Nor was the fighting altogether ended, for on the roofs of some of the burning cloisters were gathered a few of the most desperate of the survivors of the Jews, who, as the cloisters crumbled beneath them, retreated slowly towards the Gate Nicanor, which still stood unharmed. The Romans, weary with slaughter, called to them to come down and surrender, but they would not, and Miriam watching them, to her horror saw that one of these men was none other than her grandfather, Benoni. As they would not yield, the Romans shot at them with arrows, so that presently every one of them was down except Benoni, whom no dart seemed to touch.
“Cease shooting,” cried a voice, “and bring a ladder. That man is brave and one of the Sanhedrim. Let him be taken alive.”
A ladder was brought and reared against the wall near the Gate Nicanor and up it came Romans. Benoni retreated before them till he stood upon the edge of the gulf of advancing fire. Then he turned round and faced them. As he turned he caught sight of Miriam huddled at the base of her column upon the roof of the gate, and thinking that she was dead, wrung his hands and tore his beard. She guessed his grief, but so weak and parched was she, that she could call no word of comfort to him, or do more than watch the end with fascinated eyes.
The soldiers came on along the top of the wall till they feared to approach nearer to the fire, lest they should fall through the burning rafters.
“Yield!” they cried. “Yield, fool, before you perish! Titus gives you your life.”
“That he may drag me, an elder of Israel, in chains through the streets of Rome,” answered the old Jew scornfully. “Nay, I will not yield, and I pray God that the same end which you have brought upon this city and its children, may fall upon your city and its children at the hands of men even more cruel than yourselves.”
Then stooping down he lifted a spear which lay upon the wall and hurled it at them so fiercely, that it transfixed the buckler of one of the soldiers and the arm behind the buckler.
“Would that it had been your heart, heathen, and the heart of all your race!” he screamed, and lifting his hands as though in invocation, suddenly plunged headlong into the flames beneath.