Again there were momentary lulls, as when the sea recoils upon itself and is stilled for an instant.

They who stood to watch, wearied of days of such invasion, unconsciously wished that the interval might endure till they could rest their number-wearied brains.

But, as if the stagnation were the result of congestion somewhere without the walls, when the wave returned it came with redoubled height and power and the Sun Gate would roar with the noise of their entry.
After the Ephesian had been swept in with his own company of pilgrims, he saw that which even few of the new-comers had expected to see.

The immediate vicinity of the gate was laid waste.

Up Mount Zion opposite Hippicus and along the margin of the Tyropean Valley where the Herodian and Sadducean palaces had seemed so fair from the north were great blackened shells of walls and leaning pillars, partly buried in ruin and rubbish.