CHABRIS.  I seem to remember it.

OZIAS.  Come up here. (They go up the steps to the vantage-point.) Look!  A hundred and twenty thousand foot-soldiers.  Twelve thousand archers on horseback.  Oxen and sheep for their provisions.  Twenty thousand asses for their carriages.  Camels without number.  Infinite victuals; and very much gold and silver.  The like was never seen before.

CHABRIS (stepping down.) Why has Nebuchadnezzar set about this thing? 
What harm has Bethulia done to him?

OZIAS.  Much harm.  Nebuchadnezzar has decided to be God.  He has decreed that all nations and tribes shall call upon him as God.  And he has conquered the whole earth, excepting only Judea; and Bethulia is the gate into Judea, and Bethulia has not listened to his decree, and I am the governor of Bethulia.  So Nebuchadnezzar the great king is very angry and Holofernes is the tool of his wrath.

CHABRIS (going up the steps again and gazing.) How many did you say?

OZIAS.  A hundred and twenty thousand foot and twelve thousand horse.

CHABRIS.  At any rate this will be the last war.

OZIAS.  Why?

CHABRIS.  Why!  Because plainly 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?