It was as he had expected.

The city was besieged.
It was afternoon, a week-day at the busiest portal of Jerusalem; but save for the fixed and pygmy sentry upon the tower, there was no living thing to be seen, no single sound to be heard.
Beyond the mounting hills of the City of David stood up, shouldering like mantles of snow their burden of sun-whitened houses.

Above it all, supreme over the blackened masonry of Roman Antonia, stood a glittering vision in marble and gold--the Temple.

At a distance it could not be seen that any of those inwalled splendors lacked; Jerusalem appeared intact, but the multitudes at the gate were absent and the voice of the city was stilled.
For one expecting to find Jerusalem animated and beholding it still and lifeless, how quickly its white walls, its white houses and its sparkling Temple became haunted, dead crypts and sepulchers.
But presently there came across the considerable distance that lay between him and Jerusalem, a sound remarkably distinct because of the utter stillness that prevailed.

It was the jingle of harness and the ring of hoof-beats upon stones embedded in the gray earth.
A Roman in armor polished like gold, with a floating mantle significantly bordered in purple, rode slowly into the open space, drew up his horse and stopped.