After the Ephesian had been swept in with his own company of pilgrims, he saw that which even few of the new-comers had expected to see.  The immediate vicinity of the gate was laid waste.  Up Mount Zion opposite Hippicus and along the margin of the Tyropean Valley where the Herodian and Sadducean palaces had seemed so fair from the north were great blackened shells of walls and leaning pillars, partly buried in ruin and rubbish.  Far and wide the streets were littered with debris and charred fragments of burned timbers.  At another place on the breast of Zion was a chaos of rock where a mansion had been literally pulled down.  Somewhere near Akra pale columns of pungent, wind-blown smoke still rose from a colossal heap of fused matter that the Ephesian could not identify.  About it were neglected houses; not a sign of festivity was apparent; windows hung open carelessly; the hangings in colonnades were stripped away entirely or whipped loose from the fastenings and abandoned to the winds.  Numbers of dwellings appeared to have been sacked; others were so closely barred and fortified that their exteriors appeared as inhospitable as jails.

Confusion prevailed on the smoked and untidy marble Walk of the Purified leading down from the Temple.  Here those who held fast to the Law met and contested for their old exclusiveness with wild heathen Idumean soldiers, starvelings, ruffians and strange women from out-lying towns.  Far and wide were wandering crowds, surly, defiant, discourteous, exacting.  Manifestly it was the visitors who were the aggressors.  They had been overthrown and driven from their own into an unsubjugated city which was secure.  They felt the rage of the defeated which are not subdued, and the resentment against another’s unearned immunity.  The citizens of Jerusalem had not welcomed them and they were enraged.  Half a dozen fights of more or less seriousness were in sight at once.  A column of black wiry men in some semblance of uniform pushed across the open space toward the Essene Gate.  They took no heed for any in their path.  Those who could not escape were overturned and trampled on.  Meeting a rush at the gate they drew swords and coolly hacked their way through screams of fear and pain and amazement.  After them went a wave of curses and complaint.  Citizens against the visitors; visitors against the citizens; soldiers against them all!

“And this cousin of mine meant to pacify all this!” the Ephesian exclaimed to himself.

Jerusalem, that had for fifteen hundred years adorned herself at this time with tabrets and had gone forth in the dance of them that make merry, was drunken with wormwood and covered with ashes.

All at once the Ephesian saw four soldiers standing together and with them, manifestly under their protection, was a Greek of striking beauty.  He wore on his fine head a purple turban embroidered with a golden star.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the Ephesian approached.  The spears of the four soldiers fell and formed a barrier around the Greek.  The new-comer smiled confidently.