The two drew back from the violence of the elder woman standing in the open-windowed turret.
“Herodias will be maniac unless we send her to her husband in Spain,” whispered the sister Drusilla.
“Maniac,” repeated the blind woman in scorn. “So you would be, if nightly when you prayed for love there came rolling over the stone floor the bloody head of that wild Hermit beheaded in the cellar here. . . . If I could tear these scales from my eyes and prove it is not true; but can a blind lioness fight. . . .?”
“Let us go to the garden—we only anger her. She will rave to exhaustion till she gets some sleep, and dreams she sees the head again,” murmured Drusilla. “I could wish we were out of the haunted fortress here. It is ill-fated! Do you go to Jerusalem and get the Emperor’s permission for us to leave for Rome. . . .”
“I will do that, Sister Drusilla, but do not anger her by making light of her mad love for Herod. No Herod woman dare grow afraid. Our past is a black, back wall! Our future is blacker if Jerusalem falls and Judea is ruled direct from Rome. Our brother Agrippa will be deposed. He is last of our line. Everything hangs on winning Titus’ favor; and with the road to Jericho blocked black by troops, it is easier to say ‘go to Jerusalem’ than go! Unless a caravan comes this way from the East bound for the Sea, which I can join disguised, how can we escape the Roman guard set to watch the gates?”
They descended the stone stairs of the turret in thoughtful silence and emerged in the great garden of the Fort. A broad walled parapet ran round the edge of the sheer precipice on which the Fort was perched above the cloudy Sea. Only one side gave exit, or approach—a narrow causeway to the east with drop straight as a wall on either side, leading out to the rose-tinted mountains of Moab, tier on tier above the Desert dyed in a mystic fire of cloud and light.
An old Idumean guard sat in the shade under the arched gate to the causeway. He took his helmet off and yawned drearily. His beard had grizzled gray and his thatch of close-cropped curly hair had whitened with age. As the two sisters approached walking along the wall of the parapet and came under the shade of the arch, he rose stiffly and saluted.
“How are the roads to Jerusalem, old Julius?” asked Drusilla, throwing her purple silk cloak back over her shoulder so her bare arms shone jeweled with bracelets.
“Blocked, blocked, Good Ladies,” returned the old Idumean wearily. “Dreary task this, your Highness, guarding sibyls, who could bewitch all Rome’s generals if they escaped down to Jerusalem.”
“What is the hammering we hear below the fog of clouds?” asked Bernice trying to penetrate the import of his answer.