"I suppose you belong to the town?" he began.
There was a general a.s.sent from the five boys, who looked with considerable respect at John--who, although but two years the senior of the eldest among them, wore a man"s garb, and carried sword and buckler.
"I am one of the bodyguard of the governor," John went on, "and I dare say you can tell me all sorts of things, about this country, that may be useful for him to know. Is it quite certain that no one could climb up these rocks from below; and that there is no fear of the Romans making a surprise, in that way?"
The boys looked at each other, but no one volunteered to give information.
"Come!" John went on, "I have only just left off being a boy, myself, and I was always climbing into all sorts of places, when I got a chance; and I have no doubt it"s the same, with you. When you have been down below, there, you have tried how far you can get up.
"Did you ever get up far, or did you ever hear of anyone getting up far?"
"I expect I have been up as far as anyone," the eldest of the boys said. "I went up after a young kid that had strayed away from its mother. I got up a long way--half way up, I should say--but I couldn"t get any further. I was barefooted, too.
"I am sure no one with armor on could have got up anything like so far. I don"t believe he could get up fifty feet."
"And have any of you ever tried to get down from above?"
They shook their heads.
"Jonas the son of James did, once," one of the smaller boys said.
"He had a pet hawk he had tamed, and it flew away and perched, a good way down; and he clambered down to fetch it. He had a rope tied round him, and some of the others held it, in case he should slip. I know he went down a good way, and he got the hawk; and his father beat him for doing it, I know."
"Is he here, now?" John asked.
"Yes, he is here," the boy said. "That"s his father"s house, the one close to the edge of the rock. I don"t know whether you will find him there, now. He ain"t indoors more than he can help. His own mother"s dead, and his father"s got another wife, and they don"t get on well together."
"Well, I will have a chat with him, one of these days. And you are all quite sure that there is no possible path up, from below?"
"I won"t say there isn"t any possible path," the eldest boy said; "but I feel quite sure there is not. I have looked, hundreds of times, when I have been down below; and I feel pretty sure that, if there had been any place where a goat could have got up, I should have noticed it. But you see, the rock goes down almost straight, in most places. Anyhow, I have never heard of anyone who ever got up and, if anyone had done it, it would have been talked about, for years and years."
"No doubt it would," John agreed. "So I shall tell the governor that he need not be in the least uneasy about an attack, except in front."
So saying, he nodded to the boys, and walked away again.
In the evening, the whole of the Roman army had arrived; and Vespasian drew up his troops on a hill, less than a mile to the north of the city, and there encamped them. The next morning, a triple line of embankments was thrown up, by the Romans, around the foot of the hill where, alone, escape or issue was possible; and this entirely cut off those within the town from any possibility of flight.
The Jews looked on at these preparations as wild animals might regard a line of hunters surrounding them. But the dull despair of the previous day had now been succeeded by a fierce rage. Hope there was none. They must die, doubtless; but they would die fighting fiercely, till the last. Disdaining to be pent up within the walls, many of the fighting men encamped outside, and boldly went forward to meet the enemy.
Vespasian called up his slingers and archers, and these poured their missiles upon the Jews; while he himself, with his heavy infantry, began to mount the slope towards the part of the wall which appeared the weakest. Josephus at once summoned the fighting men in the town and, sallying at their head through the gate, rushed down and flung himself upon the Romans. Both sides fought bravely; the Romans strong in their discipline, their skill with their weapons, and their defensive armor; the Jews fighting with the valor of despair, heightened by the thought of their wives and children in the town, above.
The Romans were pushed down the hill, and the fight continued at its foot until darkness came on, when both parties drew off. The number of killed on either side was small, for the bucklers and helmets defended the vital points. The Romans had thirteen killed and very many wounded, the Jews seventeen killed and six hundred wounded.
John had fought bravely by the side of Josephus. Joab and two others of the little band were killed. All the others were wounded, more or less severely; for Josephus was always in the front, and his chosen followers kept close to him. In the heat of the fight, John felt his spirits rise higher than they had done since the troubles had begun. He had fought, at first, so recklessly that Josephus had checked him, with the words:
"Steady, my brave lad. He fights best who fights most coolly. The more you guard yourself, the more you will kill."
More than once, when Josephus--whose commanding figure, and evident leadership, attracted the attention of the Roman soldiers--was surrounded and cut off, John, with three or four others, made their way through to him, and brought him off.
When it became dark, both parties drew off; the Romans sullenly, for they felt it a disgrace to have been thus driven back, by foes they despised; the Jews with shouts of triumph, for they had proved themselves a match for the first soldiers in the world, and the dread with which the glittering column had inspired them had pa.s.sed away.
The following day, the Jews again sallied out and attacked the Romans as they advanced and, for five days in succession, the combat raged--the Jews fighting with desperate valor, the Romans with steady resolution. At the end of that time, the Jews had been forced back behind their wall, and the Romans established themselves in front of it.
Vespasian, seeing that the wall could not be carried by a.s.sault, as he had expected, called a council of war; and it was determined to proceed by the regular process of a siege, and to erect a bank against that part of the wall which offered the greatest facility for attack. Accordingly the whole army, with the exception of the troops who guarded the banks of circ.u.mvallation, went into the mountains to get materials. Stone and timber, in vast quant.i.ties, were brought down and, when these were in readiness, the work commenced.
