CHAPTER XXXIII
Jubal’s Warning
Salathiel Views Jerusalem
In pain and terror I drew my unfortunate kinsman from the gaze of the troops, and entreated him to tell me by what melancholy chance his feelings had been thus disturbed. He looked at me with a fierce glance, and half unsheathed his dagger. But I was not to be repelled, and still labored to soothe him. He hurriedly grasped the weapon, flung it down the steep, and sinking at my feet, burst into tears.
An uproar in the valley roused me from the contemplation of this wreck of youth and hope. The enemy, tho defeated, had suffered little comparative loss. The pride of the legions could not brook the idea of defeat by what they deemed the rabble of the city and the fields. Cestius, under cover of the broken country on our flanks, had rallied the fugitives of the camp, and now, between me and the city, were rapidly advancing in columns, forty thousand men.
The maneuver was bold. It might force us either to fight at a ruinous disadvantage, or to leave the city totally exposed. But, like all bold games, it was perilous, and I determined to make the Roman feel that he had an antagonist who would not leave the game at his discretion.
From the pinnacle on which I stood, the whole champaign lay beneath me. Nothing could be lovelier. The grandest combinations of art and nature were before the eye—Jerusalem on her hills, a city of palaces, and in that hour displaying her full pomp; her towers streaming with banners; her battlements crowded with troops; her priesthood and citizens in their festal habits pouring from the gates and covering the plain with the pageant; that plain itself colored with the richest produce of the earth; groves of the olive; declivities, purple with the vine or yellow with corn, gleaming in the sun, sheets of vegetable gold.
Salathiel Talks to Jubal
The signals of my advance parties along the heights soon told me that the enemy were in movement. My plan was speedily adopted. On the right spread the plain; on the left lay the broken and hilly country through which the enemy were advancing by its three principal ravines. I felt that, if they could unite, success with our undisciplined levies was desperate. The only hope was that of beating the columns separately as they emerged into the plain. Cavalry had now begun to ride down upon the processions, which, startled at the sight, were instantly scattered and flying toward Jerusalem.