He saw the young general ride down to this circle, dismount and, catching a spade from the nearest legionary, drive it into the earth.  When he tossed out the first clay, each of the men in the visible segment of that great cordon struck his implement into the ground.  And even as the Maccabee watched, he saw grow up under his eyes a wall!

He understood.  Titus was walling against a wall; turning upon the Jews that same thing which they had reared against him.  As the Maccabee stood gazing transfixed at this grim work, he heard beside him an old voice say, with terrible conviction: 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!...  For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”

The Maccabee, shaken with the culmination of Rome’s resolution and afraid in spite of himself, whirled angrily upon that voice speaking doom at his side.  There in the old ragged tunic bound about him with rope, stood the old man he had rescued and had sheltered persistently for many days.

The old man faced the young man’s rage with supernatural composure and strength.  With clenched hands, the Maccabee stood away from him and felt that he threatened with his fists a hoary citadel that armies had beaten themselves against in vain.

The Maccabee did not speak to his old pensioner.  He felt the futility of words against this thing which seemed to be a revelation, denying absolutely all of his ambitions.  He dropped from his position and, pushing his way through the distress upon the city, turned toward the house of Amaryllis.  It was a climacteric hour, when men should look well to the protection of all that was near and dear to them.

When he was gone a strange, bent figure with long white hair and a gray distorted face came from the shadow of one of the towers and plucked the old Christian’s tunic.  The Christian turned and seeing who stood beside him said with intense surety in his tones: 

“It is proven.  Accept the Lord Jesus while it is time, my son, for behold the hour of the last day of this city is fulfilled!”

The apparition lifted a palsied hand on which the skin was yet fair and young and pointed after the Maccabee, losing himself in the groaning mass in the city.

“If I believe, I must tell him!” he said.

“Whatever thou hast done against that man must be amended,” the Christian declared.

The palsied figure shrank and wringing his hands about each other said in a whisper that sounded like wind among dried leaves: