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“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.
Caiaphas formulated the complaint anew, very majestically this time, and, thinking perhaps to overawe the tetrarch, his voice assumed the authority of a guardian of the keys of heaven, a chamberlain of the sceptres of the earth. Antipas ignored him utterly. He plucked at his fan-shaped beard, and stared at the Christ. He could see now he bore no resemblance to Iohanan.
To him Mary paid no attention. She had turned from the track. An officer had entered the tetrarch’s tribune and addressed the prince. Antipas started; Herodias colored through her paint. The latter evidently was pleased. “Iohanan!” she exclaimed. “To Machærus with him! You may believe in fate and mathematics; I believe in the axe.”
In a moment she returned, and balancing herself on one foot, she lisped very sweetly: “I should like by and by to have you give me the head of Iohanan—” she looked about; in the distance a eunuch was passing, a dish in his hand, and she added, “on a platter.” Antipas jumped as though a hound under the table had bitten him on the leg.
Antipas started. The Scribe trembled with rage. But the throng had caught the name of Elijah, and knew to whom the disputant referred—a man in tattered furs whom a few hours before they had seen dragged away by a negro naked to the waist, and some one shouted: “Iohanan is Elijah.”
The slopes and intervales were very green where they were not yellow, and there were terraces of grape, glittering cliffs, and a sky of troubled blue, wadded with little gold-edged clouds. Yes, it was paradise, but it was not monarchy. It was to that he aspired. As he mused, a rancid-faced woman decked with paint and ostrich-plumes snarled in his ear: “What have you heard of Iohanan?”
Her eyes were full of compliments, her body was bent, and, the folds of her gown held back, she swayed a little, in the attitude of one cajoling a tiger. She was quite at home and at her ease, and yet prepared for instant flight. Iohanan, or John—surnamed, because of practices of his, the Baptist—beckoned her to approach. In his eyes was the innocence that oxen have.
There were Greek merchants from Hippos and Sepphoris, Pharisees from Jericho, and Scribes from Jerusalem. Herodias clapped her hands. A negro, naked to the waist, appeared. “Take him below.” But the guests surrounded Iohanan. The Pharisees recognized him at once. He was the terror of the hierarchs.
“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.
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 him alone. No, there was no hurry. As he assured her of that the prophet looked up. “Jezebel!” The guests approached. Their number had increased.
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