The table is spread with all the luxuries that royal purveyors can gather. The guests, white robed and anointed and perfumed, come and sit at the table.
Music! The jests evoke roars of laughter. Riddles are propounded. Repartee is indulged. Toasts are drank. The brain is befogged. The wit rolls on into uproar and blasphemy. They are not satisfied yet. Turn on more light. Pour out more wine. Music! Sound all the trumpets. Clear the floor for a dance. Bring in Salome, the beautiful and accomplished princess. The door opens, and in bounds the dancer. The lords are enchanted. Stand back and make room for the brilliant gyrations. These men never saw such “poetry of motion.” Their souls whirl in the reel and bound with the bounding feet.
Herod forgets crown and throne and every thing but the fascinations of Salome. All the magnificence of his realm is as nothing compared with the splendor that whirls on tiptoe before him. His body sways from side to side, corresponding with the motions of the enchantress. His soul is filled with the pulsations of the feet and bewitched with the taking postures and attitudes more and more amazing.
After a while Herod sits in enchanted silence, looking at the flashing, leaping, bouncing beauty, and as the dance closes and the tinkling cymbals cease to clap and the thunders of applause that shook the palace begin to abate, the enchanted monarch swears to the princely performer:
“Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me I will give it thee, to the half of my kingdom.”
Now, there was in the prison at that time a minister of the Gospel by the name of John the Baptist, and he had been making a great deal of trouble by preaching some very plain sermons. He had denounced the sins of the king and brought down upon him the wrath of the women of the royal household.
At the instigation of her mother, Salome takes advantage of the extravagant promise of the king, and says: “Bring me the head of John the Baptist on a dinner plate.”
Hark to the sound of feet outside the door and the clatter of swords! The executioners are returning from their awful errand. Open the door. They enter and present the platter to Salome.
What is on this platter?
A new glass of wine to continue the uproarious merriment? No. Something redder and far more costly—the ghastly, bleeding head of John the Baptist. The death glare is still in the eyes; the locks are all dabbled with gore; the features are still distressed with the last agony.