Between the two warring bodies, one orderly, prepared but
apprehensive, the other mad and perishing, was a considerable space.
Fighting still went on at the breach in the walls, but the supreme
conflict of a comparatively small body of soldiers and an uncounted
horde was not yet precipitated.
Ordinarily, the Roman army could have reduced any popular insurrection
with half that number of men. But at present the legionaries
confronted desperate citizens who were simply choosing their own way
to die. Reason and human fear long since had ceased to inspire them.
They were believing now and following a prophet because it was the
final respite before despair. There was no alternative. It was death
whatever they did, unless, in truth, this splendid sorceress was
indeed the Voice of the Risen Prince. Force would be of no avail
against them. Madness had flung them against Rome; only some other
madness would turn them back.
The Christian, from his commanding position, expected anything.
It was the moment which would show if the false prophet would triumph.
If the four legions went down before the multitude, it would mean the
ascendancy of a strange woman over Israel, and the obliteration of the
faith in Jesus Christ in the Holy Land.
It can not be said that the Christian watched the crisis with a calm
spirit. He did not wish to see the heathen overthrow the ancient
people of God, nor could he behold the triumph of a false Christ. He
put his hands together and prayed.
A figure appeared between the two bodies of combatants, rushing on
intensely, to grapple.
It was a tall commanding form, clothed in garments that glittered for
whiteness. By the step, by the poise of the head, the Christian
recognized Seraiah.
The front of the multitude fell on their faces at that moment as if he
had struck them down.
Out of the forefront, the prophetess appeared. The Christian heard her
splendid voice out of the uproar, and while he gazed, he saw mad
Seraiah turn away from her, with the front of the mob turning after
him, as a needle turns to the pole.
In that fatal moment of pause, out of which the warning cry of the
prophetess rang wildly, the Roman tribune, in view for a moment under
the blowing veils of smoke, flung up his sword, the Roman bugle sang,
and the brassy legions of Titus hurled themselves upon the halted mob.
The Christian dropped his head into the bend of his elbow and strove
to shut out the sound. The nervous arms of the palsied man at his feet
gripped him frantically.
Up from the corner of the Old Wall, came the prolonged "A-a-a-a!" of
dying thousands.
Jerusalem had fallen.
The foremost of the mob, turning with Seraiah, escaped the onslaught
of the Romans, and as the mad Pretender strode toward the broad street
from which the Tyropean Bridge crossed to the demesnes of the Temple,
they followed him fatuously, blind to the death behind them and the
oncoming slaughter in which they might fall.