After a time the party returned to the court. Heavy, round bronze lids,
sunk in the stones of the pavement, covered the cisterns of the palace.
Vitellius noticed that one of these was larger than the others, and that
when struck by his foot it had not their sonority. He struck them all,
one after another; then stamped upon the ground and shouted:

"I have found it! I have found the buried treasure of Herod!"

Searching for buried treasure was a veritable mania among the Romans.

The tetrarch swore that no treasure was hidden in that spot.

"What is concealed there, then?" the proconsul demanded.

"Nothing--that is, only a man--a prisoner."

"Show him to me!"

The tetrarch hesitated to obey, fearing that the Jews would discover his
secret. His reluctance to lift the cover made Vitellius impatient.

"Break it in!" he cried to his lictors. Mannaeus heard the command, and,
seeing a lictor step forward armed with a hatchet, he feared that the
man intended to behead Iaokanann. He stayed the hand of the lictor after
the first blow, and then slipped between the heavy lid and the pavement
a kind of hook. He braced his long, lean arms, raised the cover slowly,
and in a moment it lay flat upon the stones. The bystanders admired the
strength of the old man.

Under the bronze lid was a wooden trap-door of the same size. At a blow
of the fist it folded back, allowing a wide hole to be seen, the mouth
of an immense pit, with a flight of winding steps leading down into the
darkness. Those that bent over to peer into the cavern beheld a vague
and terrifying shape in its depths.

This proved to be a human being, lying on the ground. His long locks
hung over a camel's-hair robe that covered his shoulders. Slowly he rose
to his feet. His head touched a grating embedded in the wall; and as
he moved about he disappeared, from time to time, in the shadows of his
dungeon.

The rich tiaras of the Romans sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight, and
their glittering sword-hilts threw out glancing golden rays. The doves,
flying from their cotes, circled above the heads of the multitude.
It was the hour when Mannaeus was accustomed to feed them. But now he
crouched beside the tetrarch, who stood near Vitellius. The Galileans,
the priests, and the soldiers formed a group behind them; all were
silent, waiting with painful anticipation for what might happen.

A deep groan, hollow and startling, rose from the pit.

Herodias heard it from the