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.