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Suddenly the door was flung open and Mannaeus entered, holding at arm's length, grasping it by the hair, the head of Iaokanann. His appearance was greeted with a burst of applause, which filled him with pride and revived his courage. He placed the head upon a charger and offered it to Salome, who had descended the steps to receive it.
At other times he is as quiet as a sick animal, although I often find him pacing to and fro in his gloomy dungeon, murmuring, 'In order that His glory may increase, mine must diminish." Antipas and Mannaeus looked at each other a moment in silence. But the tetrarch was weary of pondering on this troublesome matter.
The structure shone like a luminous mountain, and its radiant purity indicated something almost superhuman, eclipsing even its suggestion of opulence and pride. Mannaeus stretched out his powerful arm towards Zion, and, with clenched fist and his great body drawn to its full height, he launched a bitter anathema at the city, with perfect faith that eventually his curse must be effective.
Mannaeus instantly rushed towards the stranger, drawing the cutlass that he wore upon his hip. "Kill him!" cried Herodias. "Do not touch him!" the tetrarch commanded. The two men stood motionless for an instant, then they descended the terrace, both taking a different direction, although they kept their eyes fixed upon each other. "I know that man," said Herodias, after they had disappeared.
After an instant's hesitation, he leaned far over the balcony railing, listening intently, but the voice had died away. Presently it rose again upon the quiet air; Antipas clapped his hands together loudly, crying: "Mannaeus! Mannaeus!" Instantly a man appeared, naked to the waist, after the fashion of a masseur at the bath.
"Who is that man?" he inquired. The tetrarch by a significant gesture indicated that Mannaeus was the executioner. He then presented the Sadducees to the proconsul's notice. Jonathas, a man of low stature, who spoke Greek, advanced with a firm step and begged that the great lord would honour Jerusalem with a visit. Vitellius replied that he should probably go to Jerusalem soon.
If Iaokanann was in very truth the Elias so much talked of, he would have power to protect himself; and if he were only an ordinary man, his murder was of no importance. Mannaeus stood beside his chair, and read his master's thoughts. Vitellius beckoned him to his side and gave him an order for the execution, to be transmitted to the soldiers placed on guard over the dungeon.
His work must be extended to the uttermost ends of the earth." For a moment Antipas appeared lost in thought, as one who sees a vision. Then he said: "His power over men is indeed great. In spite of myself, I admire him!" "Then set him free!" But the tetrarch shook his head. He feared Herodias, Mannaeus, and unknown dangers.
His reluctance to lift the cover made Vitellius impatient. "Break it in!" he cried to his lictors. Mannaeus heard the command, and, seeing a lictor step forward armed with a hatchet, he feared that the man intended to behead Iaokanann. He stayed the hand of the lictor after the first blow, and then slipped between the heavy lid and the pavement a kind of hook.
Clots of blood besprinkled the beard. The closed eyelids had a shell-like transparency, and the candelabra on every side lighted up the gruesome object with terrible distinctness. Mannaeus arrived at the table where the priests were seated. One of them turned the charger about curiously, to look at the head from all sides.
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