Instead, though there were intimations that her reputation was not all that a good maiden's ought to be, she sang pious hosannahs and waved a palm branch conspicuously in honor of the prophet at whose head she had bowled herself in the desert, the public streets, and king's palaces.

At the end she killed herself when she found that the vengeful passion of Herodias and the jealous hatred of Herod had compassed the death of the saintly man whom she had loved.

Herodias was a wicked woman, no doubt, for John the Baptist denounced her publicly as a Jezebel, but her jealousy of Salome had reached a point beyond her control before she learned that her rival was her own daughter whom she had deserted for love of the Tetrarch.

As for John the Baptist the camel's hair with which he was clothed must have cost as pretty a penny as any of the modern kind, and if he wore a girdle of skins about his loins it was concealed under a really regal cloak.

He was a voice; but not one crying in the wilderness.