But under an ever-thickening veil of horrid airs, the struggle went
on.
The Roman Ides of July arrived.
Titus had erected banks upon which his engines were raised to batter
the walls of the Temple.
From Titus' camp, the Romans on sick leave, the commissaries, those
attached to the army who were not fighting-men, and old Momus, saw
first, before the attack on the Temple began, a soft increasing
dun-colored vapor rise between the Temple and Antonia. It issued from
the cloister at the northwest which joined the Roman tower. As they
watched, they saw that vapor grow into a pale but intensely luminous
smoke, as if fine woods and burning metals were consumed together. In
a moment the whole north-west section was embraced in a sublime pall
of fire.
John was burning away the connection between the Temple and the tower
and was making the sacred edifice four-square.
As soon as it became confirmed, in the minds of the watchers in the
Roman camp, that the Temple had been fired, the old mute among them
seemed to become wholly unbalanced. Without warning, he leaped upon
the nearest sentry who, not expecting the attack, went down with a
clatter of armor and a shout of astonishment. The next instant the old
man was making across the intervening space between the camp and
Jerusalem as fast as his stiff legs could carry him.
The purple sentry sprang to his feet and strung an arrow, but before
he could send it singing, the old minotaur was mixed with a second
soldier in such confusion that the first sentry hesitated to shoot
lest he should kill his fellow. Another moment and a second soldier
was struggling in the impediment of his armor in the dust and the old
mute was again hobbling straight away toward the walls of Jerusalem.
He was now a fair mark for the first sentry, but that Roman's rancor
died after he had seen his own disgrace covered by the overthrow of
his fellow. Two of Titus' scouts next stood in the path of the running
old man. One went to the ground so suddenly and so violently that the
watchers, now breaking into howls of delight, knew that he had been
tripped. The other stood but a moment longer, than he, too, rolled
into the dust.
The old man might have gone no farther at this juncture, for at every
latest triumph he left a crimson soldier murderous with shame. But
before the arrow next strung to overtake him could fly, Titus, Carus
and Nicanor, accompanied by their escort, rode between the fugitive
and the men he had defeated.
"There goes our minotaur," Carus said quietly. Titus drew up his horse
and looked. Nicanor with a sidelong glance awaited the young Roman's
command to his escort to ride down the fugitive. But he waited, and
continued to wait, while Titus with lifted head and with indecision in
his eyes watched the deformed old shape hobble on toward the Wall of
Circumvallation.