"Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 of 5" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

extinguish, and whose pillars of smoke no tempest can turn aside."

That part of the city to which our worthy Gizbarim now hastened, and which
bore the name of its architect, King David, was esteemed the most strongly
fortified district of Jerusalem; being situated upon the steep and lofty
hill of Zion. Here, a broad, deep, circumvallatory trench, hewn from the
solid rock, was defended by a wall of great strength erected upon its
inner edge. This wall was adorned, at regular interspaces, by square
towers of white marble; the lowest sixty, and the highest one hundred and
twenty cubits- in height. But, in the vicinity of the gate of Benjamin,
the wall arose by no means from the margin of the fosse. On the contrary,
between the level of the ditch and the basement of the rampart sprang up a
perpendicular cliff of two hundred and fifty cubits, forming part of the
precipitous Mount Moriah. So that when Simeon and his associates arrived
on the summit of the tower called Adoni-Bezek-the loftiest of all the
turrets around about Jerusalem, and the usual place of conference with the
besieging army-they looked down upon the camp of the enemy from an
eminence excelling by many feet that of the Pyramid of Cheops, and, by
several, that of the temple of Belus.

"Verily," sighed the Pharisee, as he peered dizzily over the precipice,
"the uncircumcised are as the sands by the seashore-as the locusts in the
wilderness! The valley of the King hath become the valley of Adommin."

"And yet," added Ben-Levi, "thou canst not point me out a Philistine-no,
not one-from Aleph to Tau-from the wilderness to the battlements---who
seemeth any bigger than the letter Jod!"

"Lower away the basket with the shekels of silver!" here shouted a Roman
soldier in a hoarse, rough voice, which appeared to issue from the regions
of Pluto---"lower away the basket with the accursed coin which it has
broken the jaw of a noble Roman to pronounce! Is it thus you evince your
gratitude to our master Pompeius, who, in his condescension, has thought
fit to listen to your idolatrous importunities? The god Phoebus, who is a
true god, has been charioted for an hour-and were you not to be on the
ramparts by sunrise? Aedepol! do you think that we, the conquerors of the
world, have nothing better to do than stand waiting by the walls of every
kennel, to traffic with the dogs of the earth? Lower away! I say--and see
that your trumpery be bright in color and just in weight!"

"El Elohim!" ejaculated the Pharisee, as the discordant tones of the
centurion rattled up the crags of the precipice, and fainted away against
the temple -"El Elohim!--who is the god Phoebus?--whom doth the blasphemer
invoke? Thou, Buzi-BenLevi! who art read in the laws of the Gentiles, and
hast sojourned among them who dabble with the Teraphim!--is it Nergal of
whom the idolater speaketh?----or Ashimah?--or Nibhaz,--or Tartak? --or
Adramalech?--or Anamalech?--or Succoth-Benith?---or Dagon?---or
Belial?---or Baal-Perith? -or Baal-Peor?---or Baal-Zebub?"

"Verily it is neither-but beware how thou lettest the rope slip too