The apparition with the long white hair,
however, ran away and was found on the streets by the Christian and
brought back to the cavern, where he hid in a dark shadow in the
remote end of the crypt and was not seen.
Of late the cavern was always full of suppressed excitement;
unpremeditated conferences among the Gibborim, which Hesper harshly
forbade; and general sharp resentment against imposed regulations and
military drill. On several occasions the six hundred were sent in
defense of the walls only by sheer force of their leader's will-power.
And there they fell in at once with the irregular methods of the
Idumeans and fanatics that fought each after his own liking, and the
careful instruction of the Maccabee was disregarded. Only so long as
he cowed them, they obeyed him; and he seemed to feel, as they seemed
to indicate, that when that thing happened which all Jerusalem
indefinitely expected and could not name, his control over them would
be lost beyond restoration.
On the night of the fall of the Roman tower, the Maccabee's forces had
been withdrawn for rest to their retreat and at midnight were formed
again for return to the fortifications.
By the strange inscrutable spread of rumor, sweeping with the air, the
tidings of the miracle and the rise of Seraiah poured in upon the
restive hundreds that the Maccabee was attempting to form in his
fortress.
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