He shook his head that he had bowed upon her shoulder.
"Let us go," she urged. "Perchance he has comfort for us. Come, Hesper; let us see what he has for the forlorn."
"Who?" he asked dully.
"They say the Deliverer has come."
He shook his head again, but with her two hands she lifted his face from its refuge, and urging with her eyes and her hands and her lips she led him toward the stairs. The Christian looked after them.
"For there shall arise false Christs; and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect," he said sorrowfully.
The horror of the city augmented hour by hour. The Jerusalem Laodice locked upon now was infinitely more afflicted than the one she had seen in the daylight days before.
The walls were now outlined by fire which illuminated all the city that lay directly beneath the beacons. To the north gnomish outlines by hundreds against the flames showed where the soldiers of the factionists were placing the topmost stones upon an inner wall or curtain erected just within the Old Wall, which was by this time shaking and cracking under the assaults of a great siege-engine without. Titus, awakened by the fall of his tower, had immediately renewed the attack, although the morning was still some hours distant.
But the citizens were no longer disinterested, no longer wrapped in hopelessness and dull misery.
Hungry, sleepless, houseless, diseased and mad though they were, their hollow eyes gleamed now with hope that was almost defiant. Around the Maccabee and Laodice roared the comment of the multitude.