"Fly! fly!" was echoed from mouth to mouth. The apartment in which the Hebrews were assembled had two doors--one communicating by a staircase with the courtyard below, the other, on the opposite side of the room, leading to the roof, which was near enough to other dwellings to afford a tolerable chance of escape to those who should make their way over them under cover of the dusk. It was partly on account of this advantage presented by Salathiel's house that it had been chosen as the scene of the Paschal Feast. The second door, through which escape might thus be effected, had been prudently left wide open, and at the first alarm there was a general rush made towards it. Terror so often has the effect of confusing the mind, that the impressions made by passing events, though painfully vivid in colouring, are not distinct in their outlines. Zarah could have given no clear account of the scene which followed, which was to her like a horrible dream. The instinct to make her escape was strong; but as she attempted to fly, the maiden's veil caught in something, she knew not what--it was three or four seconds--they seemed as many hours--before she could extricate it. Zarah heard thundering noises at the one door, rushing sounds of flight at the other; then there was a bursting open of the frail barrier which divided her from the enemy, and Zarah felt rather than saw that the place was filled with soldiers! One sight was indelibly stamped on her brain--it was that of Abishai all streaming with blood, his eyes glaring and glazed, his teeth clenched, as he hissed out the word "apostate!" in the last pangs of death. Zarah knew that it was death. Then rude hands were laid on herself; and the terrified girl felt as the gazelle feels under the claws of the tiger! She was too much alarmed to have breath even to utter a scream. "Hold! harm not the girl!" cried a voice which sounded to Zarah strangely familiar, though she knew not where she could possibly have heard it before; and she saw a tall officer in Syrian dress, the same who has been introduced to the reader more than once under the name of Pollux, who appeared to be in command of the assailing party. Zarah, in her agony of terror, stretched out her hands for protection to one in whose features, even at that moment, she recognized the Hebrew type. But Zarah could not appeal for mercy save by that supplicating gesture; horror so overpowered her senses that she swooned away; and had the steel then done its cruel work, she would have felt no pain. But the command of Antiochus had been rather to seize than to slay; and the soldiers, by the order of Pollux, carried off as their only prisoner a senseless maiden, leaving the dead body of Abishai on the floor dyed with his blood. CHAPTER XIX. A PRISON.