THE DOOMED CITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14530, 18 November 1910, Page 3

THE DOOMED CITY.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

BY JOHN R. . CABLING. COPYRIGHT. CHAPTER XXlll.—(Continued.) Thk Romans, startled from their sleep by the appalling crash and by the thrilling shrieks of the doomed victims, knew not at first what had happened, but when morning light revealed the nature of the disaster they grasped their weapons, clambered over the ruins, and poured through the breach. Bub Antonia was not yet taken. John, exercising a military foresight that, moved his enemies Jo surprise if not admiration, hud previously raised a second wall within. As it was impossible to advance the engines through the breach the Romans, in order to overcome this new barrier, were compelled to resort to other means. Having failed to surmount it by boldly climbing up in the very face of the enemy, they lay down at. last at the foot of the wall, and, forming a testudo, or roof of shields, they sought to loosen with iron crows the lower courses of the. masonry, a process attended with little hurt to the wall but with considerable loss of life to the Romans. Now, Crispus, having taken due note that a certain part of this wall declined backwards, and that the stones at this said part projected in such a manner as to afford some slight foothold, resolved to attempt a nocturnal surprise on his own account. At the dead of night he assembled fifteen of his bravest troops, including a trumpeter and an eagle-bearer. Creeping forward with soundless tread the little band, favoured by the gloom, gained the foot of the wall unseen by the Jewish sentinels abovo. Then Crispus silently and cautiously began the ascent: his men followed like a file of grim spectres. One javelin hurled from above would have sufficed to send the whole party thundering down. No such ■ disaster occurred, however. Historians may dispute as to whether the sentinels were sleeping or whether they were keeping careless watch; the fact remains that the heroic sixteen safely gained the top of the wall. A whispered word from Crispus, and then on the still night air the trumpet rang out the call to arms; long, shrill, and piercing, the summons startled the Romans from sleep; it startled still more the Jewish sentinels close at hand. Even now it would have been a comparatively easy matter to repel the attack; but, as Crispus and his party, their lifted blades glinting through the gloom, dashed forward with a mighty shout, the Zealot sentinels, without waiting to ascertain the number of their assailants, turned tail and fled, fully convinced that the whole of the Roman army was pouring over the battlements. Their shouts awoke their fellows. Roused thus, in the dead of night, the entire garrison became the victims of one of those panics which have been known to.fall sometimes upon even the hardiest veterans. From above, from below, from every hall and chamber there came running wild-eyed Zealots, whoso only object was to save their lives in mad confusion they made for the south side of the fortress, where lay the only available exit a narrow causeway over the deep ravine that separated Antonia from the temple. . Meantime, Titus and the rest of the Romans in the camp, guided by the continuous pealing of the trumpet, hurried forward, scaled the wall, and found to their surprise and delight that the enemy had vacated the fortress without striking a blow. Now, the surrender of Antonia had opened the way to the temple, and Crispus, thinking in one night and by the same stroke to capture both places'", was pursuing the retreating Zealots across the connecting causeway. But. now the Zealots, cursing themselves for their cowardly folly, turned and made a stand upon this same causeway. Then began a battle, perhaps the fiercest and bloodiest in the whole course of the siege. Spears and javelins being useless, both sides drew their swords and fought it out hand to hand. In the gloom of night the troops of both parties were so intermingled that no man knew where he was; more often than not Roman slew Roman, and Jew slow Jew. Crispus, stunned by a blow on the head, was draffged forth from the fray by a faithful legionary. With the dawn Simon came to the aid of lus Zealot rival; and then indeed the fighting and the shouting and the clangour grew fiercer and louder than ever. On that narrow viaduct thera was no room either to advance or retreat; scores of the combatant« were forced over the parapet, and shrieking, fell to be dashed to pieces in the rocky ravine below. The passage became so crowded with dead that the living to get at each -other were obliged to mount upon piles of bodies and of armour. _ At last, when it became clear that the Romans could make no headway, Titus after ten hours of this fighting, gave the signal for recall. Thanks to Crispus, however, the great fortress of Antonia was now in Roman hands, and as Simon beheld the standard inscribed S.P.Q.R. floating proudly again from its lofty battlements he wept tears of grief and rage, and cursed John to his face saying—somewhat unjustly—that none but a fool or a coward or a traitor could have abandoned such a stronghold. Later that same day, Rufus and Crispus stood -on the battlements of Antonia; and of all the Romans, who more pleased than Rufus at finding himself once more in his old familiar fortress. The, two, looking down from their lofty position, watched the preparations that were being made for the defence of the temple. The marble courts and gilded pinnacles were assuming the appearance of a warlike citadel. Thousands of Zealots, under the direction of Simon and John, were hauling their .huge military engines over the tesselated pavement till the northern porticoes facing Antonia fairly bristled with balistoe and catapults. 'Hie clang of arms and the creaking of machines, the shouting of men and the ceaseless hurrying hither and thither made a scene difficult to reconcile with the belief that the place was the house of God. " What is the day of the. month?" asked Rufus suddenly. " The seventeenth of July," replied Crispus. "I venture to prophesy that in the years to come the Jewsif there be any of them left after this warwill keep this day as a dav of mourning." " Why, eo?" " The answer is to be found there," remarked Rufus, pointing to the court of the priests. "It is the hour of the evening sacrifice" he continued, glancing at a sundial near by, "but where is the smoke ascending from the altar? 'Twas absent, too, this morning, so I am told. The daily sacrifice hath ceased for lack of victims. If I rightly foresee the fate of the temple, they made their last sacrifice yoster even-" . To the mind of the pagan Rufus the matter was one of little moment, but to Crispus, with his Christian way of thinking, this ; cessation of a sacrifice that had taken place twice a day for a space of thirteen hundred years wag full of a profound significance; he knew that to the pious Hebrew, if not to the fighting Zealot., it must appear an event as grave almost as a stoppage in the progress of the universe, for had not the scribes said, "The world was made for the sake of the temple?" and what was the temple without its sacrifices? . Titus, made aware of the event, sought to conciliate : the religious feelings of the foe by a very remarkable offer. : Joseplius, covered by the shield of a legionary, walked along the causeway ; and, halting in the middle, lifted up his voice, and addressed the Jewish people in the Hebrew tongue " Simon Bar-gioras and John of Gis- ■ cala, hear now the words of Titus Caesar. | He hath a reverence for your temple, and L would fain cave 'it from the destruction I •

