door and called out:

"In the name of Caesar and the law I command you to leave this house
unharmed."

The Roman's warning was evidently quite in earnest, and the false Eros
looked as if at this moment it would be ill-advised to try jesting with
him. But in the universal uproar only a few had heard his words, and
the hot-blooded tailor was so rash as to lay his hand on the praetor's
girdle in order to drag him away from the door with the help of his
comrades. But he paid dearly for his temerity for the praetor's
fist fell so heavily on his forehead that he dropped as if struck by
lightning. One of the Britons knocked down the sausage-maker and a
hideous hand to hand fight would have been the upshot if help had not
come to the hardly-beset Romans from two quarters at once. The veterans
supported by a number of lictors were the first to appear, and soon
after them came Benjamin, the Jew's eldest son, who was passing down the
great thoroughfare with his boon-companions and saw the danger that was
threatening his father's house.

The soldiers parted the throng as the wind chases the clouds, and the
young Israelite pressed forward with his heavy thyrsus fought and pushed
his way so valiantly and resolutely through the panic-stricken mob, that
he reached the door of his father's house but a few moments later than
the soldiers. The lictors battered at the door and as no one opened it,
they forced it with the help of the soldiers in order to set a guard in
the beleaguered house, and protect it against the raging mob.

Verus and the officer entered the Jew's dwelling with the armed men, and
behind them came Benjamin and his friends--young Greeks with whom he
was in the habit of consorting daily, in the bath or the gymnasium.
Apollodorus and his guests expressed their gratitude to Verus, and when
the old Jewish house-keeper, who had seen and heard from a hiding-place
under the roof all that had taken place outside her master's house, came
into the men's hall and gave a full report of the uproar from beginning
to end, the praetor was overwhelmed with thanks; and the old woman
embroidered her narrative with the most glowing colors. While this
was going on Apollodorus' pretty daughter, Ismene, came in, and after
falling on her father's neck and weeping with agitation the house keeper
took her hand and led her to Verus, saying:

"This noble lord--may the blessing of the Most High be on him--staked
his life to save us. This beaut