midnight
On several occasions the six hundred were sent in defense of the walls only by sheer force of their leader 's will-power . And there they fell in at once with the irregular methods of the Idumeans and fanatics that fought each after his own liking , and the careful instruction of the Maccabee was disregarded . Only so long as he cowed them , they obeyed him ; and he seemed to feel , as they seemed to indicate , that when that thing happened which all Jerusalem indefinitely expected and could not name , his control over them would be lost beyond restoration . On the night of the fall of the Roman tower , the Maccabee 's forces had been withdrawn for rest to their retreat and at midnight were formed again for return to the fortifications . By the strange inscrutable spread of rumor , sweeping with the air , the tidings of the miracle and the rise of Seraiah poured in upon the restive hundreds that the Maccabee was attempting to form in his fortress . 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 .