the east, and are come to worship him.' They put the question to
the Roman at the gate; and he, no wiser than the simple people on
the road, sent them up to Herod."

"Where are they now?"

"At the khan. Hundreds have been to look at them already, and hundreds
more are going."

"Who are they?"

"Nobody knows. They are said to be Persians--wise men who talk
with the stars--prophets, it may be, like Elijah and Jeremiah."

"What do they mean by King of the Jews?"

"The Christ, and that he is just born."

One of the women laughed, and resumed her work, saying, "Well,
when I see him I will believe."

Another followed her example: "And I--well, when I see him raise
the dead, I will believe."

A third said, quietly, "He has been a long time promised. It will
be enough for me to see him heal one leper."

And the party sat talking until the night came, and, with the help
of the frosty air, drove them home.

* * * * * *

Later in the evening, about the beginning of the first watch,
there was an assemblage in the palace on Mount Zion, of probably
fifty persons, who never came together except by order of Herod,
and then only when he had demanded to know some one or more of the
deeper mysteries of the Jewish law and history. It was, in short,
a meeting of the teachers of the colleges, of the chief priests,
and of the doctors most noted in the city for learning--the leaders of
opinion, expounders of the different creeds; princes of the Sadducees;
Pharisaic debaters; calm, soft-spoken, stoical philosophers of the
Essene socialists.

The chamber in which the session was held belonged to one of
the interior court-yards of the palace, and was quite large
and Romanesque. The floor was tessellated with marble blocks;
the walls, unbroken by a window, were frescoed in panels of
saffron yellow; a divan occupied the centre of the apartment,
covered with cushions of bright-yellow cloth, and fashioned in
form of the letter U, the opening towards the doorway; in the
arch of the divan, or, as it were, in the bend of the letter,
there was an immense bronze tripod, curiously inlaid with gold
and silver, over which a chandelier dropped from the ceiling,
having seven arms, each holding a lighted lamp. The divan and
the lamp were purely Jewish.

The company sat upon the divan after the style of Orientals,
in costume singularly uniform, except as to color. They were
mostly men advanced in years; immense beards covered their faces;
t