"The girl flew to her mother, and said, 'What shall I ask?' It was exactly what Herodias expected, and she might have asked for robes, or jewels, or palaces, or whatever such a woman loves. But to a mind like hers revenge was sweeter than wealth or pride. We may imagine with what fierce malice she hissed out the answer, 'The head of John the Baptiser.' And coming in before the king _immediately with haste_--(what a touch is that! and how apt a pupil did the wicked mother find in her wicked daughter!)--Salomé exclaimed, 'My wish is that you give _me here, immediately_, on a dish, the head of John the Baptist.' Her indecent haste, her hideous petition, show that she shared the furies of her race. Did she think that in that infamous period, and among those infamous guests, her petition would be received with a burst of laughter? Did she hope to kindle their merriment to a still higher pitch by the sense of the delightful wickedness involved in a young and beautiful girl asking--nay, imperiously demanding--that then and there, on one of the golden dishes which graced the board, should be given into her own hands the gory head of the Prophet whose words had made a thousand bold hearts quail? "If so, she was disappointed. The tetrarch, at anyrate, was plunged into grief by her request; it more than did away with the pleasure of her disgraceful dance; it was a bitter termination of his birthday feast. Fear, policy, remorse, superstition, even whatever poor spark of better feeling remained unquenched under the white ashes of a heart consumed by evil passions, made him shrink in disgust from this sudden execution. He must have felt that he had been duped out of his own will by the cunning stratagem of his unrelenting paramour. If a single touch of manliness had been left in him he would have repudiated the request as one which did not fall either under the letter or the spirit of his oaths, since the life of one cannot be made the gift to another; or he would have boldly declared that if such was her choice, his oath was more honoured by being kept. But a despicable pride and fear of man prevailed over his better impulses. More afraid of the criticisms of his guests than of the future torment of such conscience as was left him, he sent an executioner to the prison, which in all probability was not far from the banqueting hall--and so, at the bidding of a dissolute coward and to please the loathly fancies of a shameless girl, the axe fell, and the head of the noblest of the prophets was shorn away. In darkness and in secrecy the scene was enacted, and if any saw it their lips were sealed; but the executioner emerged into the light carrying by the hair that noble head, and then and there, in all the pallor of the recent death, it