and drowning the roar
of battle at the Temple fortifications with the sound of religious
frenzy.

Momus, fresh from the orderly camp of Titus, was struck with terror.
He would have retreated and followed some side street toward his
destination, when he caught sight of a girl on the very outskirts of
this mob. Momus laid a trembling hand on her arm. She threw up her
head with a start.

Chapter XXII

VANISHED HOPES

The tremulous old man, weakened from his long and superhuman struggle
to enter the doomed city, held Laodice to his breast while she stroked
his rough cheeks and murmured things that he did not hear and which
she did not realize in the rush of her helplessness and dismay.

At the corner of Moriah and the Old Wall, the tumult was infernal. Out
of the suffocating sallow smoke from the tuns of burning tar heaved
over the fortification upon the engines and their managers, the stones
from the catapults soared into view and fell upon the sun-colored
marbles that paved the Court of the Gentiles. Clouded by the vapor,
targets for the immense missiles, the Jews heaving and writhing in
personal encounters appeared black and inhuman. Every combatant
shouted; the great stones screamed; the boiling pitch hissed and
roared, and the thunder of the conflict shook the Temple to its very
foundations.

Without, the Romans planted scaling ladders, mounted them and were
pitched backward into the moat regularly. Regularly, the ladders were
set up again after struggle, mounted without hesitation and thrown
down again, with an inevitability which furnished a grim travesty to
the struggle. The two remaining towers were set in position against
the base of Moriah and resumed execution. One after another the
engines of the Romans were hauled into position, and worked
unceasingly until covered with burning oil from the battlements above
and consumed. Others were hauled into place; fresh detachments of
Romans seized upon the scaling-ladders or mounted to the towers, and
the roar of the conflict never abated.

Meanwhile on the slopes of Zion the whole of Jerusalem, gaunt, dying
and demoniacal, was packed in the ruins of the palace of Herod.

Old Momus with triumph and tearful exultation was holding out to
Laodice a heavy roll of writings, dangling important seals, ancient
papers showing yellow beside the fresh parchment, and an old record
dark with long handling.

Here were the proofs of her identity!

Laodice shrank