OZIAS (imperiously).  Go quickly.  For who is the governor of this city? 
Is it thou or is it I?

(Exit Charmis, L.)

(Men and women have gathered joyously in the street.)

VOICES (mockingly, indicating Ingur, with a tendency to horseplay). 
The Assyrian!  The Assyrian!

OZIAS.  Take him to the guard-house and chain him to Achior.

HAGGITH.  He shall not go, lord Ozias.  For as my mistress beguiled Holofernes, so did I beguile Ingur, and he is my slave.  But I have not cut off his head, and he is dear to me because I have not cut off his head.  And he is mine, and let none touch him (looking at the soldiers), or my anger, which is the anger of the lady Judith, shall be upon that man. (Hearing a noise, she glances at the house.) What do I see?  The sluts are in the tent of my mistress, which is forbidden them.  Out, sluts! (Exit angrily into the house!)

(Ingur follows her quickly for protection.)

Enter Messenger.

OZIAS.  And you?

MESSENGER (saluting).  Do my eyes behold the great lord Ozias, governor of Bethulia?

OZIAS.  Your eyes behold him.

MESSENGER.  It is not yet dawn, nevertheless the streets of the city are full of a great going and coming, but I found none to lead me to the house of the lord Ozias.  Yet when I saw my lord’s visage my heart said:  ‘This is he.’

OZIAS.  What is your affair with me?

MESSENGER.  I am a messenger.

OZIAS (curtly).  Speak quickly, for the government of this city in this hour is no common matter, and the whole charge of it lies upon me.

MESSENGER.  And I am no common messenger.  I come with wings through the night from Jerusalem, from Joachim, the high priest.

OZIAS.  Ah! (Changing his tone and beckoning the messenger aside.) What tidings do you bear?

MESSENGER.  I bear the licence from Joachim.

OZIAS.  What licence?

MESSENGER.  The licence for the people of Bethulia to drink the wine which is sanctified and reserved to the priests which serve the Lord.

OZIAS (affecting to be puzzled).  Who hath demanded this licence from
Joachim?

MESSENGER (surprised).  The lord Ozias sent a messenger to Jerusalem to beseech that the licence should be granted.  And my lord’s messenger travelled so swiftly that in the moment when he reached the temple at Jerusalem he fell sick and vomited, and I have come to Bethulia in his place, for after he had vomited he unfolded to me the secret way into the city.

OZIAS (grandly).  It is true.  In the heavy multitude of my cares I had forgotten this matter of the licence.

MESSENGER (confidentially).  And Joachim hath bidden me to say privily that if any have already in their extremity drunk of the sanctified wine it shall be denied utterly—­for the sake of the church.