s of combatants, rushing on
intensely, to grapple.

It was a tall commanding form, clothed in garments that glittered for
whiteness. By the step, by the poise of the head, the Christian
recognized Seraiah.

The front of the multitude fell on their faces at that moment as if he
had struck them down.

Out of the forefront, the prophetess appeared. The Christian heard her
splendid voice out of the uproar, and while he gazed, he saw mad
Seraiah turn away from her, with the front of the mob turning after
him, as a needle turns to the pole.

In that fatal moment of pause, out of which the warning cry of the
prophetess rang wildly, the Roman tribune, in view for a moment under
the blowing veils of smoke, flung up his sword, the Roman bugle sang,
and the brassy legions of Titus hurled themselves upon the halted mob.

The Christian dropped his head into the bend of his elbow and strove
to shut out the sound. The nervous arms of the palsied man at his feet
gripped him frantically.

Up from the corner of the Old Wall, came the prolonged "A-a-a-a!" of
dying thousands.

Jerusalem had fallen.

The foremost of the mob, turning with Seraiah, escaped the onslaught
of the Romans, and as the mad Pretender strode toward the broad street
from which the Tyropean Bridge crossed to the demesnes of the Temple,
they followed him fatuously, blind to the death behind them and the
oncoming slaughter in which they might fall.

Seraiah passed above the spot where the sorrowful Christian stood,
crossed the great causeway leading toward the Royal Portico and after
him six thousand blind and insane enthusiasts followed, expecting
imminent miracle. Above them towered the heights of Moriah, now veiled
in smoke. Up the great white bank of stairs they rushed after him,
facing an ordeal which must mean a baptism in fire, and on through a
curtain of luminous smoke into a gate pillared in flame, up into the
Royal Portico, resounding with the tread of the advancing Destroyer,
out into the great Court of Gentiles wrapped in cloud through which
the Temple showed, a stupendous cube of heat, through the Gate
Beautiful where the Keeper no longer stood, thence into the Women's
Court, raftered with red coals, up smoking stones tier upon tier till
the roof of the Royal Portico was reached.

At the brink of the pinnacle, they saw through tumbling clouds Seraiah
towering. He was looking down through masses of smoke upon the City of
Delight, perishing. They