with him till morning, of which they accepted, though apparently in a reluctant manner.
Now as soon as it was dark, the men of that part of the city assailed the dwelling of Lot, demanding that the two strangers should be brought out into the street, that they might "know them," as they said. This peculiar term to "know them" was fraught with a meaning, of which hell and all its inhabitants would have been ashamed, had they heard it. To the demand however, Lot objected with great vehemence, saying, "I pray you, do not so wickedly."
On hearing this, they became enraged at Lot, when they said they would deal worse with him than with the strangers, because he had, as they pretended, set himself up as a judge among them. Here they made a rush, crying out, stand back, intending to seize Lot, and to drag him into the street where they meant to abuse him, in the same way they intended to abuse the two young men.
But on the instant when their rage had gone up in the scale of fury to its highest altitude, and when their fingers were nerved with the deep energies of Satanic violence, ready to grasp their victims, the two young men, the strangers who stood just within, put forth their hands, and pulled Lot into the house, when they shut the door. But as the Sodomites pressed on, to break down the door of Lot's house, behold they were shrouded in a deep, thick darkness, so that they groped about miserably, not knowing where they were, or what they should do, for they had been struck in the midst of their fury, by an invisible power, with blindness.
