'Stop, Stop!' roared the rabble. 'Where are you taking that pretty girl, you old Jew rascal?' Some of them then commenced pulling the old man by the beard, while others began to treat the pale and trembling Benjamina with rudeness and indignity. But at that moment Viet rushed to the rescue, and drawing a sword from his walking-stick, he laid about furiously among the offenders; some gentlemen, and other members of the more respectable classes of the Hamburg population, took his part; and while the police were endeavouring to disperse the mob, Veit succeeded in getting Philip Moses and his granddaughter away, and conveying them through a side gate into a small back street: after a rather long circuit through deserted by-lanes and narrow streets, he was so fortunate as to reach his father's house without further molestation, and the old doctor received his unexpected guests with kind cordiality, and did all he could, both as host and physician, to minister to their wants and comforts. Benjamina was half dead from terror, and the unfortunate old man had sunk in a state of insensibility on the floor the moment he was safely within the door of the house.
When Philip Moses returned to consciousness, he stared wildly about him, tore his hair, and then, like Job, he opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.
'Let the day perish whereon I was born--let darkness and the shadow of death stain it--let a cloud dwell upon it--wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul? For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me!'
He speedily, however, became exhausted; and a violent fever ensued. In his delirium he raved of the destruction of his people--of Sodom and Gomorrah; and wrung his withered hands as he denounced the sins of the chosen race, and deplored the vengeance of Jehovah. During his illness Benjamina attended him faithfully, and when his fits of excitement came on, she would pray by him, or read to him from a Bible lent to her by Dr. Veit, till he was soothed to peace, and passed into a tranquil and almost happy state.
The good physician had given an asylum in his house to those unfortunate individuals; and his son, the young artist, sat whole days with Benjamina, sharing in her watchful care of the aged invalid. Often, when Benjamina had read to the old man till he went to sleep, and when she then sat by his bedside, with the sacred volume in her hand, while he seemed to smile upon her in his dreams, Veit would take up his pencil, and sketch them together. A new light seemed to beam on Benjamina's soul, partly from what she read to her grandfather, and partly from her conversation with the amiable artist about the holy book which contained the foundation of her faith and of _his_.