to
one side.

"There," he added, "there, I know you well. It was at Bethany I saw you
first. Yes, yes, I remember perfectly; you were leaving, and Martha was in
tears. Only a little since I had speech with her. She spoke of you; she
knew you were called the Magdalen. No," he continued, for Mary had shrunk
back, "no, I will not curse. There is another by whom you will be
blessed."

Mary laughed. "I am going to Rome. Tiberius will give me a palace. I shall
sleep on the down the Teutons bring. I shall drink pearls dissolved in
falernian. I shall sup on peacocks' tongues."

"No, Mary, Rome you will never see. The Eternal has you in His charge.
Your shame will be washed away."

"Shame to you," she interrupted. "Shame and starvation too." She made as
though she were about to pirouette again. "Whom are you talking of?"

"One whose shoes I am unworthy to bear."

For a moment he seemed to meditate; then, with the melancholy of one
renounceing some immense ambition, he murmured, half to himself, half to
the sky, "For him to increase I must diminish."

"As for that, you are not much to look at now. I must go. I must braid my
hair; the emir's eyes are eager."

"Mary," he hissed, and the sudden asperity of his voice coerced her as a
bit might do, "you will go to Capharnahum, you will seek him, you will say
Iohanan is descended into the tombs to announce the Son of David."

Through the lateral entrance to the terrace a number of guests had
entered. From the balcony above, Antipas leaned and listened. Some one
touched him; it was Herodias.

"The procurator is coming," she announced. "You should be at the gate."

"Ah!"

He seemed indifferent. What Iohanan had said concerning the Son of David
stirred him like the point of a sword. He felt that there could be no such
person; his father had put a stop to all that. And yet, if there were!

His indifference surprised Herodias.

"What are you staring at?" she asked; and to assure herself she looked
over the balustrade. "That carrion? You should----"

Her hand drawn across her throat completed the sentence.

The tetrarch shook his head. There was no hurry. Then, too, the prophet
was useful. He reviled Jerusalem, and that flattered Galilee. But there
was another reason, which he kept to himself. Iohanan affected him as no
one had done before.

He feared him, chained though he was, and into that fear something akin to
admiration entered. In his heart he wished he had let h