uly her grievance was unmeasurable, the more so even that she had not
deigned to utter so much as a reproach. At the rumor of his treachery she
had betaken herself to the solitudes, where Aretas her father was king,
and had there remained girt in that unmurmuring silence which nobility
raises as a barrier between outrage and itself, and which the desert is
alone competent to suggest.

"It is he!"

The tetrarch started so abruptly that he narrowly missed the jar at his
side. On noiseless sandals Pahul had approached, and stood before him
nodding his head with an air of assured conviction. The ape had fled and a
stork stepped gingerly away.

"It is he," the Greek repeated--"John the Baptist."

Antipas plucked at his beard. "But he is dead," he gasped; "I beheaded
him. What nonsense you talk!"

"It is he, I tell you, only grown younger. I found him in the synagogue."

"Where? what synagogue?"

Pahul made a gesture. "At Capharnahum," he answered, and gazed in the
tetrarch's face. He was slight of form and regular of feature. As a lad he
had crossed bare-handed from Cumae to Rhegium, and from there drifted to
Rome, where he started a commerce in Boetican girls which had so far
prospered that he bought two vessels to carry the freight. Unfortunately
the vessels met in a storm and sank. Then he became a hanger-on of the
circus; in idle moments a tout. It was in the latter capacity that Antipas
met him, and, pleased with his shrewdness and perfect corruption, had
attached him to his house. This had occurred in years previous, and as yet
Antipas had found no cause to regret the trust imposed. He was a useful
braggart, idle, familiar, and discreet; and he had acquired the dialect of
the country with surprising ease.

"There were any number of people," Pahul continued. "Some said he was the
son of Joseph, the son of----"

"But he, what did he say? How tiresome you are!"

"Ah!" And Pahul swung his arms. "Who is Mammon?"

"Mammon? Mammon? How do I know? Plutus, I suppose. What about him?"

"And who is Satan?"

"Satan? Satan is a--He's a Jew god. Why? But what do you mean by asking me
questions?"

Pahul nodded absently. "I heard him say," he continued, "that no man could
serve God and Mammon. At first I thought he meant you. It was this way. I
got into conversation with a friend of his, a man named Judas. He told me
any number of things about him, that he cured the sick----"

"Bah! Some Greek physician."

"That he