Roman, who believed at this
moment that Jerusalem was his!

The Christian overlooked this ferocious inundation and shook his head.
On a mound near him stood the spirit of the mob concentrated and
personified. It was crazed Posthumus.

He was screaming: "It is finished; the law is run out! All prophecy is
fulfilled!"

And over his head he was swinging a parchment fiercely burning.

It was the Scroll of the Law!

After uncounted minutes, vibrating with roar, the terrible flood
rushed by. Feeble arms clasped the Christian about the knees and he
looked down on the tangled white locks of the palsied man, who had
searched for him until he had found him. The Christian laid his hand
on the man's head but did not speak.

At the breach in the Old Wall, the watchers on that almost deserted
street saw the brazen wave of four legions gather and sweep forward to
gain ground in the city before the mob swept down on them.

Between the two warring bodies, one orderly, prepared but
apprehensive, the other mad and perishing, was a considerable space.
Fighting still went on at the breach in the walls, but the supreme
conflict of a comparatively small body of soldiers and an uncounted
horde was not yet precipitated.

Ordinarily, the Roman army could have reduced any popular insurrection
with half that number of men. But at present the legionaries
confronted desperate citizens who were simply choosing their own way
to die. Reason and human fear long since had ceased to inspire them.
They were believing now and following a prophet because it was the
final respite before despair. There was no alternative. It was death
whatever they did, unless, in truth, this splendid sorceress was
indeed the Voice of the Risen Prince. Force would be of no avail
against them. Madness had flung them against Rome; only some other
madness would turn them back.

The Christian, from his commanding position, expected anything.

It was the moment which would show if the false prophet would triumph.
If the four legions went down before the multitude, it would mean the
ascendancy of a strange woman over Israel, and the obliteration of the
faith in Jesus Christ in the Holy Land.

It can not be said that the Christian watched the crisis with a calm
spirit. He did not wish to see the heathen overthrow the ancient
people of God, nor could he behold the triumph of a false Christ. He
put his hands together and prayed.

A figure appeared between the two bodie