A wind blowing from the north carried into the temple-courts whirling clouds of smoke and intermittent gusts of heat that came and went like the breath of a fiery furnace. Amid the roaring of the flames could be heard the shrieks of victims cut off from escape, intermingled with the crackling of cedar roofs and the crash of falling masonry. The shouting legionaries, fierce with the lust for gold, were running hither and thither like madmen, ransacking first this chamber and then that. Here and there some priest, detected in hiding, would find himself surrounded by fierce-eyed soldiers, and with the keen edge of a sword laid across his windpipe, he would be addressed with the cry, “Show us gold, and you shall live!” And wild were scenes that occurred when some new vault was discovered glittering with treasure, the plunderers trampling each other down in their eagerness to be first at the spoil. On all sides were to be seen men carrying off vessels of gold and silver, ingots of the same precious metals, bags of shekels, jewel-hilted weapons, myrrhine vases, caskets of ivory, ebony, and alabaster filled with spices, ointments, and perfumes, costly vestments, and ten thousand other objects of spoil. Never in all the world’s history did riches so vast fall to the lot of a conquering army as fell to those who plundered the temple--riches that were destined within a week to send down the price of gold in the markets of Syria to one-half of its former value! The attention of Titus was attracted by two men who were dragging along a heavy cedar chest which they had just rescued from the flames; but on breaking it open, they found within, not gold, as they had hoped, but books merely--historic writings, temple records, genealogical rolls, and the like. In their disappointment the two were about to set fire to the whole, but were checked by Titus. “Hold! Let these be kept for Josephus. I doubt not that he will esteem them more highly than gold. Carry this chest to my tent.” But though Titus might save the sacred books of the temple, the Golden House he could not save. Unperceived by him a soldier, moved by a frenzy to destroy, held a lighted torch between the hinges of the golden door; a flame sprang up which, from lack of water to quench it, spread rapidly over the whole, a sight viewed with satisfaction by the soldiery. “Where is now the God of the Jews?” they cried. Numerous figures, clad in priestly vestments, now appeared upon the burning roof. “Who are these?” asked Titus. “Priests,” replied Alexander, “forced by the heat from the secret chambers, of which there are many about the Golden House.” “Surrender, and your lives shall be spared,” shouted Titus. But to this invitation the priests replied by a flood of curses. Wrenching from the roof the gilded spikes, with their leaden sockets, they hurled them as missiles against the foe.