When Nathan, the Christian, stepped into the streets once more there
was an immense accession of tumult about him.
He turned to look toward the corner of the Old Wall in time to behold
Jews in armor and Romans in blazing brass rush together in a great
cloud of dust as the Old Wall went in and Titus swept down upon
Jerusalem.
At the same instant from the ruined high place upon Zion came a roar
of stupendous menace. The Christian, with sublime indifference to
danger, kept his path toward the concourse from which he had taken
Laodice. As he ascended the opposite slope of the ravine, he saw,
descending toward the battle, the front of a rushing multitude, as
irresistible and as destructive as a great sea in a storm.
He saw that the mob was turning toward Akra, and to avoid it, the
Christian climbed up to the Tyropean Bridge, and from that point
viewed the whole of Jerusalem sweeping down upon the heathen.
At the head of the inundation passed a melodious voice crying: "An end, an end is come upon the four corners of the land! Draw near
every man with his destroying weapon in his hands for the glory of the
Lord! For His house is filled with cloud and the Court is full of the
brightness of the Lord's glory! A sword! A sword is sharpened! The way
is appointed that the sword may come! For the time for favor to Zion
is here; yea, the set time is come!"
After this poured a gaunt horde numbering tens of thousands. They bore
paving-stones, stakes, posts, railings, garden implements, weapons
from kitchens, from hardware booths and from armories; anything that
one man or a body of men could wield; torches and kettles of tar;
chains and ropes; knotted whips, and bundles of fagots; iron spikes,
instruments of torture, anything and everything which could be turned
as a weapon or to inflict pain upon the Roman, who believed at this
moment that Jerusalem was his!
The Christian overlooked this ferocious inundation and shook his head.
On a mound near him stood the spirit of the mob concentrated and
personified. It was crazed Posthumus.
He was screaming: "It is finished; the law is run out! All prophecy is
fulfilled!"
And over his head he was swinging a parchment fiercely burning.
It was the Scroll of the Law!
After uncounted minutes, vibrating with roar, the terrible flood
rushed by. Feeble arms clasped the Christian about the knees and he
looked down on the tangled white locks of the palsied man, who had
searched for him until he had found him. The Christian laid his hand
on the man's head but did not speak.
At the breach in the Old Wall, the watchers on that almost deserted
street saw the brazen wave of four legions gather and sweep forward to
gain ground in the city before the mob swept down on them.