For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem

by G. A. Henty

"Well, if you like I will fasten the rope round me; then, if I should slip, I shall be safe."

John consented with some reluctance, but he was so nervous and shaken that he walked some distance away, and did not turn round until he heard Jonas' footsteps again approaching him.

"Now we can start," the boy said. "We have got grain here, enough for three days; and tonight we will crush it, and cook it. I have had enough of eating raw grain, for a long time to come."

The boy's cheerfulness restored the tone of John's nerves and--making their way with some difficulty over the chaos of stone and timber, until they arrived at the pile of charred timber, which marked the spot where the Roman embankment had stood--they stepped out briskly, descended the hill, crossed the deserted lines of circumvallation; and then began to ascend the mountains, which had, for some distance, been stripped of their timber for the purposes of the siege. In another hour's walking they reached the forest, and pressed on until the afternoon. Not that there was any need for speed, now, but John felt a longing to place as wide a gap as possible between himself and the great charnel ground which, alone, marked the spot where Jotapata had stood.

At length, Jonas urged the necessity for a halt, for rest and food. They chose a spot at the foot of a great tree, and then set to work to collect a store of firewood. John took out the box of tinder which, in those days, everyone carried about with him, and a fire was soon lighted. Jonas then looked for two large flat stones, and set to work to grind some grain.

The halting place had been chosen from the vicinity of a little spring, which rose a few yards distant. With this the pounded grain was moistened and, after kneading it up, Jonas rolled it in balls and placed them in the hot ashes of the fire. In half an hour they were cooked, and the meal was eaten with something like cheerfulness.

Another day's walking brought them to a little village, nestled in the forest. Here they were kindly received, though the people scarce believed them when they said that they were survivors of the garrison of Jotapata. The news of the capture of the town, and the destruction of its defenders, had already spread through the country; and John now learned, for the first time, the fate which had befallen Japha and the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim--events which filled him with consternation.

The folly of the tactics which had been pursued--of cooping all the fighting men up in the walled cities, to be destroyed one after the other by the Romans--was more than ever apparent. He had never, from the first, been very hopeful of the result of the struggle; but it seemed, now, as if it could end in nothing but the total destruction of the Jewish race of Palestine.

John stayed for two days in the little mountain village and then, with a store of provisions sufficient to last him for some days, pursued his way; following the lines of the Anti-Libanus, until that range of hills joined the range of Mount Hermon, north of the sources of the Jordan.

He had stopped for a day at Dan, high up among the hills. Here the people had no fear of Roman vengeance; for the insurrection had not extended so far north, and the Roman garrison of Caesarea Philippi overawed the plains near the upper waters of the Jordan. Determined, however, to run no unnecessary risks, John and his companion pursued their way on the lower slopes of the hills until, after six days' walking, they arrived at Neve.