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 perish! Titus 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 God 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.
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