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Here, the Maccabee and his Gibborim stood shoulder to shoulder with the Idumeans and fanatics of Simon and John, and here the half-mad defenders awakened at last to the fact that only divine interference could save the city against Rome. In the south and the east conflagrations roared and crackled, where burning oil had been scattered over some remaining structures near the walls.
And Laodice was not yet found. The madness on Jerusalem poured like an overwhelming flood into the cavern under the ruin of the Herodian palaces. There was Hesper, with most of his Gibborim gathered, preparing to proceed to the defense of the First Wall in Akra against which the Roman would hurl himself in the morning. For days he had controlled his men only by the force of his fierce will.
The Maccabee, steadily training his picked Gibborim, saw these lulls as signs that Titus was still in the hope that the city would submit to occupation and spare him the repugnant task of slaughtering half a nation. In his soul he knew that at no time would Titus be unwilling to receive the voluntary capitulation of the city.
Finally he determined to pick the most rational of his men and shape an army that would be distinctly Jewish and enviable. Nothing Roman should mar its organization. He would have again the six hundred Gibborim of David, and after he had formed them into a body he would trust to the existing circumstances to direct him how to proceed to the assistance of Jerusalem with them.
Sometimes they go by the name Rephaim, because one glance at them made one's heart grow weak; or by the name Gibborim, simply giants, because their size was so enormous that their thigh measured eighteen ells; or by the name Zamzummim, because they were great masters in war; or by the name Anakim, because they touched the sun with their neck; or by the name Ivvim, because, like the snake, they could judge of the qualities of the soil; or finally, by the name Nephilim, because, bringing the world to its fall, they themselves fell.
It came like the gradual velocity of a burning star across the sky. From the ranks nearest the exit from the burrow the murmur issued, growing into intelligible sound, mounting to the wildness of hysteria and prevailing wholly over the Gibborim in the space between heart-beats.
Of late the cavern was always full of suppressed excitement; unpremeditated conferences among the Gibborim, which Hesper harshly forbade; and general sharp resentment against imposed regulations and military drill. On several occasions the six hundred were sent in defense of the walls only by sheer force of their leader's will-power.
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