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.
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