I left my gentle despot, and hurried through the echoing halls of this palace of the winds. As I approached the great avenues leading from the gates to the Temple, unusual sounds struck my ears. Hitherto nothing in the sadness of the besieged city was sadder than its silence. Death was lord of Jerusalem, and the numberless ways in which life was extinguished had left but the remnant of its once proud and flourishing population.
Gathering at Jerusalem
But now shouts, and still more, the deep and perpetual murmur that bespeaks the movements and gatherings of a crowded city, astonished me. My first conception was that the enemy had advanced in force, and I was turning toward the battlements to witness, or repel the general fate, when I was involved in the multitude whose voices had perplexed me.
It was the season of the Passover. The Roman barrier had hitherto kept back the tribes; but the victory that left it in embers opened the gates; and from the most death-like solitude, we were once more to see the sons of Judea filling the courts of the city of cities.
CHAPTER L
After the Struggle
Nothing could be more unrestrained than the public rejoicing. The bold myriads that soon poured in, hour by hour, many of them long acquainted with Roman battle and distinguished for the successful defense of their strongholds, many of them even bearing arms taken from the enemy, or displaying honorable scars, seemed to have come, sent by Heaven. The enemy, evidently disheartened by their late losses and the destruction of the rampart which had cost them so much labor, remained collected in their camps, and access was free from every quarter. The rumors of our triumph had spread with singular rapidity through the land, and even the fearful phenomenon that wrote our undoing in the skies stimulated the national hope. No son of Abraham could believe, without the strongest repugnance, that Heaven had interposed, and yet interposed against the chosen people.
The Living Torrent
A living torrent had come, swelling into the gates, and the great avenues and public places were quickly impassable with the multitude. Jerusalem never before contained so vast a mass of population. Wherever the eye turned were tents, fires, and feasting; still the multitude wore an aspect not such as in former days. The war had made its impression on the inmost spirit of our country. The shepherds and tillers of the ground had been forced into the habits of soldiership, and I saw before me, for the gentle and joyous inhabitants of the field and garden, bands of warriors made fierce by the sullen necessities of the time.