Part 33 (2/2)

Nor was the fighting altogether ended, for on the roofs of some of the burning cloisters were gathered a few of the most desperate of the survivors of the Jews, who, as the cloisters crumbled beneath them, retreated slowly towards the Gate Nicanor, which still stood unharmed.

The Romans, weary with slaughter, called to them to come down and surrender, but they would not, and Miriam watching them, to her horror saw that one of these men was none other than her grandfather, Benoni.

As they would not yield, the Romans shot at them with arrows, so that presently every one of them was down except Benoni, whom no dart seemed to touch.

”Cease shooting,” cried a voice, ”and bring a ladder. That man is brave and one of the Sanhedrim. Let him be taken alive.”

A ladder was brought and reared against the wall near the Gate Nicanor and up it came Romans. Benoni retreated before them till he stood upon the edge of the gulf of advancing fire. Then he turned round and faced them. As he turned he caught sight of Miriam huddled at the base of her column upon the roof of the gate, and thinking that she was dead, wrung his hands and tore his beard. She guessed his grief, but so weak and parched was she, that she could call no word of comfort to him, or do more than watch the end with fascinated eyes.

The soldiers came on along the top of the wall till they feared to approach nearer to the fire, lest they should fall through the burning rafters.

”Yield!” they cried. ”Yield, fool, before you peris.h.!.+ t.i.tus gives you your life.”

”That he may drag me, an elder of Israel, in chains through the streets of Rome,” answered the old Jew scornfully. ”Nay, I will not yield, and I pray G.o.d that the same end which you have brought upon this city and its children, may fall upon your city and its children at the hands of men even more cruel than yourselves.”

Then stooping down he lifted a spear which lay upon the wall and hurled it at them so fiercely, that it transfixed the buckler of one of the soldiers and the arm behind the buckler.

”Would that it had been your heart, heathen, and the heart of all your race!” he screamed, and lifting his hands as though in invocation, suddenly plunged headlong into the flames beneath.

Thus, fierce and brave to the last, died Benoni the Jew.

Again Miriam fainted, again to be awakened. The door that led from the gate chambers to its roof burst open and through it sped a figure bare-headed and dishevelled, his torn raiment black with blood and smoke. Staring at him, Miriam knew the man who Simeon--yes, Simeon, her cruel judge, who had doomed her to this dreadful end. After him, gripping his robe indeed, came a Roman officer, a stout man of middle age, with a weather-beaten kindly face, which in some dim way seemed to be familiar to her, and after him again, six soldiers.

”Hold him!” he panted. ”We must have one of them to show if only that the people may know what a live Jew is like,” and the officer tugged so fiercely at the robe that in his struggles to be free, for he also hoped to die by casting himself from the gateway tower, Simeon fell down.

Next instant the soldiers were on him and held him fast. Then it was for the first time that the captain caught sight of Miriam crouched at the foot of her pillar.

”Why,” he said, ”I had forgotten. That is the girl whom we saw yesterday from the Court of Women and whom we have orders to save. Is the poor thing dead?”

Miriam lifted her wan face and looked at him.

”By Bacchus!” he said, ”I have seen that face before; it is not one that a man would forget. Ah! I have it now.” Then he stooped and eagerly read the writing that was tied upon her breast:

”Miriam, Nazarene and traitress, is doomed here to die as G.o.d shall appoint before the face of her friends, the Romans.”

”Miriam,” he said, then started and checked himself.

”Look!” cried one of the soldiers, ”the girl wears pearls, and good ones. Is it your pleasure that I should cut them off?”

”Nay, let them be,” he answered. ”Neither she nor her pearls are for any of us. Loosen her chain, not her necklet.”

So with much trouble they broke the rivets of the chain.

”Can you stand, lady?” said the captain to Miriam.

She shook her head.

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