For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem by G. A. Henty (best short books to read txt) 📗

"I thought you must have fallen, John. I have been here ten minutes. Most of the others were here before me. Only three have arrived since and, for the last five minutes, none have come."

"I fear no more will come," John said. "The Romans have cut off all retreat.

"How many are missing?"

"We were nineteen, here, before you came," one of the men replied.

"Then there are six missing," John said. "We will not give them up. Some may have made their way straight up the mountain, fearing to be seen as they passed the ends of the open spaces. Some may have made their way, down the opposite slope, to the other arm of the river. But, even if all are killed, we need not repine. They have died as they wished--taking vengeance upon the Romans.

"It has been a glorious success. More than half the Roman camp is assuredly destroyed; and they must have lost a prodigious quantity of stores, of all kinds.

"Who are missing?"

He heard the names of those absent.

"I trust we may see some of them, yet," he said; "but if not, Jonas, tomorrow, shall carry to their friends the news of their death. They will be wept; but their parents will be proud that their sons have died in striking so heavy a blow upon our oppressors. They will live, in the memory of their villages, as men who died doing a great deed; and women will say:

"'Had all done their duty, as they did, the Romans would never have enslaved our nation.'

"We will wait another half hour, here; but I fear that no more will join us, for the Romans are drawn up all along the line where, alone, a descent could be made in the valley."

"Then how did you escape, John," Jonas asked; "and how is it that you were not here, before? Several of those who were in the line beyond you have returned."

"I waited till I hoped that all had passed," John said. "Each one who ran past the open spaces added to the danger--for the Romans beyond could not but notice them, as they passed the spaces lighted by the flames--and it was my duty, as leader, to be the last to go."

"Six of those who were beyond you have joined us," one of the men said. "The other six are those that are missing."

"That is what I feared," John answered. "I felt sure that those behind me would have got safely away, before the Romans recovered from their first confusion. The danger was, of course, greater in proportion to the distance from the edge of the slope."

"But how did you get through, John, since you say that all escape is cut off?"

John related how he had slain the Roman soldier, and escaped with his armor; and the recital raised him still higher in the estimation of his followers--for the modern feeling, that it is right to kill even the bitterest enemy only in fair fight, was wholly unknown in those days when, as was done by the Romans at Jotapata, men would cut the throat of a sleeping foe, with no more compunction than if they were slaughtering a fowl.

Perceiving, by John's narration, that there was no chance of any of their comrades getting through to join them, now, the party struck off into the hills and, after three hours' march, reached their encampment. They gave a shout of joy, as they approached it; for a fire was burning brightly, and they knew that some of their comrades must have reached the spot before them.

Four men rose, as they approached, and joyful greetings were exchanged. Their stories were soon told. As soon as they heard--by the shouts of the Romans on the hillside, and of the outer sentries--that they were discovered as they passed the spaces lit up by flames, they had turned back. Two of them had made their way up a deep watercourse, past the Roman guard on the hill--the attention of the soldiers being fixed upon the camp. The other two had climbed down the precipitous rocks on the other side of the hill.

"It was terrible work, in the darkness," one of them said. "I fell, once, and thought I had broken my leg; but, fortunately, I had caught on a ledge, and was able to go on after a time. I think two of our party must have perished there; for twice, as I was descending, I heard a sudden cry, and then a sound as of a body falling from rock to rock."

"Better so than to have fallen into the hands of the Romans," John said, "and to have been forced to slay themselves by their own hands, as we agreed to do.

"Well, my friends, we have done a glorious deed. We have begun well. Let us trust that we may strike many more such blows against our tyrants. Now, let us thank God that he has fought by our hands, and that He has brought so many of us back from so great a danger!

"Simeon, you are the oldest of the party; do you lift up your voice for us all."

The party all stood listening reverently, while Simeon said a prayer of thanksgiving. Then one of them broke out into one of the psalms of triumph, and all joined at once. When this was done, they gathered round the fire, prepared their cakes of meal, and put meat on long skewers on the flames. Having eaten, they talked for hours, each in turn giving his account of his share in the adventure.

They then talked of their missing friends; those from the same village telling what they knew of them, and what relations they had left behind. At last, just as morning was breaking, they retired into the little bowers of boughs that had been erected to keep off the cold--which was, at this elevation, sharp at nights. They were soon fast asleep.

The first thing the next morning, Jonas set off to explore the foot of the precipices on the south side of the Roman camp, and to search for the bodies of their two missing comrades. He found one, terribly crushed; of the other he could find no sign, whatever. On his returning to the mountain camp, one of the young men was sent off to bear, to the relatives of the man whose body had been found, the certain news of his death; and to inquire, of the friends of the other, whether he had any relations living near the mountains to whom he might have made his way, if hurt or disabled by his fall.

