he lake the tranquillity he had
anticipated eluded and declined to be detained. Rumors that Herodias
collected came to him with the stamp of Rome. One of his brothers was
plotting against him; another, though in exile, was plotting too. It was
the Herod blood, his wife said; and, with the intemperance of a woman
whose ambition has been deceived, she taunted him with his plebeian
descent. "Your grandfather was a sweep at Ascalon, a eunuch at that," she
had remarked; and the tetrarch, by way of reply, had been obliged to
content himself by asking how, in that case, he could have been
grandfather at all.

But latterly a new source of inquietude had come. At Magdala, Capharnahum,
Bethsaida, there, within the throw of a stone, was a Nazarene going about
inciting the peasants to revolt. It was very vexatious, and he told
himself that when an annoyance fades another appears. Life, it occurred to
him, was a brier with renascent thorns. And now, as he gargled the wine
that left a pink foam on his lips, even that irritation lapsed in the
perplexing absence of Pahul.

Pahul was a butler of his, a Greek whom he had picked up one adventurous
night in Rome, who had made himself useful, whom he had attached to his
household, whom he consulted, and on whom he relied. Early that day he had
sent him off with instructions to run the demagogue to earth, to listen,
to question if need were, and to hurry back and report. But as yet he had
not returned. The day was fading, and on the amphitheatre which the hills
made the sun seemed to balance itself, the disk blood-red. The lemurs had
tired, perhaps; their yellow eyes and circled tails had gone; the bear had
been led away; only the multicolored ape remained, gnawing now with little
plaintive moans at a bit of fruit which he held suspiciously in his
wrinkled hand.

Presently a star appeared and quivered, then another came, and though
overhead were streaks of pink, and, where the sun had been, a violence of
red and orange, the east retained its cobalt, night still was remote--an
echo of crotals from the neighboring faubourg, the cry of elephants
impatient for their fodder, alone indicating that a day was dead.

In the charm of the encroaching twilight the irritation of the tetrarch
waned and decreased. He lost himself in memories of the princess who had
been his bride, and he wondered were it possible that, despite the
irrevocable, he was never to see, to speak, to hold her to him again.
Tr