After the Ephesian had been swept in with his own company of pilgrims,
he saw that which even few of the new-comers had expected to see. The
immediate vicinity of the gate was laid waste. Up Mount Zion opposite
Hippicus and along the margin of the Tyropean Valley where the
Herodian and Sadducean palaces had seemed so fair from the north were
great blackened shells of walls and leaning pillars, partly buried in
ruin and rubbish. Far and wide the streets were littered with debris
and charred fragments of burned timbers. At another place on the
breast of Zion was a chaos of rock where a mansion had been literally
pulled down. Somewhere near Akra pale columns of pungent, wind-blown
smoke still rose from a colossal heap of fused matter that the
Ephesian could not identify. About it were neglected houses; not a
sign of festivity was apparent; windows hung open carelessly; the
hangings in colonnades were stripped away entirely or whipped loose
from the fastenings and abandoned to the winds. Numbers of dwellings
appeared to have been sacked; others were so closely barred and
fortified that their exteriors appeared as inhospitable as jails.
Confusion prevailed on the smoked and untidy marble Walk of the
Purified leading down from the Temple. Here those who held fast to the
Law met and contested for their old exclusiveness with wild heathen
Idumean soldiers, starvelings, ruffians and strange women from
out-lying towns. Far and wide were wandering crowds, surly, defiant,
discourteous, exacting. Manifestly it was the visitors who were the
aggressors. They had been overthrown and driven from their own into an
unsubjugated city which was secure. They felt the rage of the defeated
which are not subdued, and the resentment against another's unearned
immunity. The citizens of Jerusalem had not welcomed them and they
were enraged. Half a dozen fights of more or less seriousness were in
sight at once. A column of black wiry men in some semblance of uniform
pushed across the open space toward the Essene Gate. They took no heed
for any in their path. Those who could not escape were overturned and
trampled on. Meeting a rush at the gate they drew swords and coolly
hacked their way through screams of fear and pain and amazement. After
them went a wave of curses and complaint. Citizens against the
visitors; visitors against the citizens; soldiers against them all!
"And this cousin of mine meant to pacify all this!" the Ephesian
exclaimed to himself.
Jerusalem, that had for fifteen hundred years adorned herself at this
time with tabrets and had gone forth in the dance of them that make
merry, was drunken with wormwood and covered with ashes.
All at once the Ephesian saw four soldiers standing together and with
them, manifestly under their protection, was a Greek of striking
beauty. He wore on his fine head a purple turban embroidered with a
golden star.