The messenger returned, on the following day, with the news that their missing comrade had already arrived at his home. His fall had not been a very deep one and, when he recovered consciousness, some hours before daybreak, he found that one of his legs was useless, and an arm broken. Thinking that, in the morning, the Romans might search the foot of the precipices, he dragged himself with the greatest difficulty a few hundred yards and, there, concealed himself among some bushes.

A man came along, in search of an ass that had strayed. He called to him and, on the man hearing that he was one of the party who had caused the great fire in the Roman camp--the sight of whose flames had caused such exultation in the heart of every Jew in the plains around--he hurried away, and fetched another with a donkey. Upon this the injured man was lifted, and carried down to the lake; passing, on the way, several parties of Roman soldiers, to whom the idea did not occur that the sick man was one of the party who had inflicted such a terrible blow upon them on the previous night. Once by the side of the lake, there was no difficulty in getting him on board a boat, in which he was carried to his native village.

The Romans were furious at the blow which had been struck them. More than half their camp and camp equipage had been destroyed; a great part of the baggage of the officers and soldiers had been burned, and each man had to deplore losses of his own, as well as the destruction of the public property. But, more than this, they felt the blow to their pride. There was not a soldier but felt humiliated at the thought that a number of the enemy--for, from the fire breaking out simultaneously, it was certain at least a score of men must have been engaged in the matter--should penetrate unseen into the midst of their camp; and worse still that, after effecting all this damage, all should have succeeded in making their escape--for, so far as they knew, the whole of the Jews got safely away.

But not for a moment did they relax their siege operations. The troops engaged upon the embankment were relieved at the usual hour; and half a legion went up into the mountains, as usual, to procure timber; while four thousand archers, divided into parties two hundred strong, extended themselves all over the hills, and searched the forest for miles for some sign of their enemy--who were, they were now convinced, comparatively few in numbers.

The news of the daring attack on the Roman camp spread far and wide among the towns and villages of the plains; and aroused the drooping spirits of the people, who had begun to think that it would be worse than useless to offer any opposition to the Roman power. Whence came the party which had accomplished the deed, or who was its leader, none knew; and the inhabitants of the villages near Hippos who, alone, could have enlightened them, were careful to maintain an absolute silence; for they knew that if, by any chance, a rumor reached the Romans of the locality from which their assailants had come, they would have carried fire and sword among all the villages by the lake.

Titus was away, being absent on a mission in Syria; and Vespasian himself went among the troops, exhorting them not to be downcast at the disaster that had befallen them, for that the bravest men were subject to sudden misfortunes of this kind; and exhorted them to push on the siege with all the more vigor, in order that they might the sooner remove to camping grounds where they would not be exposed to such attacks by a lurking foe.

The soldiers replied with cheers; and the next day, the embankment being completed, they opened so terrible a fire from their war engines upon the defenders of the walls that these were forced to retire into the city. The Romans at once pushed forward their battering rams to the walls and, setting to work with the greatest vigor, speedily made three breaches; through which they rushed, with exulting shouts. The Jews ran down to oppose them, and a desperate conflict took place in the narrow streets; but the Romans, pouring in in great numbers through the breaches, pressed them step by step up the steep hill.

The Jews, animated by despair, again turned, and fell upon them with such fury that the Romans could not withstand the assault, and were driven down the steep lanes and paths, with great slaughter. But those who fled were stopped by the crowd of their own men, pressing up the hill from below; and the Roman soldiers--jammed, as it were, between the Jews above, and their own countrymen below--took refuge in the houses, in great numbers.

But these were not constructed to bear the weight of so many men, in heavy armor. The floors fell in and, as many of the Romans climbed up on to the flat roofs, these also fell, bringing the walls down with them. Standing, as they did, almost one above another, each house that fell brought down the one below it and, thus, the ruin spread--as one house of cards brings down another--until the whole of the town standing on the steep declivity, on its eastern side, was a mass of ruins.

The confusion was tremendous. The dust of the falling houses so thickened the air that men could not see a yard in front of them. Hundreds of the Roman soldiers were buried among the ruins. Some were killed, at once. Others, jammed between fallen timbers, strove in vain to extricate themselves, and shouted to their comrades to come to their assistance; but these--enveloped in darkness, ignorant of the ground, half suffocated with dust--were powerless to aid them.

In the confusion, Romans fell by the swords of Romans. Many who could not extricate themselves slew themselves, with their own swords; while the exulting Jews--seeing, in this terrible disaster, a miracle effected in their favor--crowded down from above, slaying with their swords, hurling masses of stone down on the foe, killing those unable to retreat, and adding to the confusion and terror with their yells of triumph, which rose high above the confused shouts of the Romans.

Vespasian himself, who