The Maccabee looked doubtful.
"I can not promise," he said. "At least do not hold off the siege until you see me again without the walls. It might lose you prestige in Rome."
Titus swung his bridle while he gazed at the Maccabee.
"I wish Nicanor were here," he said finally. "He might be able to see harm in you; but I never could. You will have to promise me something–anything so it is a promise–before I can let you in. Something to appease Nicanor, else I shall never hear the last of this."
The Maccabee laughed, the sudden harsh laugh of one impelled to amusement unexpectedly.
"Assure Nicanor, for me, that I shall come out of Jerusalem one day. Dead or alive, I shall do it! You need not add that I did not specify the date of my exodus. What is the word?"
"Berenice. And Jove help you! Farewell."
Titus rode on.
A little later, after a parley with the Roman sentries and again with the sentries at the Gate of Hippicus, the Maccabee was admitted to the Holy City.
About him as he passed through the gates were the soldiers of Simon. They were not such men as he expected to see defending the City of David. There was an extravagant, half-pastoral manner about them, a pose of which they should not have been conscious at this hour of peril for the nation and the hierarchy. He looked at their incomplete, meaningless uniform, at their arms, half savage, at their faces, half mad, and believed that he, with an army rationally organized and effectually equipped, would have little difficulty in subduing the unbalanced forces of Simon.