAS.  And what answer gave you?

ACHIOR.  I said to Holofernes:  This people is descended of the Chaldeans.  But they left the way of their ancestors and would not follow the gods of their fathers; and they worshipped the God of heaven.  So they were cast out from the face of the gods of Chaldea, and they fled into Mesopotamia.  And they came to Chanaan.  But when a famine covered all the land of Chanaan they went down into Egypt, and the king of Egypt brought them low with labouring in brick and made them slaves.  Then they cried to their God, and he smote all the land of Egypt with plagues....  And God dried the Red Sea for them.