ment.
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.

OZI