“If you were not such a little fool of dreams, Niece Bernice, you would never have left Jerusalem. You would have stayed on in the Temple Herod built, paying your vows, if you had to cling to the Altar horns! You were wife of Herod Third; and who did more for the Judeans? Free feasts, free games, you remember Cæsarea; and all because your Lord let the Jews stone James, that zealot of the Nazarene, know you what the populace says? They say their God, whom no one has even seen, slew your husband in his coat of silver mail!”
“I thank their God for that,” absently answered the girl Bernice. “Herod Third was too old. You chose your Herod. I was sold to mine.”
The other younger woman with the insolent inviting voluptuous lips laughed.
“Because you had fallen in love with the little blue-eyed slave, Onesimus, whom Felix and Festus rescued from the robber bands of Galilee.”
“That slur sounds not well from you, Sister Drusilla! You, yourself, married freed slave. Have you forgotten Felix was freed slave?” asked the slenderer of the sisters.
Drusilla of the voluptuous lips laughed. “No, nor have I forgotten he is the only one of all the Herod husbands who left his wife safe with wealth in times of peril. He rose to be ruler under Rome. . . .”
“And drove the Jews to insurrection by his thefts and taxes to give you wealth,” interrupted Bernice.
The older woman whirled on them with the fires of fury in her blind eyes. “Peace to your sparrow chatter—fools—fools—fools! What do you know of love, or constancy? You barter love and time for gain as gamblers throw their dice. My Lord Herod and I bartered all for love—and lost—and love as ever! And he is far among the savages of Spain and I am caged here to wait the fortune of war at Jerusalem! And time is short, and I grow old, and does his love grow cold? You read his letter brought by the post this day, how he longs to hold me in his arms once more! Nightly, I have prayed to Istarte and Venus and Astoreth for my love to descend to him in far-off Spain down the beams of the starlight, or moonlight, to hold him forever to me true! Instead of answer to my prayers—what? This accursed Fort haunted by the spirits of the dead! ’Twas here the spirit of Mariamne, whom Herod the Great strangled, came haunting him till he went mad. ’Tis here where we are shut up prisoners of the past, beating our weak women hands ’gainst the fetters of fate, the ghosts of our past come haunting us! I tell you fools that in the dark I can dream I am not blind, but when I pray for my Lord’s love to come and wrap me in his arms, when it is dark and I can forget I am blind—what comes? What comes? What comes? I say! I could be a lioness to fight for my cubs, as all the Herod women ever are; but when I pray for forgetfulness, what comes—I say?”
“Dear Aunt Herodias,” gently expostulated the younger Bernice. “These are not wise words. Our weak hands only bruise when we batter fate.”
“Fool—your course is not yet run—dreaming of a blue-eyed slave, when you should be in Jerusalem mending all our fortunes by marrying Titus, the Emperor’s son!”