ht?

BAGOAS. The moon is clouded, highness.

HOLOFERNES. Give me wine. (Bagoas _obeys_.) Bagoas!

BAGOAS. Prince?

(_The hangings of the tent R., balloon inwards a little_.)

HOLOFERNES (_looking behind him sharply, spilling some wine_). The wind
is rising.

BAGOAS. It is but a night breeze.

HOLOFERNES (_as he drinks gloomily_). Bagoas, she has escaped back to
her own people.

BAGOAS (_aside_). I would she had, the jade! (_To_ Holofernes.) Prince,
she cannot escape. Every path from the valley is guarded.

HOLOFERNES. What guard could restrain such a woman?

BAGOAS. Ah! Prince! What guard could restrain her?

HOLOFERNES. Dost thou echo me?

BAGOAS. I humbly think the thought of his highness.

HOLOFERNES. Do thy thinking outside.

(Bagoas _bows and moves towards the entrance_. Judith _is standing
there. The two look at each other for a moment_.)

BAGOAS (_with a gesture, indicating_ Judith). Highness!

HOLOFERNES (_Jumping up. To_ Bagoas). Begone to thy post!

(Judith _glides in silently_. Bagoas _goes out. They pass by each other
without a word or a salutation, but mutually scrutinizing_.)

JUDITH. The great feast of the captains is over?

HOLOFERNES. The captains are departed, drunken with wine and their
pride. But thy feast and my feast is not begun. (_Points to the
repast_.)

JUDITH (_enigmatically_.) I am here.

HOLOFERNES (_ecstatic_.) Art thou in truth here, or do my eyes behold
that which is not?

JUDITH. Did I not say that I should come in the night?

HOLOFERNES. Yea, I trusted thee. I trusted thee so much that at the
feast of the captains I commanded that all my hosts shall attack
Bethulia, with bow, and sling, and spear, at sunrise, and also I gave
the word of Holofernes for a pledge that naught in the heavens or on the
earth should resist the onset of the Assyrians; for some among them
feared the word of Achior which they had heard.

JUDITH. You have not done this thing?

HOLOFERNES. I have done it.

JUDITH. Would you forestall God, and would you speak the decrees of God
before they are uttered?

HOLOFERNES. Thou saidst thou wouldst pray to thy god this night and that
he would tell thee when the Israelites in Bethulia had committed their
sin, and that thou wouldst come to me to proclaim the hour of my
triumph.

JUDITH. I said: I will pray to God and _mayhap_ he will tell me.

HOLOFERNES. Thou hast prayed, and thy god hath not answered?

JUDITH. He has not answered.

H