The sentry on the Old Wall made a choked sound, unslung his bow and sent an arrow singing.  There was a shout and the figure of the horseman plunged from his saddle face down on the earth.

The wayfarer flung himself away and rushed toward the wall, only a little distance away.

But all Coenopolis seemed to swarm now with legionaries, afoot or horseback.

The Jewish sentry rushed to the edge of the tower overhanging the gate.

“Open!” he shouted below.  “One cometh!”

With a rattle and clang of falling bars and chains the gate of the Old Wall swung.

Disregarding the known wishes of Titus, two of the legionaries simultaneously let fly their javelins.  But the mute, hobbling uncertainly, was not a steady mark and under the whistle of arrows received and sent, he blundered up the causeway leading to the Gate of the Old Wall, and the portal slowly and ponderously closed behind him.

Wild howls of derision and exultation went up from the Jews.  Many of the soldiers clambered down to satisfy their curiosity about the latest addition to the starving garrison.  But he proved to be a deformed old man, mute and weary, who was distressed for fear he would be detained by them and who hobbled out into the besieged city and posted as fast as his legs could carry him toward the house of Amaryllis, the Seleucid.

But at the edge of a great open space where the Herodian palaces had stood he came upon a concourse which seemed to be all Jerusalem.  It was a gaunt horde, shouting, raging, prophesying and drowning the roar of battle at the Temple fortifications with the sound of religious frenzy.

Momus, fresh from the orderly camp of Titus, was struck with terror.  He would have retreated and followed some side street toward his destination, when he caught sight of a girl on the very outskirts of this mob.  Momus laid a trembling hand on her arm.  She threw up her head with a start.

Chapter XXII

VANISHED HOPES

The tremulous old man, weakened from his long and superhuman struggle to enter the doomed city, held Laodice to his breast while she stroked his rough cheeks and murmured things that he did not hear and which she did not realize in the rush of her helplessness and dismay.

At the corner of Moriah and the Old Wall, the tumult was infernal.  Out of the suffocating sallow smoke from the tuns of burning tar heaved over the fortification upon the engines and their managers, the stones from the catapults soared into view and fell upon the sun-colored marbles that paved the Court of the Gentiles.  Clouded by the vapor, targets for the immense missiles, the Jews heaving and writhing in personal encounters appeared black and inhuman.  Every combatant shouted; the great stones screamed; the boiling pitch hissed and roared, and the thunder of the conflict shook the Temple to its very foundations.