Jochebed
She knows nothing? Wonderful, and yet horrible. Has she no suspicion?
At times she has suspected, but I have been able to calm her fears. Yesterday, when the first rams were at work, she was alarmed by the cries of the populace. Throwing off the coverlet, she wrung her hands, and declared she must forth to the walls, that war had come, that the enemy was in the city, that Zion was perishing. Her son’s prophecy was being fulfilled, the king of the north had come. She struggled to her feet. Then her knees gave way beneath her. I caught her as she fell, bore her back to bed, and persuaded her that it was all a dream, that the shouting and the hosannas were but the illusion of fever. She seemed to believe me, lying with open eyes, and listening to the muffled clamor from the street.
Jochebed
’Tis wondrous strange. But what has thus confused her?
Ahab
In her sickness she craves for her son.
Jochebed
Jeremiah, the madman! The zealot of the streets. She herself drove him from the house.