But the next minute, Philadelphus, who walked alertly, saw people step out into gutters or press against walls, as if to allow some one to pass.  Awakening interest ran abroad over the street ahead of him.  A lane between the wandering multitude opened almost by magic.  Through it, walking swiftly, his head up, his mystic eyes ignited, came Seraiah, soldier of Jehovah.  There was no sound of his footfall.  His garments flashed in the light of the beacons, but there was not even a whisper of their motion.  But he had changed.  There was fierce, superhuman intent in the despatch of his gait and in the uplift of his superb head.  After him, as he passed, ran whispers.  Each one stopped and looked.  He went down the uneven slope of Zion as some great shade borne on a swift air.

Two or three bold ones began to move after him.  Others followed.  The little nucleus grew.  Philadelphus was caught in it.  Numbers were added as courage grew with numbers.  From intersecting streets people came.  Some, although oppressed by the silence, asked what it was and were silenced quickly.  Others began to mutter unintelligible predictions, and their neighbors shook their heads without understanding that which was said.

The news of Seraiah’s mysterious progress communicated itself to rank and rank and spread abroad.  Faces appeared against a background of lights at barred windows, along the balustrades of house-tops, from areas and ruins.  Philadelphus, fascinated and astonished at this curious demonstration, was contented to pass with it.  Silence, except for the rustling of garments and the multitudinous footfall, fell about the vicinity.

Ahead of them, Seraiah moved.  His steps, finely balanced, passed over obstructions where most of his followers stumbled, and when he turned across Akra and faced the Old Wall, the excitement became painful.

His pace was flying; many of his followers were running.  It seemed that he was going against the Wall.  Dozens anticipated that course and skirting through short ways clambered up on the fortifications and clung there though menaced by the sentries until Seraiah appeared.

At a narrow point in the street that ended against the wall, Seraiah met that Jew who had become a maniac on the day Jerusalem attacked Titus.  Without warning the maniac leaped up into an intensely rigid posture; his legs spread, his lean arms upstretched at painful tension, his mouth wide, his eyes dilated immensely in their hollow depths.

Seraiah passed him as if no man stood in his way.  Instantly the maniac wheeled, as a huge spread-eagle wind-vane on its staff, and stood at gaze, the broad uninterrupted light of the beacon shining down on him and the mysterious man.  The street ended short of the wall.  About the base of the fortification was an open space, in which was planted a scaling-ladder.  Seraiah climbed this, an infinitesimal detail on the great blank of blackened stone.