Between them and Titus lay two furlongs.  To join his column with all honor to himself, he had to work back over the wadies he had crossed and circle the gardens that stood in his way.  But a hedge pressed too close upon the space he must pass, between it and the enemy, before he could return to his men.  An ax glanced beside his ear; he wavered in his saddle.  Then, that happened which a Roman of that day could not be forced to do and forget.

Titus wheeled his horse and, plunging his spurs into its sides, fled on into the open country to the north, with the jeers of the men of Simon and John following him.

His troops rushed down upon his assailants.  But the wary soldiers turned when the Roman had fled and the Gate of the Women’s Towers closed upon them.

Up from the visitors within the wall rose a shout: 

“A sign, a sign!  An omen!  Thus shall the children of God overthrow the heathen in battle!”

But one of the Jews on the wall thrust his fingers under his turban and seized his hair.

“Jerusalem is fallen!  Woe!  Woe to the wicked city!”

He turned in his place and leaped a good twenty feet to the ground.  When he raised himself the look of a maniac had settled on his face.  Tearing his garments from him as he went, he entered a narrow street that made its ascent toward Zion by steps and cobbled slants.  Here he came upon great crowds of terror-stricken citizens who had rushed together as the news spread abroad over Jerusalem that the men of Simon and John had gone out against the Deliverer.  No definite news of the outcome of the sortie had reached them and they were moving in a dense pack down toward the walls to hear the worst.  The whole hurrying mass seemed to vibrate with suspense and dread.  The maniac met them.

“Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” he cried.

A lean, apish, half-naked, lash-scarred idiot in the street, instantly, as if in echo to that mad cry, shouted in a voice of the most prodigious volume: 

“A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the Holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides and a voice against this whole people!”

The temper of the crowd had reached that point of tension that needed only a little more strain to become panic.  Some one received the discordant cries of the maniacs with piercing rapid screams.  Instantly the choked passage filled with frantic uproar.  Scores attempting to flee blindly trampled over those transfixed with fear.  They fought, men with women, youths with old age, children with one another.  Hundreds attracted by the tumult rushed in on the panic and added fresh victims and new death.  Out of the horror rose the fearful cries of the madmen: 

“Woe, woe to this wicked city!”

Meanwhile, the soldiers of Simon and John came to prevent citizens from gathering in bodies, and with sword and spear drove into the struggle and added murder to it all.  The spirit of terror then issued out of that bloody alley and seized upon street by street.  Far and wide the tumult ran, growing in volume with every accession, until the raging and humiliated Titus, among his six hundred, heard Jerusalem howl like a beaten slave and hushed his pagan curses to listen.