"The ministers and their people were as dead in earnest as though their lives depended upon it. What they wanted was for Him to show them a miracle. As for Him, He just sat there and never made a motion. 'Show us a sign,' says one of the ministers. 'If you are, indeed, the Christ, show us a sign.' 'A wicked and adulterous generation,' said He, 'ask for a sign, but there shall be no sign given them but the sign of the prophet Jonah.'" "What did He mean by that?" said young Palliser. Everybody laughed, and even Governor Pilate smiled. "But what in the deuce did He mean?" insisted Palliser. "Mean?" said Latimer-Moire. "How should I know what He meant?" "What did He look like?" asked Gilderman. "Look like? Oh, I don't know; just like any other man. Well, after we had come out of the place, we saw some of His people outside--His mother and His brothers. His brothers had come to look after Him. I felt deucedly sorry for 'em--decent, respectable-looking people enough." "By-the-way," said Sprague, "did you read about His feeding all those people?" "Oh yes," said Latimer-Moire; "they were all talking about it down there." "Hullo, Stirling," said a young man who had just that moment joined the group. "How about Olivia Carrington? Are you going to see her to-night?" West laughed. "Yes," he said, "I'm going to take Gildy to see her." "You see, Gilderman," said the young fellow, "Stirling's dead gone on the girl. He goes to the Westminster Gardens every night, and takes her out for a spin along the drive every afternoon." Gilderman looked at West, who again laughed. "They say you're having Norcott paint her portrait," said Le Roy Barron. "No, I'm not," said West. "Norcott's doing it off his own bat, for a picture to send to the Academy or somewhere, I believe." "By-the-way," said Barron, "I see poor old Herod's let them execute John." "Yes," said West, "we may all thank Salome for that. Tommy Ryan was telling me all about it this morning. It seems that there was something going on down at Herod's place last night, and Ryan was asked. It was a pretty wild sort of affair. After supper, the girl danced for them on the table in the supper-room, _à la_ Carrington. I guess they were all pretty lively--anyhow Herod promised he'd give her whatever she'd ask him. And what does that woman, her mother, do but put her up to asking to have poor John the Baptist put out of the way. Herod would have backed out if he could, but the women held him to his promise." "By-the-way, Gildy," said Latimer-Moire, "you're sort of on the religious lay; what do you think of all this row?" Governor Pilate turned and looked briefly at Gilderman. The question was so sudden that Gilderman did not know what to say. "I don't know that I'm especially on the 'religious lay,' as you call it," he said, after a moment's pause; "but I suppose that every man must believe more or less in something or other."