soldiers rushed upon a
threatened gate or segment of the wall and lent strength to keep the
Romans out; at other times the defenses were forsaken while the
besieged fell upon one another. Back from the broad summit of Olivet,
which was the mountain of peace, the echoes gave all day long the
shudder of the struggling city.

The sun daily grew more heated; the cisterns and pools within the city
began to shrink so rapidly that the inhabitants feared that the enemy
had come at the source of the waters of Jerusalem and had cut them
off. Hundreds of the wounded were allowed to die, simply as a defense
of the wells and store-houses. Burial became too gigantic a labor, and
John and Simon ordered the bodies thrown over the walls to prevent
pestilence.

Titus riding around the city on a day came upon a heap of this outcast
dead and turned suddenly white. He rode back to his camp and within
the hour there approached the walls under a flag of truce an imposing
Jew of middle-age, with a superb beard and a veritable mantle of rich
black hair escaping from his turban and falling heavy with life and
strength upon a pair of great shoulders. He was simply dressed, but
his stately carriage and splendid presence made a kingly garment out
of his white gown.

Those upon the wall knew him and though they were obliged to respect
the banner under which he approached, they gnashed their teeth and
greeted him with epithets, poisonous with hate. He was Flavius
Josephus, one time patriot and enemy of Rome, but now secure under
Titus' patronage, abettor of his patron against his fellow-countrymen.

The Maccabee, among the fighting-men on the wall, saw his approach and
discreetly stepped behind a soldier that he might not be singled out
as a familiar toward which the approaching mediator would logically
direct his appeal. He had no desire to be addressed by his name before
this precarious mob already mad with rage at a turncoat.

And thus concealed the Maccabee heard Josephus appeal to the Jews with
apparent sincerity and affection, promise amnesty, protection and
justice in his patron's name; heard his overtures greeted with fury
and finally saw the Jews swarm over the walls and drive him to fly for
his life up Gareb to the camp of Titus.

It was not the first incident he had seen which showed him his own
fate if it became known that he intended to treat with Rome. He put
aside his calculations in that direction as a detail not yet in order,