repeated and widely circulated; she heard them whispered everywhere.
Against a legion of soldiers she would have been brave; but this
mysterious influence, more pernicious and powerful than the sword, but
impossible to grasp, was maddening! Herodias strode to and fro upon the
terrace, white with rage, unable to find words to express the emotions
that choked her.

She had a haunting fear that the tetrarch might listen to public opinion
after a time, and persuade himself it was his duty to repudiate her.
Then, indeed, all would be lost! Since early youth she had cherished a
dream that some day she would rule over a great empire. As an important
step towards attaining this ambition, she had deserted Philip, her first
husband, and married the tetrarch, who now she thought had duped her.

"Ah! I found a powerful support, indeed, when I entered thy family!" she
sneered.

"It is at least the equal of thine," Antipas replied.

Herodias felt the blood of the kings and priests, her ancestors, boiling
in her veins.

"Thy grandfather was a servile attendant upon the temple of Ascalon!"
she went on, with fury. "Thy other ancestors were shepherds, bandits,
conductors of caravans, a horde of slaves offered as tribute to King
David! My forefathers were the conquerors of thine! The first of the
Maccabees drove thy people out of Hebron; Hyrcanus forced them to be
circumcised!" Then, with all the contempt of the patrician for the
plebeian, the hatred of Jacob for Esau, she reproached him for his
indifference towards palpable outrages to his dignity, his weakness