perhaps, but the chain that bound him was
loosed, sinewy arms were dragging him away. As he went, he glared up again
at Herodias. His face had lost its beatitude.

"You will be stripped of your purple, Jezebel; your diadem will be trodden
under foot. The pains of a woman in travail will be as joys unto yours.
There will be not enough stones to throw at you, and the abomination of
your lust will bellow, Accursed, even beyond the tomb."

The anathema fainted in the distance. The Scribes consulted between their
teeth. By the Pharisees Antipas was blamed. A merchant from Hippos did not
understand, and the Law was explained. That a man should marry his
brother's wife was a duty, only in this instance it had not occurred to
the brother to die beforehand. Then, again, by her first husband Herodias
had a child, and in that was the abomination.

The merchant did not wholly grasp the distinction, but he nodded as though
he had.

"There was a child, was there?"

A captain of the garrison answered: "A girl, Salome."

He said nothing further, but the merchant could see that his mouth watered
at the thought of her.

The crowd had become very dense. Suddenly a trumpet blared. At the gate
was Pontius Pilate. On his head was a high and dazzling helmet. His tunic
was short, open at the neck. His legs were bare. He was shod with shoes
that left the toes exposed. From his cuirass a gorgon's head had, in
deference to local prejudice, been effaced; in its stead were scrolls and
thunderbolts. From the belt rows of straps, embroidered and fringed, fell
nearly to the knee. He held his head in the air. His features were
excellent, and his beard hung in rows of short overlapping curls.

Behind him was his body-guard. Before him Antipas stood, welcoming the
Roman in Greek.

In the sky now were the advancing steps of night; in crevices of the
basalt the leaves of the baaras weed had begun to flicker. It was time for
the festival to begin; and, preceding the guests, Antipas passed into a
hall beyond.

It was oblong, curved at the ends, and so vast that the roof was vague. On
the walls were slabs of different colors, marble spotted like the skin of
serpents, and onyx flecked with violet. On two sides were galleries
supported by columns of sandstone. A third gallery formed a semicircle.
Opposite, at the further end, on a dais, was the table of the tetrarch.

Antipas faced the assemblage. At his left was the procurator, at his right
the e