“Ben Joreb has good news of our plan,” said he, turning to Manius.

“It prospers,” said the priest.  “Our council is now in thirty cities.”

“And the king is better,” said Manius.  “He will not soon perish of infirmity.”

“But you tell me that my father suffers?”

Antipater started nervously.  A long, weird wail from the Arab dying on a cross in the garden flooded down the flues.

“A hundred deaths a day,” said Ben Joreb.

“I have been talking with Manius,” Antipater answered.  “He thinks it would be a mercy to—­”

He was interrupted again.  That tremulous, awful cry for mercy found its way to his ear.  It seemed to mock the sacred word.  Antipater jumped to his feet, cursing.

“I will put an end to that,” said he, rushing to the door and flinging it back and running down the passage.

Manius turned to Ben Joreb.

“What is there in the howling of that slave?” he whispered.  “I am weak-hearted.”

“I take it for a sign,” the other answered, gravely.  “It is written, ‘Thy spirit shall be as the candle of the Lord,’ and, again, ’Thou shall hearken to the cry of anguish.’”

In a few moments Antipater returned.

“I have summoned the carnifex,” said he, bolting the door and resuming his place at the table.  “I was saying to you, good Manius, that my friend here, Ben Joreb, would think it a great mercy to remove him.”

“A great mercy!” Ben Joreb answered; “a man’s mercy to him; a God’s mercy to his people.”

“And what think you?” said Antipater, turning to Manius.

“I agree; ’twould be a mercy, but a risky enterprise,” said the Roman.

“I would risk my head to save him a day of pain,” said the treacherous son of Herod.  “You love him not as I do or you would brave all to end his misery.”

There was now half a moment filled with a long, piercing cry from beyond the walls of the palace until Antipater spoke, a tiger look in his face again.  “Put the lance into him, my good carnifex,” he growled, striking with clinched fist.  “Again, now; and again, and again.”

He listened for a breath, and as silence came he added, “There, that will do.”

Neither spoke for a little time.

“I wish I could make you feel how dearly I love my father,” he went on, addressing his friends now and hiding his claws with revolting guile and all unconscious that he had shown them.

Again a breath of silence, in which Manius thought of the black leopard when he lay making those playful and caressing movements on the floor.  And there came to the heart of Ben Joreb a fear that this man might prove more terrible than his father.

“We feel it,” said Manius, with inner smiles that showed not upon his face.

“Then be servants of my love.”

“And of our own welfare?”

“Certainly!  You shall each have a palace in Jerusalem and fifty thousand aurei; and you, Manius, shall command the forces on land and sea, and you, John ben Joreb, of the tribe of Aaron, shall be high-priest.”