every hand. The guests expected, at this simulated Roman symposium, to be entertained with dancing, but not this unprecedented honor by the belle of the realm, and a princess of the highest blood-royal. Nor was it anticipated by Herod himself; truly he was surprised, yet, regardless of decorum, he too was out of measure delighted.

Salome danced to and fro throughout the room, exhibiting her skilled grace and youthful charms to the leering men, then with a pirouette came to a stand facing the king. The music suddenly ceased, the applause hushed, there was silence. Then the king, leaning his flushed foxy face forward, and with bleared eyes ogling the beauty, spluttered out:

Well, that's th' purtst thing, hic, ever saw. Ask for anything, you sh'll have't. I sware by all that's holy, hic, in J'rus'lm or Rome, I'll give't you, even half my kingdom, sware I will, by Jove."

With a curtsied obeisance she replied:

"I will consult my mother."

Tripping out of the hall, she found the queen at hand, listening and anxiously expectant.

"What shall I ask?"

"The head of John the Baptist."

Straightway the girl returned to the hall, and with a new obeisance, said to the king:

"I will that thou forthwith give me in a charger the head of John the Baptist."

At this Herod was sobered and grieved; he saw the trap, but too late; now because of his oath, and of his guests that heard it, he would not refuse. Solomon broke a sober promise to his mother. Might not Herod break a drunken pledge to a dancing girl? Oh, no; he

was too high-minded and honorable. Sooner he would murder a prophet; yea, and one much more than a prophet. So he ordered one of his bodyguard there present to bring the head. The soldier left the castle hall, and descended the long steep winding stone stairs, that led to the deep dungeon far beneath.

Meantime, while he was doing his deadly work below, the music above struck up, and Salome entertained the king and his company overhead with a lively castanet dance.

Very soon the guardsman returned up the stairway, in his right hand a bloody sword, a trunkless head swinging from the other by its long black hair. With vigilant provision, a large silver dish or charger was ready at the door. He laid the head upon it, and carried it into the hall. The music stopped, the dancer stood still, and the guardsman on bended knee, offered the girl the charger. Graciously she received the gory trophy, and lifting it on high before her lest the drippings from the over-hanging hair should fleck her silken skirt with crimson stains, she smilingly left the hall, and bore it to her mother.

The queenly face of Herodias flushed with triumph, as seated in her boudoir she received at last the reward of her pains. Imitating the deed of Fulvia, the wife of Anthony, upon the head of the silver-tongued Cicero, Herodias took the charger on her lap, forced open the jaws of the stiffening head, dragged out the tongue that had dared to utter non licet, then drawing from her thick tresses a long, bejewelled bodkin, she thrust it through the silenced tongue again and again, the tongue that had proclaimed, Behold the Lamb of God. Salome laughed to see her mother's rage, who putting aside the charger, and looking on her stained hands, joined in the laugh,

and said, Come, let us wash our hands; a little water clears us of this deed. Then she summoned a manservant, and with a muttered curse ordered him to toss the head from the battlements into the ravine.

It was done. The body also was tossed from a postern into the ravine, to glut wolves and vultures. But several loving disciples of John, who had followed him to Macharus and were lingering in the neighborhood, having heard of these things, found and gathered together the remains, and laid the corpse reverently in a tomb. Then they journeyed northward to Capernaum, and told Jesus what was done.

Once hereafter Herod Antipas reappears in the gospel story, yet a few words may be said here about his subsequent and final history. Not long after the tragedy narrated, his troops were defeated with great slaughter by those of Aretas, a defeat attributed by the Jews to his murder of John. He fled with his court back to Tiberias. There his guilty soul was racked by fears. Hearing of the wonderful works of Jesus whom he had never seen, he, though professedly a Sadducee denying all resurrection, in superstitious alarm cried out even to his servants, It is John whom I beheaded; he is risen. Indeed ever after, his table was haunted, like Macbeth's, by a phantom guest; he too found no minister to a mind diseased; the very air he breathed was red.

The death of our Lord occurred in the year 30. Tiberius Cæsar, emperor, died in 39, and was succeeded by Caius Cæsar, or Caligula, with whom Herod Agrippa the first, a brother of Herodias, was a favorite. Apprehending deposition in favor of Agrippa, Herodias urged Antipas to go with her to Rome to counteract his influ

ence. Antipas reluctantly yielded. The deposition, however, took place, and he was banished, in his old age, to Lugdunum in Gaul (now Lyons, France) after a reign as tetrarch of forty-three years. Herodias, passionately refusing all indulgent favor, followed him into exile, where both disappear. Prior to their departure for Rome, Salome married her great uncle, Philip II, tetrarch of Iturea, who was about fifty years of age. After his decease, she married Aristobulus, king of Calchis. She had by him. three sons, one of whom became a king. Tradition ascribes to her a tragic death by decapitation; but it is equally probable that she died peacefully, like Lucrezia Borgia, in the odor of sanctity.

T

XVI

THE CLOSING SCENES

HE apostles, having returned from their missionary tour, and having reported to Jesus at Capernaum, were wearied, and needed rest.

Jesus too was wearied and needed rest.

Moreover, he was depressed by the news of the tragedy of Machærus, and longed for a little retirement. But this seemed almost impossible in Capernaum, especially just then, on the eve of the Passover, when the people of upper Galilee on their way to the feast were gathering there in great numbers. These, impelled by curiosity, thronged him and his companions so that they had no leisure so much as to eat. Then said Jesus to the twelve:

"Let us go apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." 60 So they went away in a boat to the head of the lake, and landed just east of the mouth of upper Jordan, and south of the town of Bethsaida Julias, where were alluvial meadows and neighboring heights that promised retirement.

But the vagrant people having watched the boat followed, many in boats, but thousands afoot along the lake shore, to the place; for the distance from Capernaum was only about three or four miles.

So it was that a great multitude speedily gathered, and surrounded Jesus and the twelve stationed on a little knoll. As Jesus overlooked the swelling throng of men, women and children, he was moved with compassion, because