Judith, a play in three acts | Page 6

what say you?
_There is the sudden sound of a disturbance. Enter, from back, soldiers, holding_ Achior, and a group of excited citizens. Haggith _appears at the house-door._
OZIAS (_fiercely_). What! Are my commands no more than the wind in the corn, and is there to be naught but tumult within the walls of this city?
VOICES IN THE GROUP. An Assyrian! An Assyrian!
FIRST SOLDIER. Lord Ozias! We saw this man lying bound at the foot of the hill, and we descended and loosed him and brought him privily into Bethulia by the secret way. And now we present him to my lord.
OZIAS Fools! Then no longer is the secret way secret.
VOICES. Slay him! Stone him! Whip the dog!
JUDITH (_nobly scornful, to the crowd_). Oh! Brave! Oh! Men of courage and high valour!
OZIAS (to Achior). Who are you?
ACHIOR. Achior.
OZIAS. Your condition?
ACHIOR (_with calm, genial candour_). Captain of all the Ammonites in the army of Holofernes.
JUDITH. Let them loose him, Lord Ozias. His eyes are not the eyes of treachery.
OZIAS (_to the soldiers_). Loose him. (To Achior.) And how come you here? Speak the truth--and fear.
ACHIOR. My mouth shall say truth, but I will not fear.
OZIAS. My hand is terrible.
ACHIOR. Thus it happened. When the children of Israel had shut up the passages of the hill country and had fortified all the tops of the high hills, Holofernes was very angry. And he called the captains of Ammon and said to them: Tell me now, ye sons of Chanaan, who these Israelites are that dwell in the hill country, and wherein is their power and strength, and why they have determined not to come and meet me, more than all the inhabitants of the west? And I, Achior, answered the question of Holofernes.
OZIAS. And what answer gave you?
ACHIOR. I said to Holofernes: This people is descended of the Chaldeans. But they left the way of their ancestors and would not follow the gods of their fathers; and they worshipped the God of heaven. So they were cast out from the face of the gods of Chaldea, and they fled into Mesopotamia. And they came to Chanaan. But when a famine covered all the land of Chanaan they went down into Egypt, and the king of Egypt brought them low with labouring in brick and made them slaves. Then they cried to their God, and he smote all the land of Egypt with plagues.... And God dried the Red Sea for them.
VOICES. It is true. It is true!
ACHIOR. And they came to Chanaan, and drove before them the inhabitants of that land, and they dwelt in that country many days. And while they sinned not before their God they prospered, because the God that hates iniquity was with them.
VOICES. It is true.
ACHIOR. But when they departed from the way which their God appointed, then they were destroyed in many battles very sore, and were led captives into a land that was not theirs, and the temple of their God was cast to the ground.
VOICES. Gentile dog! Shall we not render him to pieces?
JUDITH. There is but one truth, brethren, whether it please or whether it displease.
OZIAS (to Achior). Make an end.
ACHIOR. And I said to Holofernes: But now this people are returned to their God, and have possessed Jerusalem, and are seated in the hill country. (With more emphasis.) And I said further to Holofernes: Now therefore, my lord and governor, if there be any error in this people, let us go up and we shall overcome them. But if there be no iniquity in their nation, let my lord now pass by, lest their Lord defend them and we become a reproach before all the world.
JUDITH. It was well said.
OZIAS. Lady, it was well said--if the slave said it. (To Achior.) I demanded of you: How came you _here_?
ACHIOR. Thus. When I had finished speaking to Holofernes, all they that were about my lord and governor rose up in wrath and cried: Kill him. And the face of Holofernes darkened, and he said: And who art thou, Achior, that thou hast prophesied among us to-day that we should not make war with the people of Israel because of their God? And who is God but Nebuchadnezzar? Nebuchadnezzar by my hand will destroy the Israelites, and their God shall not deliver them. Their mountains shall be drunken with their blood and their fields shall be filled with their dead bodies. (The citizens show alarm.) And thou, Achior, shalt be delivered up to the Israelites in Bethulia, and when thou seest me again thou shalt fall among the slain.... And he commanded his servants, and they took me, and carried me secretly to the foot of the hill of Bethulia. And here am I!
OZIAS (_after a pause, positively_). It is a wicked device for our undoing.
JUDITH.