Driven from all other parts of the Sanctuary the Zealots gathered about this golden shrine, determined that it should not be profaned by the foot of the heathen Gentile. The triumphant Romans followed to the attack, and a desperate fight ensued. Sword in hand the furious Zealots fell by hundreds, and at last Simon and John, seeing that all was lost, massed the survivors at one point, and charging at their head, succeeded in cutting their way through the Roman ranks out into the Court of the Gentiles, and thence by the bridge that spanned the Tyropæon they made their way into the Upper City. The flight of the Zealots was followed by a terrible carnage around the great brazen altar of sacrifice, a sort of truncated pyramid, forty-eight feet square at the base, standing directly in front of the Golden House. Hither, upon the first entering of the Romans, had fled a helpless, trembling crowd of children, women, and aged men, thinking that the sanctity of the spot would stay the sword of the conqueror. Vain hope! The foe, made cruel by the long duration of the siege, stabbed and slew without distinction of age or sex; the bodies of the dead lay piled like hecatombs upon the sacrificial altar; upon the pavement around the red blood spread in a quickly widening circle, till, reaching the marble stairs, it rolled in sullen streams into the courts below. Though isolated groups of desperate Jews continued here and there to fight Titus was now practically master of the temple, but the victory gave him little pleasure when he noticed the progress made by the fire, which, fanned by the wind, had reached one end of the northern cloister, and, having turned the angle, was now fast advancing along the western cloister, and would soon be on a line parallel with the western wall of the Golden House; true, a space separated the cloister from the shrine, but the space was, perhaps, not too wide for the flames to leap across; already sparks and fragments of fiery matter, floated by the wind, were beginning to patter upon the fretted and pinnacled roof. Moved by Titus’ look of despair, Alexander put forth a suggestion. “We can perhaps preserve it by drenching its roof with water.” “But whence the water?” “There is a draw-well on the southern side of the Sanctuary.” Springing upon one of the many marble tables where sacrificial victims were laid prior to their being offered upon the brazen altar, Titus, trying to make his voice heard above the noise of fire and vociferation, shouted that the soldiers should bring water for the preserving of the Golden House. But none would put hand to the work, for the sides and western end of this house were set about with treasury vaults, and the fool who spent his time like a slave in fetching water would lose the chance of enriching himself. “Urge them to the work, Liberalis!” cried Titus, addressing a centurion. “Threaten them! Strike them with your staff!”