University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

A street in Bethulîa. Time: close upon daybreak. It is still very dark. Enter Ozias, Charmis, and Chabris with Abner and Hadad, captains of the guard, preceded by several night-watchmen carrying lighted lanterns slung on long staffs. The light-bearers, on halting, form in a half circle behind the speakers.
OZIAS
Here let us pause a moment and take breath.
(To Abner)
What is the hour?

ABNER
'T is close upon the dawn.

CHARMIS
At dawn it was we were to hear their prayer.

OZIAS
Their orders, rather. We no longer rule.

CHABRIS
Hunger and thirst and fever rule us now.
The people threaten to break down the gates
Unless within the limit of five days
We somehow get them bread and meat and drink,
Or come to terms with the Assyrians.

CHARMIS
That means surrender.

CHABRIS
And surrender means
Slaughter, since Holofernes seldom spares
Woman or child.

OZIAS
Scant mercy will he show
To us who for a month have blocked his march
Through the hill-passes.

CHARMIS
Can the town be held
Much longer?

OZIAS
No. Starvation faces us,
Draws each day nearer. We have still some grain,
And just outside the Eastern Gate a spring
The foe have not discovered.
(Looking off)
Who goes there?

ELIKA,
entering
'T is I, Elika.

OZIAS
By the lantern's light
I read ill tidings in thy bloodless face.
What is it? Speak!

ELIKA
This night the enemy
Crept up unnoted to the very walls
And cut the water-course.

OZIAS,
aghast
Where were our guards,
To let that happen?

ELIKA
Thrice their number came
And fell on them and slew them in the dark.
The bodies of our comrades choke the stream.

CHABRIS
Each moment brings some new calamity!

CHARMIS
Aye; it is whispered that the pest is here.
At set of sun two women and a child
Were taken with strange sickness on the street.

CHABRIS
Perchance they drank of some infected well.

CHARMIS
Enoch the leech, most wise in that disease,
Named it the plague.

OZIAS
Alas, that this should be!
(To Hadad)
What other stroke has fortune dealt to us
By stealth?

HADAD
Nought else. The foe have made no move
Save that now told to thee.

OZIAS
Unwatchful eyes,
Methinks, are those we trust to guard our sleep!

ABNER
Few are the eyes that have not watched this night.
Even the widow Judith hath stood guard,
Since dusk, upon the Tower.

CHARMIS
What brings her there?

ABNER
I know not. Achior the Ammonite,
Who has not quit the courtyard since she came,
Told me, in passing, that late yestere'en
He saw her hasten through the court and climb
The mouldy stairway, at whose foot he waits
To shield her from mischance when she descends.
Rude folk, and wanton, wander in the dark.

CHABRIS
Strange she should spend the night upon the Tower!

OZIAS
Doubtless she sought the quiet of the place
There in the starlight to commune with God.
A holy woman, dead Manasseh's wife.
Her feet are swift to mercy. Through the siege
Her touch has soothed the dying, and her voice
In the dull ear of sorrow whispered hope.
An angel of sweet mercy has she been!

CHARMIS
Yet till we fell upon this evil time
She held herself aloof in her own house,
Leading a life of penances and prayers.
If she went forth, 't was with a widow's veil
That muffled up her beauty from the gaze.
Comely and fair is she to look upon!

OZIAS
Her beauty goes unhidden. She is seen
In every dingy by-way of the town
Where grief or pain has builded its abode.
No hovel is so loathsome but the earth
Before the door-sill bears her sandal-print.

ABNER
A saint among the poor! The common folk
Look on her as a kind of prophetess,
Like Deborah.

CHABRIS
I would that she might find
Another Jael! But such women now
Walk not the earth.

OZIAS
Who knows? In every age
Have mighty spirits dwelt unseen with man,
Biding the hour that needed them.

[The stage lightens a little
CHARMIS
Behold,
The dawn creeps on apace. 'T is well we stir.
What answer shall we give the desperate folk
Who bid us meet them in the council-hall
With some device to ease their misery?

CHABRIS
Such food as is, the fighting man must have,
Though wife and children starve—an old, old tale!

OZIAS
To yield the city is to seal our doom
At once. The people grant us five days' grace.
In this brief respite what may chance, God knows.

CHABRIS
Then at the end we open wide our gates
To Holofernes and his hungry swords!

OZIAS,
lifting up his hands
Unless God help us.
(Turns to Abner)
We can find our way
Without the lanterns. Get thee now to bed,
Thou and thy men, who long have been a-foot.
The peace of God rest on thee and thy house!
The two officers salute the Patriarchs and go out, followed by the light-bearers extinguishing their lanterns.
Our path leads by the Tower; I fain would speak
With Judith, if she be not gone from there.
That woman's name, pronounced just now by chance,
Sent a quick thrill of lightness to my heart,
An exultation, wherefore I know not,
And something whispered me: “Go talk with her!”

CHARMIS
She must have gone by this.

OZIAS
'T is but a step,
And we shall know. Meanwhile the certainty
That she awaits us yonder in the court
Hath such possession of me I can see
The woman standing there, beneath the arch,
With parted lips as if to speak to us!

CHABRIS
Go first, Ozias; we will follow thee.

Dark stage and change of scene