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