Wide clanged the Fountain Gate, and out poured a tumultuous crowd of fierce-shouting saber-brandishing Zealots, led on by John of Giscala. “To horse!” sang out the Roman trumpet; and instantly the troops mounted and swung into line. Crispus’ question, “Shall we give them battle?” met with an eager affirmative. Not a man among them but thrilled with joy at the prospect of a hand-to-hand engagement with the enemy. For many hours they had been waging an unsatisfactory warfare against flying missiles, but here was something more substantial, something they could flesh their steel upon! With the spirit of his fighting ancestors dancing in his veins, Crispus cried, “Why wait we here? We’ll go to meet them. _Charge!_” He put his steed to the gallop, and the whole three hundred, knee to knee and sword in air, went racing after him up the valley of Tyropæon. Faster and faster they whirled towards the foe, gathering momentum with every yard. The thundering hoofs and flashing steel made a sight so nerveshaking that the crowd of onrushing Zealots came to a dead halt. “Stand fast!” yelled John to his followers. The next moment he was hurled to the earth, as the head of the Roman column went crashing with irresistible force into the midst of the Zealots. The contest was short and sharp. John’s men lacked the fire of Simon’s; for a moment only they fought, then turned tail and fled; and the delighted Romans chased and slew up to the very gate of the city, all but entering with the foe. “John of Giscala hath escaped us,” growled a centurion, as he turned away from the gate at which he had been savagely kicking. “He is reserved for another day,” answered Crispus. Laughing over their easy victory the little band galloped back to their water-carts, and, as they clattered again up the valley of the Cedron, they cast gibes at the discomfited Zealots upon the wall. With the arrival of the water the thirsting Roman army imbibed fresh energy, but though they toiled hard till nightfall they failed to open a way into the city. Thus ended the first day’s fight. CHAPTER XX CIRCUMVALLATION On the fourteenth day of the siege the repaired ram Nico, or the Conqueror, justified its name by effecting a breach in the northern wall; and Simon, seeing his position no longer tenable, fell back upon his second line of defense. This was the first great step in the siege. The Romans, entering Bezetha on the fifteenth day, proceeded to demolish the greater part of this suburb, the demolition being necessary in order to clear the way for the advance of the battering-train. Nine days more, and the Romans had penetrated the second wall, and were now masters of the suburb of Acra, which they proceeded to treat in like fashion with that of Bezetha. This was the second great step in the siege. “Bezetha taken in fifteen days, Acra in nine,” exulted Titus. “We are getting on.”