her. Antipas was almost in a swoon.

Louder still rose the voice from the dungeon; the neighbouring hills
gave back an echo with startling effect, and Machaerus seemed actually
surrounded and showered with curses.

"Prostrate thyself in the dust, daughter of Babylon, and scourge
thyself! Remove thy girdle and thy shoes, gather up thy garments and
walk through the flowing stream; thy shame shall follow thee, thy
disgrace shall be known to all men, thy bosom shall be rent with sobs.
God execrates the stench of thy crimes! Accursed one! die like a dog!"

At that instant the trap-door was suddenly shut down and secured by
Mannaeus, who would have liked to strangle Iaokanann then and there.

Herodias glided away and disappeared within the palace. The Pharisees
were scandalised at what they had heard. Antipas, standing among
them, attempted to justify his past conduct and to excuse his present
situation.

"Without doubt," said Eleazar, "it was necessary for him to marry his
brother's wife; but Herodias was not a widow, and besides, she had a
child, which she abandoned; and that was an abomination."

"You are wrong," objected Jonathas the Sadducee; "the law condemns such
marriages but does not actually forbid them."

"What matters it? All the world shows me injustice," said Antipas,
bitterly; "and why? Did not Absalom lie with his father's wives, Judah
with his daughter-in-law, Ammon with his sister, and Lot with his