Baba Barbulah stood up and turned to whence the voice had come:
“In the footprints of the Anointed impudence shall increase, and the face of the generation shall be as the face of a dog. It may be,” he added, significantly—“it may be that you speak the truth.”
The sarcasm was lost. The musicians [pg 52]in the gallery, who had been playing on flute and timbrel, began now on the psalteron and the native sambuca. Behind was a row of lute-players; but most in view was a trignon, an immense Egyptian harp, at which with nimble fingers a fair girl plucked.
In the shadow Herodias leaned. At a signal from her the musicians attacked the prelude of a Syrian dance, and in the midst of the assemblage a figure veiled from head to foot suddenly appeared. For a moment it stood very still; then the veil fell of itself, and from the garrison a shout went up:
“Salomè! Salomè!”
Her hair, after an archaic Chanaanite fashion, was arranged in the form of a tower. Her high bosom was wound about with protecting bands. Her waist was bare. She wore long pink drawers of silk, and for girdle she had the blue buds of the lotus, which are symbols of virginity. She was young and exquisitely formed. In her face you read strange records, and on her lips were promises as [pg 53]rare. Her eyes were tortoise-shell, her hair was black as guilt.
The prelude had ceased, the movement quickened. With a gesture of abandonment the girl threw her head back, and, her arms extended, she fluttered like a butterfly on a rose. She ran forward. The sambuca rang quicker, the harp quicker yet. She threw herself to one side, then to the other, her hips swaying as she moved. The buds at her girdle fell one by one; she was dancing on flowers, her hips still swaying, her waist advancing and retreating to the shiver of the harp. She was elusive as dream, subtle as love; she intoxicated and entranced; and finally, as she threw herself on her hands, her feet, first in the air and then slowly descending, touched the ground, while her body straightened like a reed, there was a long growl of unsatisfied content.
She was kneeling now before the dais. Pilate compared her to Bathylle, a mime whom he had applauded at Rome. The tetrarch was purple; he gnawed his [pg 54]under lip. For the moment he forgot everything he should have remembered—the presence of his guests, the stains of his household, his wife even, whose daughter this girl was—and in a gust of passion he half rose from his couch.
“Come to me,” he cried. “But come to me, and ask whatever you will.”
Salomè hesitated and pouted, the point of her tongue protruding between her lips.