Titus, awakened by the fall of his tower, had immediately renewed the attack, although the morning was still some hours distant.
But the citizens were no longer disinterested, no longer wrapped in hopelessness and dull misery.
Hungry, sleepless, houseless, diseased and mad though they were, their hollow eyes gleamed now with hope that was almost defiant.

Around the Maccabee and Laodice roared the comment of the multitude.
"They say he climbed to the summit of the outer wall overlooking Tophet and remains there a target for the Roman arrows, which rebound from him!" cried one.
"One of John's men says that the heads of the arrows are blunted and the most of them snapped in two when they are picked up." "The Romans have ceased to shoot at him!" "They say that his footprints in the dust on the Tyropean Bridge are Hebrew letters writing 'Elia' in gold!" "It is said that the inner Temple is rocking with trumpet blasts and that John is struck dead!" "They say that those who believe in him shall ask for whatever they would have and have it!" "The breaches in the First Wall have been healed; the old rock is back in its place!" "They say that the dead beyond the wall in Tophet are prophesying!" "There is a bolt of lightning fixed in the sky over Titus' camp.

We are called to go forth and see it fall!" A voice swept by distantly crying that a woman had eaten her child.
Crazed Posthumus, self-elected guardian of the Law, with the sacred roll under his arm, declaimed, without any of his audience attending, that prophecy which this horror fulfilled.
All Jerusalem was in the streets; all Jerusalem poured into the immense open space where some palatial ruin stood, and melted in the giant concourse that gathered to hear the prophetess.
Laodice and the Maccabee were unable to see the woman; only her voice, mystic, musical, pitched at a singing monotone, intoning rather than speaking, reached them from the distance.

The long harangue, delivered as a chant, had long ago had a mesmerizing effect on her audience.
Absolutely she controlled them; along the dead level of her preaching they maintained a low continuous murmur, accompanied by a slight slow swaying of the body; in the climaxes of the appeal they responded with cries and wild gestures, flinging themselves about in attitudes characteristic of their frenzy.

In their faces was the reflection of a peculiar light that proved that derangement had settled over Jerusalem.