Before they reached the bend in the road roughly paralleling the Jordan, whose banks were beginning to color now with the awakening of willows and oleanders to advancing spring, the Tetrarch recognized the voice.

“By the beard of the venerable High Priest!” Antipas exclaimed. “This isn’t the place where he was making his stand when I came this way before, but it’s the same fellow, that mad prophet of the Wilderness. I’d know his haranguing anywhere.”

Longinus was riding beside the Tetrarch. Herodias and Claudia, with lively Salome a few paces back, were following in the narrow column, and just behind them rode Neaera, Tullia, and several other servants of the two households. Soldiers were in the vanguard and at the rear.

Antipas turned to Longinus. “Centurion, I wonder if we shouldn’t go another way and avoid encountering this fellow. I’d rather not see him or hear more of his ranting.”

“But I want to see him.” Herodias had ridden abreast of the Tetrarch. “He must be the one I’ve just been hearing so much about in Jerusalem. Everybody was talking of his ability to sway the multitudes and his fearlessness in denouncing the Temple priests.”

“Yes, he’s the one. But, my dear Herodias,” the Tetrarch began to protest, “he’s likely to say something that will offend you, too. The fellow has no respect for the Tetrarch’s office or authority and no bridle on his loose tongue.”

“By the gods, then, that’s all the more reason I want to hear him.” She laughed gaily, then quickly grew sober. “And certainly the Tetrarch should be concerned,” she added, “if the man flouts the Tetrarch’s authority.” She signaled to Longinus to resume the march. “Let’s ride down and join his audience. After the boredom of our journey, this should at least provide a diversion.”

Antipas shook his head grudgingly but offered no further protest. “She’ll regret it as soon as she hears him, by the gods,” he muttered to the centurion as they started. “But I warned her.”

At the bottom of the slope the group dismounted, and on Longinus’ summons, soldiers came up to hold the horses. The servants remained behind with them except for Neaera and Tullia who followed their mistresses as the Tetrarch’s party quietly slipped around a screening clump of willows to join the throng about the gaunt and weathered speaker. To Antipas, John seemed little changed since that day when they had come upon him at the ford farther up the Jordan. His clothes looked the same; fleetingly the Tetrarch wondered if the haircloth mantle had ever been cleaned since he had last seen it.

Although the Tetrarch’s group had slipped unobtrusively into the rim of the crowd, Antipas was quickly recognized, and soon a murmur moved through the multitude and heads began to nod as intent black eyes shifted from the fiery prophet to study the newly arrived ruler of Galilee and Peraea.

“It’s old Herod,” Longinus heard a beak-nosed, thin Jew whisper to the man beside him. “And that woman, she must be the new wife he’s fetched from Rome, the one he took away from his brother, and that must be the brother’s daughter beside her.” Both men turned to stare, then smile. “I wonder what John will say to that!” one said to the other as they turned back to peer again at the thundering prophet.

John, too, had recognized the Tetrarch, Longinus was sure; yet the prophet made no immediate reference to his presence. Instead, he continued preaching on the necessity of repentance and on the use of baptism as a sign of Yahweh’s forgiveness. The man was a powerful speaker; he had native ability, Longinus immediately perceived, to command attention and sway his hearers. The crowd listened, entranced, to his every word; now and then one would step forward and, crying loudly in repentance, ask for baptism.

Sometimes a man would interrupt the prophet to seek an answer to some deeply perplexing problem. But no one yet had spoken openly of the Tetrarch’s presence among them.

Then a tall, narrow-faced Jew, unkempt, ill-clothed, evidently a man of the earth, stepped forward and held up his hand. “This repentance of which you speak,” he questioned, “is it necessary for the rich man in the same manner as it is for the poor and dispossessed, for the man of authority as well as for the servant? I ask you, does the measuring rod measure the same for all men, or is there one rule for one man and another rule for another?”

“Repentance is necessary for all men, my brother,” John replied calmly. “The same measuring rod measures for both the man of authority and the servant who serves him, for both the rich man and the man of earth.”

John paused. Then slowly his dark eyes moved from the face of his questioner to that of the Tetrarch. “The same measuring rod measures for the Tetrarch of Galilee, my brother, that measures for you, and it is the same for even the lowliest servant in that iniquitous marble pile above the graveyard in Tiberias!” The prophet’s eyes were blazing now, and he raised his gaunt, sun-bronzed arm to point a lean forefinger directly at Herod Antipas. “Repent, O Tetrarch, repent!” His voice was thunderous now, and the finger darted forward like the tongue of a serpent. “Repent while yet there is time! Repent of the evil you have done, and seek in true penitence the forgiveness of our God Whom you have scorned and despised!”

Antipas stood silent and stared straight ahead, looking as though suddenly he had been turned to stone. But Herodias, though amazed, had not been rendered speechless by the torrent of the prophet’s denunciation. Calmly she turned to her husband. “Do you intend to stand here and allow this madman to vilify you? Are you going to stand patiently while...?”

“And you! You evil woman!” John’s shout interrupted her. Now the angry hand was pointed directly at her. “You call me a madman,” he said. “Yes, I am a madman. I am a madman for our God. And I call upon you, too, to repent. Repent before our God turns His face from you forever. I call upon both you sinners to fall on your faces and cry out to the God of Israel, imploring Him for forgiveness.” Then the prophet’s stern eyes turned again toward the Tetrarch. “Herod, cast this foul woman from you! Have you not stolen her away from the bed of your brother? You cannot have her, O Tetrarch! Does not God’s holy law forbid a man from taking to bed the wife of his living brother in the flesh? Adulterer! Repent! And you, evil woman, you adulteress”—John’s eyes were fiery now with a wild zeal as he faced Herodias, whose flushed cheeks and lips drawn into thin lines revealed her fury—“neither shall you have him! Get you back to the bed you have deserted, if the husband you have abandoned has the grace to forgive and receive you! O Tetrarch”—John lifted his gaunt arms toward the heavens—“cast her from you before your grievous sinning brings ruin down upon the land. Send her back to your brother, and humbly beseech the forgiveness of our God! Repent, O Tetrarch, repent! Repent!”

Still Herod Antipas stood staring, unmoving, rooted.

“By all the great and little gods, Antipas”—Herodias, infuriated, whirled upon the Tetrarch, grabbed his arm and shook him—“will you stand there like a statue and permit that fanatic to insult and intimidate you and your wife before this crowd?” Scornfully she measured him, and her lips curled with disgust. “Are you indeed the Tetrarch of Galilee, or are you a frightened mouse?” She stood back, taunting him with her shrill laugh.

Her challenging words and her mirthless laughter broke the spell the prophet had cast. “No, I am not afraid of him,” Antipas replied slowly, as though he were arguing with himself. “Nor can I any longer permit this abuse to go unpunished. He has not only vilified your Tetrarch and his wife”—Antipas was now addressing the crowd rather than Herodias—“but he has challenged my honor and authority. His words are a call to insurrection. I can no longer permit the preaching of rebellion.” He turned to confront Longinus. “Centurion, arrest this man. Have him taken at once to the Fortress Machaerus and there placed in its dungeon. Order him held until I pronounce judgment.”

Without even a glance toward the now silent but calm and seemingly untroubled prophet of the Wilderness, Herod turned and started along the gentle rise toward the horses.