A sort of penthouse roofing, constructed of wattles covered with earth, was first raised, to protect the workers from the missiles of the enemy upon the wall; and here the working parties labored securely, while the rest of the troops brought up earth, stone, and wood for their use. The Jews did their best to interfere with the work, hurling down huge stones upon the penthouse; sometimes breaking down the supports of the roof and causing gaps, through which they poured a storm of arrows and javelins, until the damage had been repaired.
To protect his workmen, Vespasian brought up his siege engines--of which he had a hundred and sixty--and, from these, vast quant.i.ties of missiles were discharged at the Jews upon the walls. The catapults threw javelins, b.a.l.l.s of fire, and blazing arrows; while the ballistae hurled huge stones, which swept lanes through the ranks of the defenders. At the same time the light-armed troops, the Arab archers, and those of Agrippa and Antiochus kept up a rain of arrows, so that it became impossible for the Jews to remain on the walls.
But they were not inactive. Sallying out in small parties, they fell with fury upon the working parties who, having stripped off their heavy armor, were unable to resist their sudden onslaughts.
Driving out and slaying all before them, the Jews so often applied fire to the wattles and timbers of the bank that Vespasian was obliged to make his work continuous, along the whole extent of the wall, to keep out the a.s.sailants.
But, in spite of all the efforts of the Jews, the embankment rose steadily, until it almost equaled the height of the wall; and the struggle now went on between the combatants on even terms, they being separated only by the short interval between the wall and bank. Josephus found that in such a conflict the Romans--with their crowd of archers and slingers, and their formidable machines--had all the advantage; and that it was absolutely necessary to raise the walls still higher.
He called together a number of the princ.i.p.al men, and pointed out the necessity for this. They agreed with him, but urged that it was impossible for men to work, exposed to such a storm of missiles.
Josephus replied that he had thought of that. A number of strong posts were prepared and, at night, these were fixed securely, standing on the wall. Along the top of these, a strong rope was stretched; and on this were hung, touching each other, the hides of newly-killed oxen. These formed a complete screen, hiding the workers from the sight of those on the embankment.
Ill.u.s.tration: Heightening the Walls of Jotapata under Shelter of Ox Hides.
The hides, when struck with the stones from the ballistae, gave way and deadened the force of the missiles; while the arrows and javelins glanced off from the slippery surface. Behind this shelter, the garrison worked night and day, raising the posts and screens as their work proceeded, until they had heightened the wall no less than thirty-five feet; with a number of towers on its summit, and a strong battlement facing the Romans.
The besiegers were much discouraged at their want of success, and enraged at finding the efforts of so large an army completely baffled by a small town, which they had expected to carry at the first a.s.sault; while the Jews proportionately rejoiced. Becoming more and more confident, they continually sallied out in small parties, through the gateway or by ladders from the walls, attacked the Romans upon their embankment, or set fire to it. And it was the desperation with which these men fought, even more than their success in defending the wall, that discouraged the Romans; for the Jews were utterly careless of their lives, and were well content to die, when they saw that they had achieved their object of setting fire to the Roman works.
Vespasian, at length, determined to turn the siege into a blockade; and to starve out the town which he could not capture. He accordingly contented himself by posting a strong force to defend the embankment, and withdrew the main body of the army to their encampment. He had been informed of the shortness of the supply of water; and had antic.i.p.ated that, in a very short time, thirst would compel the inhabitants to yield.
John had taken his full share in the fighting, and had frequently earned the warm commendation of Josephus. His spirits had risen with the conflict; but he could not shut his eyes to the fact that, sooner or later, the Romans must become masters of the place. One evening, therefore, when he had done his share of duty on the walls, he went up to the house which had been pointed out to him as that in which lived the boy who had descended the face of the rocks, for some distance.
At a short distance from the door, a lad of some fifteen years old, with no covering but a piece of ragged sackcloth round the loins, was crouched up in a corner, seemingly asleep. At the sound of John"s footsteps, he opened his eyes in a quick, watchful way, that showed that he had not been really asleep.
"Are you Jonas, the son of James?" John asked.
"Yes I am," the boy said, rising to his feet. "What do you want with me?"
"I want to have a talk with you," John said. "I am one of the governor"s bodyguard; and I think, perhaps, you may be able to give us some useful information."
"Well, come away from here," the boy said, "else we shall be having her--" and he nodded to the house, "--coming out with a stick."
"You have rather a hard time of it, from what I hear," John began, when they stopped at the wall, a short distance away from the house.
"I have that," the boy said. "I look like it, don"t I?"
"You do," John agreed, looking at the boy"s thin, half-starved figure; "and yet, there is plenty to eat in the town."
"There may be," the boy said; "anyhow, I don"t get my share. Father is away fighting on the wall, and so she"s worse than ever. She is always beating me, and I dare not go back, now. I told her, this morning, the sooner the Romans came, in the better I should be pleased. They could only kill me, and there would be an end of it; but they would send her to Rome for a slave, and then she would see how she liked being cuffed and beaten, all day."
"And you are hungry, now?" John asked.
"I am pretty near always hungry," the boy said.