as not so difficult
as it had looked; and the steady strain which Jonas kept on the
rope, from above, aided him and gave him confidence. In three or
four minutes, he gained the top of the rock.

"There is not a soul to be seen," Jonas said. "The town has gone,
and the people, and the Romans. All is desolation!"

The scene was indeed changed, since John had last looked upon it.
Not a wall, in the so-lately busy little town, had been left
standing. The whole area was covered, three or four feet deep with
a chaos of stones, mortar, and beams; forming a great grave, below
which lay the bodies of forty thousand of the defenders of the
place. The walls so bravely defended had disappeared; and the
embankment, whose erection had cost the Romans so much labor and
bloodshed, had been destroyed by fire. A dead silence hung over the
place, and the air was tainted with a terrible odor of corruption.

The desolation and solitude of the scene overpowered John, and he
sat down on a fragment of masonry and wept, unrestrainedly, for
some time. He roused himself, at last, as Jonas touched him.

"I shall go down again, and get what grain there is left," the boy
said. "There is no chance of finding anything to eat within a day's
march of here. The Roman horse will have destroyed every village
within a wide circuit."

"But I cannot let you go down again, Jonas. The danger is too
great."

"But I have been up and down, lots of times," Jonas said.

"That may be, Jonas, but you might be dashed to pieces, this time."

"Well, if you like I will fasten the rope round me; then, if I
should slip, I shall be safe."

John consented with some reluctance, but he was so nervous and
shaken that he walked some distance away, and did not turn round
until he heard Jonas' footsteps again approaching him.

"Now we can start," the boy said. "We have got grain here, enough
for three days; and tonight we will crush it, and cook it. I have
had enough of eating raw grain, for a long time to come."

The boy's cheerfulness restored the tone of John's nerves
and--making their way with some difficulty over the chaos of stone
and timber, until they arrived at the pile of charred timber, which
marked the spot where the Roman embankment had stood--they stepped
out briskly, descended the hill, crossed the deserted lines of
circumvallation; and then began to ascend the mountains, which had,
for some distance, been stripped of their timber for the purposes
of t