Creeping forward with soundless tread, the little band, favored by the gloom, gained the foot of the wall unseen by the Jewish sentinels above. Then Crispus silently and cautiously began the ascent; his men followed like a file of grim specters. One javelin hurled from above would have sufficed to send the whole party thundering down. No such disaster occurred, however. Whether the sentinels were sleeping, or whether they were keeping careless watch, is a matter that will never be known: certain it is that the heroic sixteen safely gained the top of the wall. A whispered word from Crispus, and then on the still night air the trumpet rang out the call to arms; long, shrill, and piercing, the summons startled the Romans from sleep; it startled still more the Jewish sentinels close at hand. Even now it would have been a comparatively easy matter to repel the attack; but, as Crispus and his party, their lifted blades glinting through the gloom, dashed forward with a mighty shout, the Zealot sentinels, without waiting to ascertain the number of their assailants, turned tail and fled, fully convinced that the whole of the Roman army was pouring over the battlements. Their shouts awoke their fellows. Roused thus in the dead of night the entire garrison became the victims of one of those panics which have been known to fall sometimes upon even the hardiest veterans. From above, from below, from every hall and chamber, there came running wild-eyed Zealots, whose only object was to save their lives; in mad confusion they made for the south side of the fortress, where lay the only available exit--a narrow causeway over the deep ravine that separated Antonia from the temple. Meantime, Titus and the rest of the Romans in the camp, guided by the continuous pealing of the trumpet, hurried forward, scaled the wall, and found to their surprise and delight that the enemy had vacated the fortress without striking a blow. Now the surrender of Antonia had opened the way to the temple, and Crispus, thinking in one night and by the same stroke, to capture both places was pursuing the retreating Zealots across the connecting causeway. But now the Zealots, cursing themselves for their cowardly folly, turned and made a stand upon this same causeway. Then began a battle, perhaps the fiercest and bloodiest in the whole course of the siege. Spears and javelins being useless, both sides drew their swords and fought it out hand to hand. In the gloom of night the troops of both parties were so intermingled that no man knew where he was; more often than not Roman slew Roman, and Jew slew Jew. Crispus, stunned by a blow on the head, was dragged forth from the fray by a faithful legionary.