"Perchance he has comfort for us.

Come, Hesper; let us see what he has for the forlorn." "Who ?" he asked dully.
"They say the Deliverer has come." He shook his head again, but with her two hands she lifted his face from its refuge, and urging with her eyes and her hands and her lips she led him toward the stairs.

The Christian looked after them.
"_For there shall arise false Christs; and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect_," he said sorrowfully.
The horror of the city augmented hour by hour.

The Jerusalem Laodice locked upon now was infinitely more afflicted than the one she had seen in the daylight days before.
The walls were now outlined by fire which illuminated all the city that lay directly beneath the beacons.

To the north gnomish outlines by hundreds against the flames showed where the soldiers of the factionists were placing the topmost stones upon an inner wall or curtain erected just within the Old Wall, which was by this time shaking and cracking under the assaults of a great siege-engine without.