at the splendid Doric temple of Jerusalem.
As he looked, the sun's rays fell on a great, golden lantern before a
thicket of high columns in its eastern portico. It was the signal for
another outburst of trumpets.

"They are now making incense for the nostrils of Jehovah," said Manius.
"Soon they will offer him one of the most beautiful lambs in Judea."

In a few moments they drew up at the castle of Antonia. News of their
coming had reached Jerusalem by courier, three days before. The
captain of the guard repeated part of the introduction.

"Vergilius, son of Varro, sent by the great father?" said he, in a tone
of inquiry.

"And worn with much riding," said the young knight.

"I have a message for you. It is from the king."

"He would see me at once," said Vergilius, having read it.

"The sooner you go the more gracious you will be like to find him,"
said Manius, with a smile.

"My apparel! It is on the transport and has not yet arrived."

"But you have arrived, and forget not you are in the land of Herod--a
most impatient king."

"He will not know, however, that we have come," Vergilius answered.

"Friend of Caesar," said the captain of the guard, "within an hour he
will know everything you have done since you entered the city--whither
you went, to whom you spoke, and what you said, and perhaps even what
you thought."

CHAPTER 12

The characters of Herod and Augustus were as far apart as their
capitals. Extremes of temperament were in these two. The Roman was
cold, calm, of unfailing prudence; the Jew hot-blooded, reckless, and
warmed by a word into startling and frank ferocity. The one was keen
and delicate, the other blunt and robust. The emperor was a fox, the
king a lion. Herod and his people were now worried with mutual
distrust. He had no faith in any man, and no man--not even the emperor
by whose sufferance he held the crown--had any faith in him. The king
feared the people and the people feared the king.

Herod began his career with good purposes. An erect, powerful, and
handsome youth of Arabic and Idumaean blood, brave with lance and
charger, he raided the bandit chieftain Hezekias and slew him, with all
his followers. The Sanhedrim thought not of his valor but only of the
ancient law he had broken. They put him on trial for usurping the
power of life and death. In the midst of his peril he escaped, taking
with him the seed of those dark revenges which, when he got the c