At the close of a day of search through every defile of the country, he was seen returning at the head of some peasants bearing a body on a litter. I flew to meet him. He was in deep affliction, and drawing off the mantle which covered the face, he showed me Septimius. [Sidenote: Roman Plans] “In the flight of the Romans,” said he, “I saw a horseman making head against a crowd. His voice caught my ear. I rushed forward to save him, and he burst through the circle at full speed. But by the light of the torches I could perceive that he was desperately wounded. When day broke, I tracked him by his blood. His horse, gashed by scythes, had fallen under him. I found my unfortunate friend lying senseless beside a rill, to which he had crept for water.” Tears fell from his eyes as he told the brief story. I too remembered the generous interposition of the youth, and when I looked upon the paleness of those fine Italian features that I had so lately seen lighted up with living spirit, and in a scene of regal luxury, I felt a pang for the uncertainty of human things. But the painful part of the moral was spared us. The young Roman’s wounds were stanched, and in an enemy and a Roman I found the means of paying a debt of gratitude. His appearance among the troops sent to seize me had been only a result of his anxiety to save the father of his friends. He had accidentally discovered the nature of the order and hoped to anticipate its execution. But he arrived only in time to be involved in the confusion of the flight. Pursued and wounded by the peasantry, he lost his way, and but for the generous perseverance of Constantius he must have died. The public information which he brought was of the most important kind. In the Roman councils, the utter subjugation of Judea was resolved on; the last spark of national independence was to be extinguished, tho in the blood of the last native; a Roman colony established in our lands; the Roman worship introduced; and Jerusalem profaned by a statue of Nero, and sacrifices to him as a god, on the altar of the sanctuary. To crush the resistance of the people, the legions, to the number of sixty thousand men, were under orders from proconsular Asia, Egypt, and Europe. The most distinguished captain of the empire, Vespasian, was called from Britain to the command, and the whole military strength of Rome was prepared to follow up the blow. [Sidenote: The Principles of War]