ch was as eager as
he. But if this news were true, no more was to be feared from Agrippa's
scheming.

"The dungeons of Tiberias are hard to open, and sometimes life itself is
uncertain within their depths," said Herodias, with grim significance.

Antipas understood her; and, although she was Agrippa's sister, her
atrocious insinuation seemed entirely justifiable to the tetrarch.
Murder and outrage were to be expected in the management of political
intrigues; they were a part of the fatal inheritance of royal houses;
and in the family of Herodias nothing was more common.

Then she rapidly unfolded to the tetrarch the secrets of her recent
undertakings, telling him how many men had been bribed, what letters had
been intercepted, and the number of spies stationed at the city gates.
She did not hesitate even to tell him of her success in an attempt to
befool and seduce Eutyches the denunciator.

"And why should I not?" she said; "it cost me nothing. For thee, my
lord, have I not done more than that? Did I not even abandon my child?"

After her divorce from Philip, she had indeed left her daughter in Rome,
hoping that, as the wife of the tetrarch, she might bear other children.
Until that moment she had never spoken to Antipas of her daughter. He
asked himself the reason for this sudden display of tenderness.

During their brief conversation several attendants had come out upon
the balcony; one slave brought a quantity of large, soft cushions, and
arranged them in a kind of temporary couch upon the floor behind his
mistress. Herodias sank upon them, and turning her face away from
Antipas, seemed to be weeping silently. After a few moments she dried
her eyes, declared that she would dream no more, and that she was, in
reality, perfectly happy. She reminded Antipas of their former long
delightful interviews in the atrium; their meetings at the baths; their
walks along the Sacred Way, and the sweet evening rendezvous at the
villa, among the flowery groves, listening to the murmur of splashing
fountains, within sight of the Roman Campagna. Her glances were as
tender as in former days; she drew near to him, leaned against his
breast and caressed him fondly.

But he repelled her soft advances. The love she sought to rekindle had
died long ago. He thought instead of all his misfortunes, and of the
twelve long years during which the war had continued. Protracted anxiety
had visibly aged the tetrarch. His shoulders were bent b