Next day when Crispus suggested that it might hasten his recovery if he could breathe the purer air of the roof, Vashti and her mother, lifting the cords at the head and foot of his pallet, carried it, albeit with some difficulty, up the short staircase and deposited it upon the flat roof beneath the shade of a trellis overhung with vine-leaves, so placing the pallet as to prevent him from being overlooked by the occupants of the neighboring houses; while at the same time an opening in the parapet near by enabled him, whenever he chose to raise himself upon his elbow, to observe a good deal of what was going on in the streets below. All Jerusalem was resounding with the preparations for war. Though the aged and the wise might shake their heads gravely and hold aloof from the revolutionary movement, the young and the unthinking, elated at seeing the last vestige of Roman rule swept from the capital, flung in their lot with the Zealots and spent a considerable portion of each day in the performance of military exercises under captains appointed by Eleazar and Simon. The city walls were being repaired and strengthened, the very women and children laboring enthusiastically in the task. The air rang with the beating of steel upon the anvil, the steel that was to be dyed deep in Roman blood! At night Ophel was one red glow with the light that came from the various forges. “They have hewn down the golden eagle from the gate of the temple,” said Vashti. “They cannot take him from the sky, however,” replied Crispus, pointing to a magnificent specimen that was sailing aloft with slow and majestic motion. Suddenly, this eagle drooped its pinions, and, descending like a plummet, alighted upon the parapet just above the head of Crispus. Vashti started back with a little scream; then, by motioning with her hands, she tried to make the eagle fly off; he took no notice of her, however, but sat with unruffled plumage, the embodiment of majesty and gravity. Try as she would Vashti could not get the eagle to stir, but, finding that he remained quiet and showed no disposition to attack either Crispus or herself, she relinquished her efforts and resumed her conversation, timorously glancing from time to time at the eagle, which kept its post as though it were some faithful sentinel appointed to watch over the patient. This little incident was not without significance for Crispus, whose mind, in common with other minds of that day, saw an omen in anything out of the common. At the very moment when Eleazar was threatening him with death, he had appealed to sovereign Jupiter. Now, the eagle being the symbol of that deity as well as of the Roman empire, he could not help interpreting its presence as a heaven-sent assurance that Jove and the legions would effect his safety. Aware, however, that Vashti had no faith in his gods, he kept this opinion to himself.