The City of Delight

When Nathan, the Christian, stepped into the streets once more there

was an immense accession of tumult about him.

He turned to look toward the corner of the Old Wall in time to behold

Jews in armor and Romans in blazing brass rush together in a great

cloud of dust as the Old Wall went in and Titus swept down upon

Jerusalem.

At the same instant from the ruined high place upon Zion came a roar

of stupendous menace. The Christian, with sublime indifference to

danger, kept his path toward the concourse from which he had taken

Laodice. As he ascended the opposite slope of the ravine, he saw,

descending toward the battle, the front of a rushing multitude, as

irresistible and as destructive as a great sea in a storm.

He saw that the mob was turning toward Akra, and to avoid it, the

Christian climbed up to the Tyropean Bridge, and from that point

viewed the whole of Jerusalem sweeping down upon the heathen.

At the head of the inundation passed a melodious voice crying: "An end, an end is come upon the four corners of the land! Draw near

every man with his destroying weapon in his hands for the glory of the

Lord! For His house is filled with cloud and the Court is full of the

brightness of the Lord's glory! A sword! A sword is sharpened! The way

is appointed that the sword may come! For the time for favor to Zion

is here; yea, the set time is come!"

After this poured a gaunt horde numbering tens of thousands. They bore

paving-stones, stakes, posts, railings, garden implements, weapons

from kitchens, from hardware booths and from armories; anything that

one man or a body of men could wield; torches and kettles of tar;

chains and ropes; knotted whips, and bundles of fagots; iron spikes,

instruments of torture, anything and everything which could be turned

as a weapon or to inflict pain upon the 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.