ned, but my soul is free!"

Mary made a pirouette, and through the terrace of the citadel the rattles
on her ankles rang.

It was appalling, this citadel; it dominated the entire land. Perched on a
peak of basalt, it overhung an abyss in which Asphalitis, the Bitter Sea,
lay, a stretch of sapphire to the sun. In the distance were the heights of
Abraham, the crests of Gilead. Before it was the infinite, behind it the
desert. At its base a hamlet crouched, and a path hewn in the rock crawled
in zigzags to its gates. Irregular walls surrounded it, in some places a
hundred cubits high, and in each of the many angles was a turret. Seen
from below it was a threat in stone, but within was a caress, one of those
rapturous palaces that only the Orientals build. It was called Machaerus.
Peopled with slaves and legends, it was a haunt of ghosts and fierce
delights.

And now as Mary tripped before the prophet the walls alone repelled. The
terrace was a garden in which were lilies and sentries. For entrance there
was a portal of red porphyry, above which was a balcony hemmed by a
balustrade of yellow Numidian stone.

Against it Antipas leaned. He had been eyeing the desert in tremulous
surmise. The day before, he had caught the glitter of lances, therewith
spirals of distant smoke, and he had become fearful lest Aretas, that king
of Arabia Petraea whose daughter he had deserted, might be meditating
attack. But now there was nothing, at most a triangular mass speeding
westwards, of which only the edges moved, and which he knew to be a flight
of cranes.

He took heart again and gazed in the valley below. It was the anniversary
of his birth. To celebrate it he had invited the stewards of his lands,
the notables of Galilee, the elect of Jerusalem, the procurator of Judaea,
the emir of Tadmor, mountaineers and Pharisees, Scribes and herdsmen.

But in the valley only a few shepherds were visible. Along the ramparts
soldiers paced. At the further end of the terrace a group of domestics was
busy with hampers and luggage. The day was solemnly still, exquisitely
clear; and between two hills came a glare of gold projected from the
Temple of Jerusalem.

Through the silence rang the tinkle of the rattles that Mary wore. The
prophet was beckoning her.

"And Martha?" the tetrarch heard him ask.

The pirouette ceased awkwardly. Mary's eyes forgot their compliments. Her
brows contracted, and, as though perplexed, she held her head a little