OZIAS.  And if it be so, what then?  Old man, you are so old that to confess in your ear is sweet, like murmuring secrets into the grave.  If I do come to this place to watch for the marvellous vision of Judith, what then?

CHABRIS.  What then?  And the populace of Bethulia dying of thirst?

OZIAS.  The populace!...  Mice!  Rats!  Beetles! (He makes the motion of crushing with his foot.)

CHABRIS.  Yet the city is doomed.  You can have no hope.

OZIAS.  No hope?  Am I then a dead body?  Am I a rotting corpse?  True, the city will be taken, and when the city is taken I may be killed.  But in your meditations, old man, has it not occurred to you that death must be highly interesting?  Or I may be seized for a slave.  But either I should cease speedily to be a slave, or I should become the most powerful slave in Babylon. (Reflectively.) We might be enslaved together.

CHABRIS.  Who?

OZIAS.  Judith and I. The history of the world is full of miracles.  Meanwhile, I live, and the strong savour of life inflames my nostrils; and the ever-increasing magnificence and terror of war is like wine in my mouth.  I shake with delight at the vastness and the mystery of the future....  And there is woman!

CHABRIS.  I feel I can eat my pulse now.

OZIAS.  There is still woman.

A fracas is heard, back.  Enter Rahel, running, followed by two soldiers and a mixed group of Bethulians, including Charmis, an elder.

RAHEL (to Chabris, like a termagant).  Why did you go forth alone, grandad, frightening me when I looked and could not find you?  At your age!  Come back with me this moment.

CHABRIS.  Ay!  There is still woman!

OZIAS (angrily, to first soldier).  Did I not give an order to bar the street?

FIRST SOLDIER.  My lord, some of these are elders of high authority, and would pass.  As for the girl——­

RAHEL (to Chabris).  This moment! (She faints and falls.)

CHABRIS (indifferently, as Charmis moves towards Rahel).  Let her lie.  She will come to of herself—­or not, as God wills.

OZIAS (to the soldiers, with cold fierceness).  Get back to your places. (Exeunt soldiers.)

CHARMIS (looking at Ozias and indicating Rahel).  She is the fourteenth I have seen faint from thirst in the streets this day.

OZIAS (soothingly).  Alas!  And you or I may be the next.  We are all in like case.  But what is to be done?

(Confused feeble exclamations from the group of citizens: ’We want to know.  We are come for that.  There is but one thing to be done.’)

OZIAS (still soothingly).  Who among you will be the spokesman?

CHARMIS.  We are all spokesmen.

OZIAS.  Even the children?

CHARMIS.  Even the children.  In our extremity we are all spokesmen.