ut to death
by wish of Herodias.

The silence around is solemn. From time to time, however, is heard the
dull rustling of the enormous branches of the pine-trees, shaken by the
wind. Copper-colored clouds, reddened by the setting sun, pass slowly
over the forest, and are reflected in the current of a brook, which,
deriving its source from a neighboring mass of rocks, flows through the
ruins. The water flows, the clouds pass on, the ancient trees tremble,
the breeze murmurs.

Suddenly, through the shadow thrown by the overhanging wood, which
stretches far into endless depths, a human form appears. It is a woman.
She advances slowly towards the ruins. She has reached them. She treads
the once sacred ground. This woman is pale, her look sad, her long
robe floats on the wind, her feet covered with dust. She walks with
difficulty and pain. A block of stone is placed near the stream, almost
at the foot of the statue of John the Baptist. Upon this stone she sinks
breathless and exhausted, worn out with fatigue. And yet, for many days,
many years, many centuries, she has walked on unwearied.

For the first time, she feels an unconquerable sense of lassitude. For
the first time, her feet begin to fail her. For the first time, she,
who traversed, with firm and equal footsteps, the moving lava of torrid
deserts, while whole caravans were buried in drifts of fiery sand--who
passed, with steady and disdainful tread, over the eternal snows of
Arctic regions, over icy solitudes, in which no other human being could
live--who had been spared by the devouring flames of conflagrations, and
by the impetuous waters of torrents--she, in brief, who for centuries
had had nothing in common with humanity--for the first time suffers
mortal pain.

Her feet bleed, her limbs ache with fatigue, she is devoured by burning
thirst. She feels these infirmities, yet scarcely dares to believe them
real. Her joy would be too immense! But now, her throat becomes dry,
contracted, all on fire. She sees the stream, and throws herself on her
knees, to quench her thirst in that crystal current, transparent as
a mirror. What happens then? Hardly have her fevered lips touched the
fresh, pure water, than, still kneeling, supported on her hands, she
suddenly ceases to drink, and gazes eagerly on the limpid stream.
Forgetting the thirst which devours her, she utters a loud cry--a cry
of deep, earnest, religious joy, like a note of praise and infinite
gratitude to