which ye, by converting it into a citadel, are bringing upon it. If ye will remove your men of war, Titus will meet- you m battle at Mount Zion or in whatever place you choose; he, too, will withdraw his arms from the temple leaving it sacred and inviolate. And as a token of his goodwill towards you he offers you this day a gift of threescore rams that ye may continue the daily sacrifice as heretofore." "Ha! mark you that said Rufus to Crispus. '' There speaks not Titus but Berenice." There were among the Jewish people thousands that would gladly have seen the war removed from the temple and its precincts, but they were overawed by the Zealots, who, by the mouth of Simon, thus made answer: "Titus, knowing that he cannot take the temple by force of arms, whereof the fight of this morning is a witness, speaks thus, hoping to lure us from our stronghold, that he may thcv more easily enter it. But in vain is the net spread in the sight of the bird. His threescore rams we will not take, for never shall it. be said that the sacrifices to the Eternal One have become dependent upon the polluted offerings of a heathen. And to him and to the whole Roman Empire do we offer an everlasting defiance. Now, renegade, carry back in thv detestable Greek or Latin the answer of Simon Bar-gioras." This haughty reply, and especially its boastful note as to the fight on the causeway, so provoked Titus that he determined to make a second attempt that very night. As the whole army were unable to join in the assault owing to the narrowness of the approach, there were picked out from each century the thirty bravest and strongest men; tribunes were appointed over each thousand, and one Cerealis, an officer of raro valour, was chosen to command the whole. In the great hall of Antonia the storming party consecrated themselves, as it were, to the work by offering, under the presidency of mantes, a solemn -sacrifice to Mai's. An hour before dawn Cerealis, at the head of his men, advanced over the causeway with swift silent tread, but failed to effect a surprise. Simon, if not John, was on the alert. Then began a battle similar in all respects, to that of the preceding night. After eight hours of desperate fighting the Romans had not gained a foot of ground, and the battle ceased, as it were, by mutual consent. Now, no more could the Romans boast that man for man they were superior to the Jews when the picked soldiers of their army, the very flower of the legions, had suffered repulse at the hands of the Zealots. The iron warriors, who had carried their eagles triumphantly over all nations from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, leaned moodily upon their arms and stared up with dark and sullen faces at the laughing Zealots, who, clustering upon the roof of the northern cloisters, pointed with their swords at the causeway and mockingly asked the foe why they did not come into the temple. "Give counsel what we shall do," said Titus to Tiberius Alexander. "Raze Antonia to the ground, and with the materials fill up.this intervening glen so as to make a broad level way over which we may haul our engines to batter the northern cloisters." Titus adopted this suggestion without delay. The Roman soldiers, burning to retrieve their tarnished honours, had 110 sooner received the new command tlian they flew with ardour to its execution. All along the sky-line, on every tower, turret and battlement, were seen groups of men furnished with lever and crow, by whose means blocks of masonry were lifted up to be sent whirling and crashing into the valley below ; far into the night the soldiers toiled by the ruddy glare of a thousand torches, and as the mighty fortress sank lower and lower so did the "debris accumulated in the valley rise higher and higher. The Zealots no longer mocked, but looked on in silent wonder at this display of almost superhuman energy. There was something sublime in this demolition of a magnificent citadel merely for the purpose of filling up a trench. At last a broad and level way was successfully carried across the ravine right lip to the very foot of the northern cloisters ; and, on the evening of the day that saw its completion, Crispus, walking meditatively upon the crest of Olivet, came suddenly upon a figure standing solitary, silent, motionless. It was the woman who was steadfastly refusing to acknowledge herself as his wife, the Princess Berenice. Not far off, in the background, stood two attendants with a chariot. Evidently she had come to take a look, perhaps her last look, at her native city. (To be continued daily.)