A Wild Panic
The general rush of the people, in which hundreds were trampled and in which nothing but the most violent efforts could keep any on their feet, bore me away for a while. The struggle was sufficient to absorb all my senses, for nothing could be more perilous. The darkness was intense, the peals of the storm were deafening, and the howlings and fury of the crowd, trampling and being trampled on, and fighting for life in blindness and despair, with hand, foot, and dagger, made an uproar louder than that of the storm. In this conflict, rather of demons than of men, I was whirled away in eddy after eddy, until chance brought me again to the foot of the elevation.
There I beheld a new wonder. A column of livid fire stood upon it, reaching to the clouds. I could discern the outline of a human form within. But while I expected to see it drop dead or blasted to a cinder, the flame spread over the ground, and I saw its strange inhabitant making signs like those of incantation. He drew a circle upon the burning soil, poured out some unguent which diffused a powerful and rich odor, razed the skin of his arm with a dagger, and let fall some drops of blood into the blaze.
I shuddered at the sight of those palpable appeals to the power of Evil, but I was pressed upon by thousands, and retreat was impossible. The strange being then, with a ghastly smile of triumph, waved the weapon toward the Roman camps.
The Beginnings of Vengeance
“Behold,” he cried, “the beginnings of vengeance!”
A thunder-roll that almost split the ear echoed round the hills. The darkness passed away with it. Above Jerusalem the sky cleared, and cleared into a translucence and blue splendor unrivaled by the brightest sunshine. The people, wrought up to the highest expectancy, shouted at this promise of a prouder deliverance, and exclaiming, “Goshen! Goshen!” looked breathlessly for the completion of the plague upon the more than Egyptian oppressor. They were not held long in suspense.
The Bursting of the Storm
The storm had cleared away above our heads, only to gather in deeper terrors round the circle of hills on which we could see the enemy in the most overwhelming state of alarm. The clouds rushed on, ridge over ridge, until the whole horizon seemed shut in by a wall of night towering to the skies. I heard the deep voice of the orator; at the utterance of some strange words, a gleam played round his dagger’s point, and the wall of darkness was instantly a wall of fire. The storm was let loose in its rage. While we stood in daylight and in perfect calm, the lightning poured like sheets of rain or gushes of burning metal from a furnace upon the enemy. The vast circuit of the camps was instantly one blaze. The wind tore everything before it with irresistible violence. We saw the tents swept off the ground and driven far over the hills in flames like meteors; the piles of arms and banners blown away; the soldiery clinging to the rocks, flying together in helpless crowds, or scattering, like maniacs, with hair and garments on fire; the baggage and military machines, the turrets and ramparts, sinking in flames; the beasts of burden plunging and rushing through the lines, or lying in smoldering heaps where the lightning first smote them. All was conflagration!