"They are attacking my house," shouted Apollodorus.

"This is the gratitude of those for whom you have broken faith with the
God of your fathers," said the old man gloomily. Then throwing up his
hands and eyes he cried aloud: "Hear me Adonai! My years are many and I
am ripe for the grave; but spare these, have mercy upon them."

Ben Jochai followed his uncle's example and raised his arms in
supplication, while his black eyes sparkled with a lowering glow in his
pale face.

But their prayers were brief, for the tumult came nearer and nearer;
Apollodorus wrung his hands, and struck his fist against his forehead;
his movements were violent--spasmodic. Terror had entirely robbed him of
the elegant, measured demeanor which be had acquired among his Greek
fellow-citizens, and mingling heathen oaths and adjurations with appeals
to the God of his fathers, he flew first one way and then another. He
searched for the key of the subterranean rooms of the house, but he could
not find it, for it was in the charge of his steward, who, with all the
other servants, was taking his pleasure in the streets, or over a
brimming cup in some tavern.

Now the newly-purchased kitchen-slave--the Jew to whom the keeping of the
Dionysian feast was an abomination--rushed into the room shrieking out,
as he plucked at his hair and beard:

"The Philistines are upon us! save us Rabbi, great Rabbi! Cry for us
to the Lord, oh! man of God! They are coming with staves and spears and
they will tread us down as grass and burn us in this house like the
locusts cast into the oven."