e than strangers to each
other! I will take myself off until you recover."

She signed to the servant to follow her and passed out of the hall.

Philadelphus then put off his stony quiet and gazed wrathfully at the
woman who had entered.

Hers was a fine frame, broad and square of shoulder, tall and lank of
hip as some great tiger-cat, and splendid in its sinuosity. She had
walked with a long stride and as she dropped into the chair she
crossed her limbs so that her well-turned ankles showed and the hands
she clasped about her knees were long and strong, white and remarkably
tapering. Her features were almost too perfect; her beauty was
sensuous, insolent and dazzling. Withal her presence intimated
tremendous primal charm and the mystery of undiscovered
potentialities. And she was royal! No mere upstart of an impostor
could have assumed that perfect hauteur, that patrician bearing.

But the pretended Philadelphus was not impressed by this beauty.

"How now, Salome?" he demanded. "What play is this?"

The Ephesian actress motioned toward the shittim-wood casket.

"For that," she said calmly.

Her voice became, instantly, her foremost charm. It was a deep voice;
the profoundest contralto with an illimitable strength in suggestion.

"Where is--what is that?"

"Two hundred talents."

Philadelphus took a step toward her.

"What!" he exclaimed evilly. "Whose two hundred talents?"

"Mine."

There was silence in which the man's fingers bent, as if he felt her
throat between them. Then he recovered himself.

"But--this woman--where is she?"

The actress lifted her shapely shoulders.

"Where is the Maccabee?" she asked in return.

He made no answer.

"Did you get that treasure here--since yesterday?" he asked at last
querulously.

"No, by Pluto! I got it in the hills near to Emmaus. You would have
had it in another day." She laughed impudently, in spite of the
murderous blackening in his face.

"Then, since you are such a shrewd thief, why did you come here at
all, since you had the gold?" he demanded, astonished in spite of his
rage.

She waved a pair of jeweled hands.

"They said that the Maccabee was strong and ambitious and forceful,
that he would be king over Judea. Knowing you, I believed he would
still come to Jerusalem in spite of you. How did you do it? In his
sleep? Now, I," she continued with an assumption of concern, "failed
in that detail. She was guarded by a monster. I could not get n