They smote him with their ivory rods, they rent and tore him with their hands and teeth, worrying him as dogs worry a fox of the hills, till at length the life was beaten and trampled out of him and he lay dead.
Thus terribly, but yet by such a death of martyrdom as he would have chosen, perished Issachar the Levite.
Unarmed though he was, Aziel had sprung to his aid, but Metem and Sakon, knowing that he would but bring about his own destruction, flung themselves upon him and held him back.

Whilst he was still struggling with them the end came, and Issachar grew still for ever.

Then, as the sun sank and the darkness fell, Aziel's strength left him, and presently he slipped to the ground senseless.
***** Thereafter it seemed to Aziel that he was plunged in an endless and dreadful dream, and that through its turmoil and shifting visions, he could see continually the dreadful death of Issachar, and hear his stern accents prophesying woe to him who renounces the God of his forefathers to bow the knee to Baal.
At length he awoke from that horror-haunted sleep to find himself lying in a strange chamber.

It was night, and lamps burned in the chamber, and by their light he saw a man whose face he knew mixing a draught in a glass phial.

So weak was he that at first he could not remember the man's name, then by slow degrees it came to him.
"Metem," he said, "where am I ?" The Phoenician looked up from his task, smiled, and answered:-- "Where you should be, Prince, in your own house, the palace of the Shadid.