The street ended short of the wall.

About the base of the fortification was an open space, in which was planted a scaling-ladder.

Seraiah climbed this, an infinitesimal detail on the great blank of blackened stone.
Hundreds, rushing upon the wall, though a goodly distance from the point at which the strange man had mounted, climbed it and beat off the sentries.
And the foremost who reached the top saw the Roman Tower directly opposite Seraiah shudder suddenly and sink in a roaring cloud of dust upon itself to the earth.
Instantly the maniac below broke the tense silence with a scream that was heard in the paralyzed Roman camp: "It is He, the Deliverer! Come!" Of the thousands of Jews that heard the madman's cry, every heart credited it.

Hundreds melted away suddenly, as if stricken with terror at what they might see; other hundreds scrambled down from their places to run purposelessly, crying aimless things to the night over the city; yet others covered their faces with their arms and fell in their places, expecting the end of the world; and of the rest, the less imaginative, the more composed and the more curious, remained on the walls to see enacted a further miracle.

Uproar had broken out instantly among the four stolid legions of Titus on the Assyrian bivouac.