“Listen!” said Iddo. Through the uproar of the streets they could discern a distant sound of cymbals, trumpets, and song, which came in the direction of the New City. “The Galileans are entering by the gate of Ephraim; they are late; and yet they cannot this time have been obstructed by the Samaritans; Hyrcanus has removed that obstacle from their way.” The distant sound of music and song, heard in this calm, soft night, seemed to Helon even more beautiful than the jubilation with which the march from Bethlehem had been attended. Penetrating through all the tumult of the city, which he heard not as he drank them in, the spiritual and ethereal tones seemed to him almost like the heavenly host, when they ascend from earth, to keep an eternal festival before the presence of Jehovah. On such an evening, what flight of imagination could be too bold for a youth of such enthusiastic temperament? The guests had laid themselves down upon the carpets, when Iddo took Helon by the arm. Elisama had been compelled to occupy the place of honour, and Selumiel and he were inseparable. “You will stay by me,” said his host to Helon, “and we will occupy as is becoming, the lowest place. Look down below on the square; there it was that Ezra once stood, when the people returned from the captivity, and read the law to them.” “I remember it,” said Helon; “it is written, Ezra read upon the open place before the Water-gate, from the morning until mid-day, and praised the Lord the great God; and the people answered Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands, and bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.”[105] Footnote 105: Neh. viii. 3. “Often have I stood here,” said Iddo, “contemplating that spot, with this history in my mind, and have thought, with gratitude to Jehovah who has delivered his people, on that AMEN, sent up by the assembled multitude, lifting their hands to heaven. But let us eat and be merry.” Their mirth was such as suited the age and the piety of the company, and their enjoyment was heightened by the expressions of joy which they heard all around them. The old men discoursed of the felicity of the times, and the glorious reign of Hyrcanus; above all, of the victory which his sons had obtained over the Samaritans, and the destruction of the abomination of Gerizim.