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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, by Lew
+Wallace
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
+
+Author: Lew Wallace
+
+Release Date: April, 2000 [eBook #2145]
+[Most recently updated: August 29, 2023
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEN-HUR: A TALE OF THE
+CHRIST ***
+
+
+
+
+Ben-Hur
+
+A Tale of the Christ
+
+by Lew Wallace
+
+
+
+
+to
+THE WIFE OF MY YOUTH
+who
+still abides with me
+
+
+Contents
+
+ BOOK FIRST
+ I. Into the Desert
+ II. Meeting of the Wise Men
+ III. The Athenian Speaks—Faith
+ IV. Speech of the Hindoo—Love
+ V. The Egyptian’s Story—Good Works
+ VI. The Joppa Gate
+ VII. Typical Characters at the Joppa Gate
+ VIII. Joseph and Mary Going to Bethlehem
+ IX. The Cave at Bethlehem
+ X. The Light in the Sky
+ XI. Christ is Born
+ XII. The Wise Men Arrive at Jerusalem
+ XIII. The Witnesses before Herod
+ XIV. The Wise Men Find the Child
+
+ BOOK SECOND
+ I. Jerusalem under the Romans
+ II. Ben-Hur and Messala
+ III. A Judean Home
+ IV. The Strange Things Ben-Hur Wants to Know
+ V. Rome and Israel—A Comparison
+ VI. The Accident to Gratus
+ VII. A Galley Slave
+
+ BOOK THIRD
+ I. Quintus Arrius Goes to Sea
+ II. At the Oar
+ III. Arrius and Ben-Hur on Deck
+ IV. “No. 60”
+ V. The Sea Fight
+ VI. Arrius Adopts Ben-Hur
+
+ BOOK FOURTH
+ I. Ben-Hur Returns East
+ II. On the Orontes
+ III. The Demand on Simonides
+ IV. Simonides and Esther
+ V. The Grove of Daphne
+ VI. The Mulberries of Daphne
+ VII. The Stadium in the Grove
+ VIII. The Fountain of Castalia
+ IX. The Chariot Race Discussed
+ X. Ben-Hur Hears of Christ
+ XI. The Wise Servant and his Daughter
+ XII. A Roman Orgie
+ XIII. A Driver for Ilderim’s Arabs
+ XIV. The Dowar in the Orchard or Palms
+ XV. Balthasar Impresses Ben-Hur
+ XVI. Christ is Coming—Balthasar
+ XVII. The Kingdom—Spiritual or Political?
+
+ BOOK FIFTH
+ I. Messala Doffs his Chaplet
+ II. Ilderim’s Arabs under the Yoke
+ III. The Arts of Cleopatra
+ IV. Messala on Guard
+ V. Ilderim and Ben-Hur Deliberate
+ VI. Training the Four
+ VII. Simonides Renders Account
+ VIII. Spiritual or Political?—Simonides Argues
+ IX. Esther and Ben-Hur
+ X. Posted for the Race
+ XI. Making the Wagers
+ XII. The Circus
+ XIII. The Start
+ XIV. The Race
+ XV. The Invitation of Iras
+ XVI. In the Palace of Idernee
+
+ BOOK SIXTH
+ I. The Tower of Antonia—Cell No. VI.
+ II. The Lepers
+ III. Jerusalem Again
+ IV. Ben-Hur at his Father’s Gate
+ V. The Tomb Above the King’s Garden
+ VI. A Trick of Pilate’s—The Combat
+
+ BOOK SEVENTH
+ I. Jerusalem Goes out to a Prophet
+ II. Nooning by the Pool—Iras
+ III. The Life of a Soul
+ IV. Ben-Hur Keeps Watch with Iras
+ V. At Bethabara
+
+ BOOK EIGHTH
+ I. Guests in the House of Hur
+ II. Ben-Hur Tells of the Nazarene
+ III. The Lepers Leave their Tomb
+ IV. The Miracle
+ V. Pilgrims to the Passover
+ VI. A Serpent of the Nile
+ VII. Ben-Hur Returns to Esther
+ VIII. Gethsemane—“Whom Seek Ye?”
+ IX. The Going to Calvary
+ X. The Crucifixion
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIRST
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The Jebel es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length, and
+so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to a
+caterpillar crawling from the south to the north. Standing on its
+red-and-white cliffs, and looking off under the path of the rising sun,
+one sees only the Desert of Arabia, where the east winds, so hateful to
+vinegrowers of Jericho, have kept their playgrounds since the
+beginning. Its feet are well covered by sands tossed from the
+Euphrates, there to lie, for the mountain is a wall to the
+pasture-lands of Moab and Ammon on the west—lands which else had been
+of the desert a part.
+
+The Arab has impressed his language upon everything south and east of
+Judea, so, in his tongue, the old Jebel is the parent of numberless
+wadies which, intersecting the Roman road—now a dim suggestion of what
+once it was, a dusty path for Syrian pilgrims to and from Mecca—run
+their furrows, deepening as they go, to pass the torrents of the rainy
+season into the Jordan, or their last receptacle, the Dead Sea. Out of
+one of these wadies—or, more particularly, out of that one which rises
+at the extreme end of the Jebel, and, extending east of north, becomes
+at length the bed of the Jabbok River—a traveller passed, going to the
+table-lands of the desert. To this person the attention of the reader
+is first besought.
