"I will do penance--for them all. I will begin with water what will be ended with blood." That is what they thought to hear. In a man who speaks like this, there is something incredibly spiritual.

"He is a dreamer! He is a madman!" the people whisper one to another.

"No, he's not, he's not!" others declare.

"Did he not speak of blood?"

"It seemed so. Such young blood, and already repenting!"

"And as proud of it as a Roman."

"With eyes glowing like an Arab's."

"Looking at his hair, you might take him for a German."

"He is neither a Roman, nor an Arab, nor a German," someone exclaimed, laughing; "he is the carpenter of Nazareth."

"The same who turned water into wine?"

"There are lots of stories about him. We know plenty of them."

"It is said that Herod's murder of the innocents was on his account."

When the crowd heard that, they were quiet, and looked at the new arrival with a sort of awe. And so old Herod had taken him for the Messiah-King!

A feeling of reverence spread among the people. For Jesus stepped into the river. The prophet dipped his vessel in the water and poured it over his lightly-bent head. The edges of the clouds in the heavens shone with the crimson light of evening. The eyes of the bystanders were riveted by a white speck which showed itself in the windows of heaven, first like a flower-bloom and then like a fluttering pennon.

It was a dove that flew down and circled round the head of him who had just been baptized.

"My dearly beloved son!"

The people whispered; "Whose voice was it that said: 'My dearly beloved son'?"

"Didn't it refer to him over whom the water has just been poured?"

A shudder seized many of them. It was just as if he was presented to men by the invisible G.o.d!

"We will ask him himself whose son he is," they said, and pressed towards the river. But he had gone away, and the twilight of the desert lay over the stream.

The same night Mary sat in her room at Nazareth, and sewed. She kept looking out of the window, for she would not go to bed till Jesus returned. When he had gone out of the door two days ago, he had turned to her again, looked at her, and said:

"Mother, I go to my Father."

She thought he was going to the cemetery to pray at Joseph's tomb, as he often did. For in the city of the dead solitude may be found. When he returned neither on the first day nor on the second, she began to feel anxious. She waited up the whole night.

The next morning the little town rang with the news: "The carpenter has been seen with the preacher. He has been baptized."

"That's just like him. One enthusiast keeps company with another."

"It would be more correct to say with false prophets. For what else is it when a man declares that he can wash away sin with a dash of water?"

Thereupon a Sidonian donkey-driver, who had come down the street; "That's excellent! You Israelites can do so much with your ablutions.

That would be a capital thing!"

"Ah! what things one hears! Everything points to the speedy destruction of the world." And one whispered in his ear, "I tell you, frankly, 'twould be no great misfortune."

"Now John has caught it. Do you know what he's always shouting?"

"The young carpenter, his apprentice? He's never said anything that matters."

"Do you know what he's always exclaiming? He strides through the streets, and his hair flies in the wind. He spreads out his hands before him, and says: 'The word has become flesh!'"

They shook their heads.

But Mary sat at the window and waited and watched.

CHAPTER XII

A very short time after these events there came two soldiers to the Jordan, not to have the water poured over their heads, but to arrest the desert preacher and take him to Jerusalem to Herod. Herod received him politely, and said: "I have summoned you here because I am told that you are the preacher."

"They call me preacher and Baptist."

"I want to hear you. And, indeed, you must refute what your enemies say against you."

"If it was only my enemies, it would be easy to refute them."

"They say that you insult my royal house, that you say the prince lives in incest with his brother's wife. Did you say that?"

"I do not deny it."

"You have come to withdraw it?"

"Sire," said the prophet, "I have come to repeat it. You are living in incest with your brother's wife. Know that the day of reckoning is at hand. It will come with its mercy, and it will come with its justice.

Put away this woman."

Herod grew white with rage that a man of the people should dare to speak thus to him. Royal ears cannot endure such a thing, so he put the preacher in prison.

But the next night the prince had a bad dream. From the battlements he saw the city fall stone by stone into the abyss; he saw flames break out in the palace and temple, and the sound of infinite wailing rang through the air. When he awoke the words came into his mind: You who stone the prophets! and he determined to set the preacher free.

It was now the time when Herod should celebrate his birthday. Although Oriental wisdom advised that a birthday should be celebrated with mourning, a prince had no reason for so doing. Herod gave a banquet in honour of the day, and invited all the most important people in the province in order that while enjoying themselves they might have the opportunity of doing homage to him. He enjoyed himself royally, for Herodias, his brother's wife, was present, and her daughter, who was as lovely as her mother. She danced before him a series of dances which showed her beautiful figure, set off by the flowing white gown confined at the waist with a girdle of gold, to every advantage. Intoxicated by the feast and inflamed by the girl's beauty, the prince approached her, put his arm, from which the purple cloak had fallen back so that it was bare, round her warm neck, and held a goblet of wine to her lips. She smiled, did not drink, but said: "My lord and king! If I drank now from your goblet, you would drink at my lips. Those roses belong to my bridegroom."

"Who is the man who dares to be more fortunate than a king?" asked Herod.

"I do not yet know him," whispered the girl. "He is the man who shall give me the rarest bridal gift."

"And if it was Herod?"