as a gaol, and allowed a ration of a loaf of bread for his daily food.1 The courtyard was a public place, to which all comers had access who desired to speak to the prisoners, and even here the prophet did not cease to preach and exhort the people to repentance:  “He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldaeans shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey, and he shall live.  Thus saith the Lord, This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the King of Babylon, and he shall take it.”

[Illustration:  427.jpg PRISONERS UNDER TORTURE HAVING THEIR TONGUES TORN OUT]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
     British Museum.

The princes and officers of the king, however, complained to Zedekiah of him:  “Let this man, we pray thee, be put to death; forasmuch as he weakeneth the hands of the men of war, and the hands of all the people in speaking such words.”  Given up to his accusers and plunged in a muddy cistern, he escaped by the connivance of a eunuch of the royal household, only to renew his denunciations with greater force than ever.

[Illustration:  428.jpg A KING PUTTING OUT THE EYES OF A PRISONER]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from several engravings in Botta.  The mutilated remains of several bas-reliefs have been combined so as to form a tolerably correct scene; the prisoners have a ring passed through their lips, and the king holds them by a cord attached to it.

The king sent for him secretly and asked his advice, but could draw from him nothing but threats:  “If thou wilt go forth unto the King of Babylon’s princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and thou shalt live and thine house:  but if thou wilt not go forth to the King of Babylon’s princes, then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chal-dseans, and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand.”  Zedekiah would have asked no better than to follow his advice, but he had gone too far to draw back now.  To the miseries of war and sickness the horrors of famine were added, but the determination of the besieged was unshaken; bread was failing, and yet they would not hear of surrender.  At length, after a year and a half of sufferings heroically borne, in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the eleventh month, and the fourth day of the month, a portion of the city wall fell before the attacks of the battering-rams, and the Chaldaean army entered by the breach.  Zedekiah assembled his remaining soldiers, and took counsel as to the possibility of cutting his way through the enemy to beyond the Jordan; escaping by night through the gateway opposite the Pool of Siloam, he was taken prisoner near Jericho, and carried off to Eiblah, where Nebuchadrezzar was awaiting with impatience the result of the operations.