Crispus complied with this request, but as he had no particular desire for worldly fame, he added: “Keep my name out of the history.” “Is it possible,” smiled Josephus, “in view of your great deeds?” “Quite possible. You can allude to me as ‘a certain captain tribune,’ or ‘one of the soldiers.’” And then, turning to a matter of far more interest to him than future fame, he said, “Do you know that your ward Vashti is a slave in the household of the Princess Berenice?” “Yea, I know it,” said Josephus with a queer smile, the meaning of which was not at all apparent to Crispus, “and I am this day setting off for Cæsarea, carrying to the princess a letter from Titus enjoining her to deal tenderly with my ward.” “That is good, but it would be better were he sending an order that she must be set at liberty. However, that will perhaps come in time,” he continued, resolving to petition Vespasian on behalf of Vashti. “But let me not delay you. Go, and heaven prosper your mission.” Crispus had ordered that his bed should be placed by a window from which he could watch the preparations that were being made to storm Mount Zion, where the implacable Zealots were making their last stand. With the capture of that stronghold, the long siege would be brought to an end. Titus had offered, by the mouth of Josephus, to spare the lives of all the insurgents on the condition of instant surrender. But Simon and John still talked big. They demanded a free passage for themselves and their followers, together with their wives and children, promising to depart to some far-off spot in the wilderness. Titus rejected these terms, and in his anger vowed to slay every man, woman, and child, and to level the city to the ground. Then did Crispus rejoice that Vashti was delivered from the possibility of such doom. The Roman banks were completed in eighteen days, and on the nineteenth morning Titus began his attack upon the northern wall of Zion. Even now it was within the power of the Zealots to prolong the siege for many weeks in virtue of their almost impregnable position in those three magnificent fortresses, Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne. But the steady and triumphant progress of the Roman arms through the suburb of Bezetha and the suburb of Acra, over the ruins of Antonia and the ruins of the temple, had put a secret fear into the heart of the Zealots, so that as soon as they heard the terrible rams swinging and pounding against the walls of Zion they quitted their fortifications, and fled. Some sought the catacombs with which the sub-soil of Jerusalem is everywhere honeycombed; others, opening the southern gates, made a wild and futile attempt to force the Roman line of circumvallation.