“Pull off her garment, and bind her to the Red Column.” At these dreadful words Vashti, rendered strong by agony, broke from her guards, and moving swiftly forward fell on her knees before Berenice. “Princess, you are a woman. Have pity on me. If I must be scourged let me--let me retain my vesture.” The two officers who had followed Vashti fell back at a sign from Berenice. Bending forward from her seat, she said in a whisper: “_My hour of triumph now. It was yours at Cæsarea._” At her chilling tone Vashti shrank back. Her eyes became big with horror as the truth suddenly flashed upon her that the whole synagogue proceeding was a plot, formed by the jealousy of Berenice, who feared that Vashti was seeking to win the love of Crispus. Suspecting her to be a Christian, she had induced Simeon to compose the new prayer, purposing by this means to wreak her vengeance upon the girl whose beauty had been preferred to her own. This sudden revelation of the character of the princess, the subtlety of her plot, the wickedness of masking it under the guise of religion, came upon Vashti with a shock so great as almost to drive the scourging from her mind. For the moment her only thought was, how could the princess be so wicked? “Officers, the lash!” said Berenice, spurning the suppliant girl with her foot. “Hold, let the maiden be!” cried a voice coming from the rear of the synagogue. There was a great start on the part of Berenice, who knew not till then that Crispus was in the synagogue. Vashti started, but it was with joy. Gone in a moment was her sense of fear. She turned her eyes from the two men who held her to the stately figure of the Roman stalking up the floor of the synagogue, determination written upon his countenance. Her trusting and beautiful smile set Berenice’s heart thrilling with pangs of jealousy impossible to describe. Her plot for the humiliation of Vashti seemed likely to end in creating another link of sympathy between the two whom she would fain keep apart. Amid a death-like silence Crispus, followed by the faithful Rufus, made his way to the front. There was in his cold eye a gleam that caused the two officers to let go Vashti, who, released from their hold, would have fallen but for the supporting arm of Crispus. He turned to face the angry assembly, who were beginning to murmur at seeing the hateful “apostate” snatched from their hands by an authority equally hateful. A stranger in Jerusalem, Crispus was unknown both to the congregation and to Agrippa, which last took him to be some meddlesome officer from Antonia, bent on exercising an authority to which he had no claim. He started to his feet with an angry air. “Who is this that seeks to interfere with the course of Jewish justice? Know you not that I am Agrippa, the great king? Who art thou?” “My friend,” said Rufus quietly, “is Crispus Cestius, son of the Syrian Legate, a maker of kings, and--an unmaker.”