to him. It was a
great occasion, suited to my powers. Thus Herod fed me with fair
promises, and I ran his errand. There was nothing in it.

"I stood before Caesar and gave him the letter. He read it and laughed,
saying that a prince with an incurable hunger is a servant of value to
an emperor. Then he asked me if there was nothing sent with the letter.
I answered that there was no gift, but a message for his private ear.
He drew me aside and I told him that Herod begged earnestly that his
dear son, Antipater, might be sent back in haste from Rome to
Palestine, for the king had great need of him.

"At this Caesar laughed again. 'To bury him, I suppose,' said he, 'with
his brothers, Alexander and Aristobulus! Truly, it is better to be
Herod's swine than his son. Tell the old fox he may catch his own
prey.' With this he turned from me and I withdrew unrewarded, to make
my way back, as best I could with an empty purse, to Palestine. I had
seen the Lord of the World. There was nothing in it.

"Selling my rings and bracelets I got passage in a trading ship for
Joppa. There I heard that the king was not in Jerusalem, at his Palace
of the Upper City, but had gone with his friends to make merry for a
month on the Mountain of the Little Paradise. On that hill-top over
against us, where the lights are flaring to-night, in the banquet-hall
where couches are spread for a hundred guests, I found Herod."

The listening shepherds spat upon the ground again, and Jotham
muttered, "May the worms that devour his flesh never die!" But Zadok
whispered, "We wait for the Lord's salvation to come out of Zion." And
the sad shepherd, looking with fixed eyes at the firelit mountain far
away, continued his story:

"The king lay on his ivory couch, and the sweat of his disease was
heavy upon him, for he was old, and his flesh was corrupted. But his
hair and his beard were dyed and perfumed and there was a wreath of
roses on his head. The hall was full of nobles and great men, the sons
of the high-priest were there, and the servants poured their wine in
cups of gold. There was a sound of soft music; and all the men were
watching a girl who danced in the middle of the hall; and the eyes of
Herod were fiery, like the eyes of a fox.

"The dancer was Tamar. She glistened like the snow on Lebanon, and the
redness of her was ruddier than a pomegranate, and her dancing was like
the coiling of white serpents. When the dance was ended her attendants
t