With the dawn Simon came to the aid of his Zealot rival; and then indeed the fighting, and the shouting, and the clangor, grew fiercer and louder than ever. On that narrow viaduct there was no room either to advance or retreat; scores of the combatants were forced over the parapet, and shrieking, fell, to be dashed to pieces in the rocky ravine below. The passage became so crowded with dead that the living to get at each other were obliged to mount upon piles of bodies and of armor. At last, when it became clear that the Romans could make no headway, Titus, after ten hours of this fighting, gave the signal for recall. Thanks to Crispus, however, the great fortress of Antonia was now in Roman hands, and as Simon beheld the standard inscribed S.P.Q.R. floating proudly again from its lofty battlements, he wept tears of grief and rage, and cursed John to his face saying--somewhat unjustly--that none but a fool or a coward or a traitor could have lost such a stronghold. Later that same day Rufus and Crispus stood on the battlements of Antonia; and of all the Romans, who more pleased than Rufus at finding himself once more in his old familiar fortress? The two, looking down from their lofty position, watched the preparations that were being made for the defense of the temple. The marble courts and gilded pinnacles were assuming the appearance of a warlike citadel. Thousands of Zealots, under the direction of Simon and John, were hauling their huge military engines over the tesselated pavement, till the northern porticoes facing Antonia fairly bristled with balistæ and catapults. The clang of arms and the creaking of the machines, the shouting of men and the ceaseless hurrying hither and thither, made a scene difficult to reconcile with the belief that the place was the house of God. “What is the day of the month?” asked Rufus, suddenly. “The seventeenth of July,” replied Crispus. “I venture to prophesy that in the years to come the Jews--if there be any of them left after this war--will keep this day as a day of mourning.” “Why so?” “The answer is to be found _there!_” remarked Rufus, pointing to the court of the priests. “It is the hour of the evening sacrifice,” he continued, glancing at a sun-dial near by, “but where is the smoke ascending from the altar? ’Twas absent, too, this morning, so I am told. _The daily sacrifice hath ceased_ for lack of victims. If I rightly foresee the fate of the temple, they made their last sacrifice yester even.”