"Herod!" she said. "I know not Herod. But go on."

"The Romans burnt it, and the Roman eagles flew across its ruins, and
now Judaea is a desert."

"So, so! They were a great people, those Romans, and went straight to
their end--ay, they sped to it like Fate, or like their own eagles on
their prey!--and left peace behind them."

"Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant," I suggested.

"Ah, thou canst speak the Latin tongue, too!" she said, in surprise. "It
hath a strange ring in my ears after all these days, and it seems to
me that thy accent does not fall as the Romans put it. Who was it wrote
that? I know not the saying, but it is a true one of that great people.
It seems that I have found a learned man--one whose hands have held the
water of the world's knowledge. Knowest thou Greek also?"

"Yes, oh Queen, and something of Hebrew, but not to speak them well.
They are all dead languages now."

She clapped her hands in childish glee. "Of a truth, ugly tree that thou
art, thou growest the fruits of wisdom, oh Holly," she said; "but of
those Jews whom I hated, for they called me 'heathen' when I would have
taught them my philosophy--did their Messiah come, and doth He rule the
world?"

"Their Messiah came," I answered with reverence; "but He came poor and
lowly, and they would have none of Him. They scourged Him, and crucified
Him upon a tree, but yet His words and His works live on, for He was the
Son of God, and now of a truth He doth rule half the world, but not with
an Empire of the World."

"Ah, the fierce-hearted wolves," she said, "the followers of Sense and
many gods--greedy of gain and faction-torn. I can see their dark faces
yet. So they crucified their Messiah? Well can I believe it. That He was
a Son of the Living Spirit would be naught to them, if indeed He was so,
and of that we will talk afterwards. They would care naught for any God
if He came not with pomp and power. They, a chosen people, a vessel
of Him they call Jehovah, ay, and a vessel of Baal, and a vessel of
Astoreth, and a vessel of the gods of the Egyptians--a high-stomached
people, greedy of aught that brought them wealth and power. So they
crucified their Messiah because He came in lowly guise--and now are
they scattered about the earth? Why, if I remember, so said one of their
prophets that it should be. Well, let them go--they broke my heart,
those Jews, and made me look with evil eyes across the world, ay, and
drove me to this wildern