influence, to her
discredit and undoing? She was not safe so long as John the Baptist
breathed. Herod feared him, and perhaps she feared him with more
abject terror, and was bent on delivering her life of his presence.

She watched her opportunity, and it came on the occasion we have
described. The ungodly revel was at its height. Such a banquet as
Herod had often witnessed in the shameless court of Tiberius, and in
which luxury and appetite reached their climax, was in mid-current.
The strong wines of Messina and Cyprus had already done their work.
The hall resounded with ribald joke and merriment. Towards the end of
such a feast it was the custom for immodest women to be introduced,
who, by their gestures, imitated scenes in certain well-known
mythologies, and still further inflamed the passions of the banqueters.
But instead of the usual troupe, which Herod probably kept for such an
occasion, Salome herself came in and danced a wild nautch-dance. What
shall we think of a mother who could expose her daughter to such a
scene, and suggest her taking a part in the half-drunken orgy? To what
depths will not mad jealousy and passion urge us, apart from the
restraining grace of God! The girl, alas, was as shameless as her
mother.

She pleased Herod, who was excited with the meeting of the two strong
passions, which have destroyed more victims than have fallen on all the
battlefields of the world; and in his frenzy, he promised to give her
whatever she might ask, though it were to cost half his kingdom. She
rushed back to her mother with the story of her success. "What shall I
ask?" she cried. The mother had, perhaps, anticipated such a moment as
this, and had her answer ready. "Ask," she replied instantly, "for
John the Baptist's head." Back from her mother she tripped into the
banqueting-hall, her black eyes flashing with cruel hate, lighted from
her mother's fierceness. A dead silence fell on the buzz of
conversation, and every ear strained for her reply. "And she came in
straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that
thou forthwith give me in a charger the head of John the Baptist."

Mark that word, "forthwith." Her mother and she were probably fearful
that the king's mood would change. What was to be done must be done at
once, or it might not be done at all. "Quick, quick," the girl seemed
to say, "the moments seem like hours; now, in this instant, give me
what I demand. I wa