His steps, finely balanced, passed over obstructions where most of his followers stumbled, and when he turned across Akra and faced the Old Wall, the excitement became painful.
His pace was flying; many of his followers were running.

It seemed that he was going against the Wall.

Dozens anticipated that course and skirting through short ways clambered up on the fortifications and clung there though menaced by the sentries until Seraiah appeared.
At a narrow point in the street that ended against the wall, Seraiah met that Jew who had become a maniac on the day Jerusalem attacked Titus.

Without warning the maniac leaped up into an intensely rigid posture; his legs spread, his lean arms upstretched at painful tension, his mouth wide, his eyes dilated immensely in their hollow depths.
Seraiah passed him as if no man stood in his way.

Instantly the maniac wheeled, as a huge spread-eagle wind-vane on its staff, and stood at gaze, the broad uninterrupted light of the beacon shining down on him and the mysterious man.