The light now illumined the whole horizon below. The legions were seen drawn out in front of the camps, ready for action—every helmet and spear-point glittering in the radiance; every face turned up, gazing in awe and terror on the sky. The tents spreading over the hills; the thousands and tens of thousands of auxiliaries and captives; the little groups of the peasantry, roused from sleep by the uproar of the night, and gathered upon the knolls and eminences of their fields—all were bathed in a flood of preternatural luster. But the wondrous battle approached its close. The visionary Romans seemed to shake, column and cohort gave way, and the banners of the tribes waved in victory over the celestial field. Then human voices dared to be heard. From the city and the plain burst forth one mighty shout of triumph!
A Dreadful Sign
But our presumption was soon to be checked. A peal of thunder that made the very ground tremble under our feet rolled from the four quarters of the heaven. The conquering host shook, broke, and fled in utter confusion over the sapphire field. It was pursued, but by no semblance of the Roman.
An awful enemy was on its steps. Flashes of forked fire, like myriads of lances, darted after it; cloud on cloud deepened down, as the smoke of a mighty furnace; globes of light shot blasting and burning along its track. Then amid the double roar of thunder rushed forth the chivalry of heaven. Shapes of transcendent beauty, yet with looks of wrath that withered the human eye—armed sons of immortality descending on the wing by millions—mingled with shapes and instruments of ruin, for which the mind has no conception. The circle of the heaven was filled with the chariots and horses of fire. Flight was in vain; the weapons were seen to drop from the Jewish host; their warriors sank upon the splendid field. Still the immortal armies poured on, trampling and blasting, until the last of the routed were consumed.
The angry pomp then paused. Countless wings were spread, and the angelic multitudes, having done the work of vengeance, rushed upward, with the sound of ocean in the storm. The roar of trumpets and thunders was heard, until the splendor was lost in the heights of the empyrean.
We felt the terrible warning. Our strength was dried up at the sight; despair seized upon our souls. We had seen the fate of Jerusalem. No victory over man could now save us from the coming of final ruin!
Despair
Thousands never left the ground on which they stood; they perished by their own hands, or lay down and died of broken hearts. The rest fled through the night, that again wrapped them in tenfold darkness. The whole multitude scattered with soundless steps, and in silence like an army of specters.