When it subsided, I found myself lying on the green sward, in noonday, at the bottom of a valley, with the tower of Antonia covered with the legionaries, five hundred feet above me. The remnants of huge fires round pillars of timber explained the mystery. The enemy had undermined the wall, and by burning the props, had brought it down at the moment of the assault. Onias, the planner of the attack, for which he was to be repaid with the procuratorship of Judea, had placed me in the spot where ruin was to begin, and cheered his dying moments with the certainty that, acquitted or not, there I must be undone!
Preparations
I long lay confused and powerless beside my dungeon! But the twilight air revived me, and I crept through the deserted entrenchments of the enemy until I reached one of the gates, where I announced my name, and was received with rejoicings. The heart of my countrymen was heroic to the last, and deeply was its heroism now demanded; for the whole force of the enemy had been brought up for final assault, and when I entered, every portion of the walls was the scene of unexampled battle. Where the ground suffered the approach of troops, the enemy’s columns, headed by archers and slingers innumerable, rushed to the rampart, climbing up the breaches, with their shields covering their heads. Against the towers were wheeled towers filled with troops, who descended on the wall and fought us hand to hand. We felt the continued blows of the battering-rams, shaking the battlements under our feet. Where the ground repelled direct assault, there the military machines poured havoc, and those were the most dreaded of all.
The skill of man, exerted for ages on the arts of compendious slaughter, has scarcely produced the equals of those horrible engines. They threw masses of unextinguishable fire, of boiling water, of burning oil, of red-hot flints, of molten metal, from distances that precluded defense, and with a force that nothing could resist. The catapult shot stones of a hundred-weight from the distance of furlongs, with the straightness of an arrow, and with an impulse that ground everything in their way to powder. The fortitude that scorned the Roman spear, and exulted in the sight of the columns mounting the scaling-ladders, as mounting to sure destruction, quailed before the tremendous power of the catapult. The singular and ominous cry of the watchers, who gave notice of its discharge, “The son cometh,” was a sound that prostrated every man upon his face, until the crash of the walls told that the blow was given.
“Wo to the City!”
Every thought that I had now for earth was in the tower of Antonia! But there the legions rendered approach impossible, and I could only gaze from a distance and see, in the bitterness of my soul, the enemy gradually forcing their way from rampart to rampart. It was in vain that I strove to collect a few who would join me in a desperate attempt to succor its defenders. I was left alone, and sitting on the battlements, I took the chance of some friendly spear or stone.
Through all the roar I heard the voice of Sabat, the Ishmaelite: the eternal “Wo!—wo!—wo!” loud as ever, and in appalling unison with the hour. He now came rushing along the wall with the same rapid and vigorous stride as of old, but his betrothed no longer followed him. She was borne in his arms! The stones from the engines thundered against the wall; they tore up the strong buttresses like weeds; they struck away whole ranks of men, and whirled their remnants through the air. They leveled towers and swept battlements away with their defenders at a blow. But Sabat moved unshrinking on his wild mission. His cry now was terrible prophecy.
“A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegroom and the bride, a voice against this whole people.”
He stopped before me, and pointing to the face of his bride, said with a sudden faltering and tears: “She is gone; she is dead. She died last night. I promised to die too. She follows me no more. It is I that must follow her.”
Death was in his face, and my only wonder was that a form so utterly reduced could live and move. I offered him some provision from the basket of a dead soldier at my feet. For the first time he took it, thanked me, and ate. Not less to my surprise, he continued gazing round him on the movements of the enemy, on the temple, the tower of Antonia, and the hills. But his station was eminently perilous, and I pointed out one of the military engines taking its position to play upon the spot where we were. He refused to stir.