"A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the Holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides and a voice against this whole people!" The temper of the crowd had reached that point of tension that needed only a little more strain to become panic. Some one received the discordant cries of the maniacs with piercing rapid screams. Instantly the choked passage filled with frantic uproar. Scores attempting to flee blindly trampled over those transfixed with fear. They fought, men with women, youths with old age, children with one another. Hundreds attracted by the tumult rushed in on the panic and added fresh victims and new death. Out of the horror rose the fearful cries of the madmen: "Woe, woe to this wicked city!" Meanwhile, the soldiers of Simon and John came to prevent citizens from gathering in bodies, and with sword and spear drove into the struggle and added murder to it all. The spirit of terror then issued out of that bloody alley and seized upon street by street. Far and wide the tumult ran, growing in volume with every accession, until the raging and humiliated Titus, among his six hundred, heard Jerusalem howl like a beaten slave and hushed his pagan curses to listen. Late that same afternoon, the Esquiline Gate, inaccessible, despised and sealed, was broken open from within and under it and down its difficult and dangerous approach poured a silent multitude, numbering thousands. They were abandoning the Rock of David to its fate. Among them went the last remnants of that sect of Christians who had tarried long after their brethren had been warned away, hoping against hope. They were not missed among the numbers in Jerusalem, for the Passover hosts still poured through the gates to the south and took their places in the unhappy city. And with these that same afternoon Laodice and her old servant came into Jerusalem. It was the eighth day after they had applied to the priest at Emmaus whither they had fled in their search for the frosts, a good three leagues north of the direct road to Jerusalem. They had stopped at the Lavatory outside the walls, washed themselves and had purchased the white garments of the purified. Old Momus carried with him the price of the lambs, of the fine flour and the oil for their cleansing and the two were ready to present themselves for their purification at the Temple. But all the roar and disorder of the great city in its warfare and its discord confused them. Ascalon had not a thousandth part of this turmoil at its busiest season. Neither was there a servant in a purple turban with the gold star to meet them and they were bewildered and lost. The rest of the visitors to the Passover hurried into the heart of the city; wave after wave of new-comers replaced them; but the young woman and her dumb old servant stood aside just within reach of the shadow of the immemorial portal and waited.