The purple sentry sprang to his feet and strung an arrow, but before he could send it singing, the old minotaur was mixed with a second soldier in such confusion that the first sentry hesitated to shoot lest he should kill his fellow.  Another moment and a second soldier was struggling in the impediment of his armor in the dust and the old mute was again hobbling straight away toward the walls of Jerusalem.  He was now a fair mark for the first sentry, but that Roman’s rancor died after he had seen his own disgrace covered by the overthrow of his fellow.  Two of Titus’ scouts next stood in the path of the running old man.  One went to the ground so suddenly and so violently that the watchers, now breaking into howls of delight, knew that he had been tripped.  The other stood but a moment longer, than he, too, rolled into the dust.

The old man might have gone no farther at this juncture, for at every latest triumph he left a crimson soldier murderous with shame.  But before the arrow next strung to overtake him could fly, Titus, Carus and Nicanor, accompanied by their escort, rode between the fugitive and the men he had defeated.

“There goes our minotaur,” Carus said quietly.  Titus drew up his horse and looked.  Nicanor with a sidelong glance awaited the young Roman’s command to his escort to ride down the fugitive.  But he waited, and continued to wait, while Titus with lifted head and with indecision in his eyes watched the deformed old shape hobble on toward the Wall of Circumvallation.

“Shall we let him go?” Nicanor inquired coldly.

“If some of my legionaries or those erratic Jews fail to get him between here and Jerusalem, he shall get into Jerusalem.  But by Hector, he will earn his entry!”

They saw the old man mount by the causeway of earth which the Romans had built over the siege wall for the passage of the troops, saw him an instant outlined against the sky on the summit, and the next instant he disappeared.

Titus touched his horse and rode at a trot toward the causeway himself.  He would see the end of this mad venture.

In the hour of sunrise the sentinel above the North Gate in the Old Wall saw among the ruins of the houses of Coenopolis a figure dodging painfully hither and thither.  It was not habited in the brasses of the Roman armor.  Also, it hobbled as if lame and ran toward the gate fast closed below the sentry.

The Jew, too intensely interested in the great climax enacting in the city below, ceased to remark on this figure.

Presently, however, he looked again into ruined Coenopolis.  He saw there this un-uniformed figure wrapped in fierce embrace with a young legionary.  Almost before the sentry’s astonishment shaped itself into exclamation, the legionary was tumbled aside as if crushed and the old figure hobbled on.

Suddenly there appeared in the path of the wayfarer a galloping horseman, who drew his mount back on his haunches, then spurred him to ride down the old man.