The madness on Jerusalem poured like an overwhelming flood into the
cavern under the ruin of the Herodian palaces. There was Hesper, with
most of his Gibborim gathered, preparing to proceed to the defense of
the First Wall in Akra against which the Roman would hurl himself in
the morning.
For days he had controlled his men only by the force of his fierce
will. Restlessness, little short of turbulence, had changed his six
hundred from earnest recruits to bright-eyed, contentious,
irresponsible enthusiasts whom only intimidation could manage. They
seemed to be balanced, prepared, ready at the least whisper in the
wind to scatter madly, each in his own direction, after a vagary,
albeit the end were destruction.
Throughout these latter days the Maccabee had become strained and
unnatural in his manner. There was a vehemence in all he did which
seemed to be a final resolution against despair. His decisions were
arbitrary; his methods extreme. Laodice, sensing something climacteric
in his atmosphere, kept aloof from him, and regarded him from the dusk
of her corner with wonder and a pity that she could not explain. The
Christian on the other hand seemed always in an unobtrusive way to be
at the Maccabee's elbow. The apparition with the long white hair,
however, ran away and was found on the streets by the Christian and
brought back to the cavern, where he hid in a dark shadow in the
remote end of the crypt and was not seen.
Of late the cavern was always full of suppressed excitement;
unpremeditated conferences among the Gibborim, which Hesper harshly
forbade; and general sharp resentment against imposed regulations and
military drill. On several occasions the six hundred were sent in
defense of the walls only by sheer force of their leader's will-power.
And there they fell in at once with the irregular methods of the
Idumeans and fanatics that fought each after his own liking, and the
careful instruction of the Maccabee was disregarded. Only so long as
he cowed them, they obeyed him; and he seemed to feel, as they seemed
to indicate, that when that thing happened which all Jerusalem
indefinitely expected and could not name, his control over them would
be lost beyond restoration.
On the night of the fall of the Roman tower, the Maccabee's forces had
been withdrawn for rest to their retreat and at midnight were formed
again for return to the fortifications.
By the strange inscrutable spread of rumor, sweeping with the air, the
tidings of the miracle and the rise of Seraiah poured in upon the
restive hundreds that the Maccabee was attempting to form in his
fortress. It came like the gradual velocity of a burning star across
the sky. From the ranks nearest the exit from the burrow the murmur
issued, growing into intelligible sound, mounting to the wildness of
hysteria and prevailing wholly over the Gibborim in the space between
heart-beats. Everywhere they cast down their spears and their weapons,
everywhere they gazed at him with brilliant threatening eyes and cried
in loud voices so that the things each mad mind put into expression
were lost in a great unintelligible raving.