+
+Judged by his appearance, he was quite forty-five years old. His beard,
+once of the deepest black, flowing broadly over his breast, was
+streaked with white. His face was brown as a parched coffee-berry, and
+so hidden by a red _kufiyeh_ (as the kerchief of the head is at this
+day called by the children of the desert) as to be but in part visible.
+Now and then he raised his eyes, and they were large and dark. He was
+clad in the flowing garments so universal in the East; but their style
+may not be described more particularly, for he sat under a miniature
+tent, and rode a great white dromedary.
+
+It may be doubted if the people of the West ever overcome the
+impression made upon them by the first view of a camel equipped and
+loaded for the desert. Custom, so fatal to other novelties, affects
+this feeling but little. At the end of long journeys with caravans,
+after years of residence with the Bedawin, the Western-born, wherever
+they may be, will stop and wait the passing of the stately brute. The
+charm is not in the figure, which not even love can make beautiful; nor
+in the movement, the noiseless stepping, or the broad careen. As is the
+kindness of the sea to a ship, so that of the desert to its creature.
+It clothes him with all its mysteries; in such manner, too, that while
+we are looking at him we are thinking of them: therein is the wonder.
+The animal which now came out of the wady might well have claimed the
+customary homage. Its color and height; its breadth of foot; its bulk
+of body, not fat, but overlaid with muscle; its long, slender neck, of
+swanlike curvature; the head, wide between the eyes, and tapering to a
+muzzle which a lady’s bracelet might have almost clasped; its motion,
+step long and elastic, tread sure and soundless—all certified its
+Syrian blood, old as the days of Cyrus, and absolutely priceless. There
+was the usual bridle, covering the forehead with scarlet fringe, and
+garnishing the throat with pendent brazen chains, each ending with a
+tinkling silver bell; but to the bridle there was neither rein for the
+rider nor strap for a driver. The furniture perched on the back was an
+invention which with any other people than of the East would have made
+the inventor renowned. It consisted of two wooden boxes, scarce four
+feet in length, balanced so that one hung at each side; the inner
+space, softly lined and carpeted, was arranged to allow the master to
+sit or lie half reclined; over it all was stretched a green awning.
+Broad back and breast straps, and girths, secured with countless knots
+and ties, held the device in place. In such manner the ingenious sons
+of Cush had contrived to make comfortable the sunburnt ways of the
+wilderness, along which lay their duty as often as their pleasure.
+
+When the dromedary lifted itself out of the last break of the wady, the
+traveller had passed the boundary of El Belka, the ancient Ammon. It
+was morning-time. Before him was the sun, half curtained in fleecy
+mist; before him also spread the desert; not the realm of drifting
+sands, which was farther on, but the region where the herbage began to
+dwarf; where the surface is strewn with boulders of granite, and gray
+and brown stones, interspersed with languishing acacias and tufts of
+camel-grass. The oak, bramble, and arbutus lay behind, as if they had
+come to a line, looked over into the well-less waste and crouched with
+fear.
+
+And now there was an end of path or road. More than ever the camel
+seemed insensibly driven; it lengthened and quickened its pace, its
+head pointed straight towards the horizon; through the wide nostrils it
+drank the wind in great draughts. The litter swayed, and rose and fell
+like a boat in the waves. Dried leaves in occasional beds rustled
+underfoot. Sometimes a perfume like absinthe sweetened all the air.
+Lark and chat and rock-swallow leaped to wing, and white partridges ran
+whistling and clucking out of the way. More rarely a fox or a hyena
+quickened his gallop, to study the intruders at a safe distance. Off to
+the right rose the hills of the Jebel, the pearl-gray veil resting upon
+them changing momentarily into a purple which the sun would make
+matchless a little later. Over their highest peaks a vulture sailed on
+broad wings into widening circles. But of all these things the tenant
+under the green tent saw nothing, or, at least, made no sign of
+recognition. His eyes were fixed and dreamy. The going of the man, like
+that of the animal, was as one being led.
+
+For two hours the dromedary swung forward, keeping the trot steadily
+and the line due east. In that time the traveller never changed his
+position, nor looked to the right or left. On the desert, distance is
+not measured by miles or leagues, but by the _saat_, or hour, and the
+_manzil_, or halt: three and a half leagues fill the former, fifteen or
+twenty-five the latter; but they are the rates for the common camel. A
+carrier of the genuine Syrian stock can make three leagues easily. At
+full speed he overtakes the ordinary winds. As one of the results of
+the rapid advance, the face of the landscape underwent a change. The
+Jebel stretched along the western horizon, like a pale-blue ribbon. A
+_tell_, or hummock of clay and cemented sand, arose here and there. Now
+and then basaltic stones lifted their round crowns, outposts of the
+mountain against the forces of the plain; all else, however, was sand,
+sometimes smooth as the beaten beach, then heaped in rolling ridges;
+here chopped waves, there long swells. So, too, the condition of the
+atmosphere changed. The sun, high risen, had drunk his fill of dew and
+mist, and warmed the breeze that kissed the wanderer under the awning;
+far and near he was tinting the earth with faint milk-whiteness, and
+shimmering all the sky.
+
+Two hours more passed without rest or deviation from the course.
+Vegetation entirely ceased. The sand, so crusted on the surface that it
+broke into rattling flakes at every step, held undisputed sway. The
+Jebel was out of view, and there was no landmark visible. The shadow
+that before followed had now shifted to the north, and was keeping even
+race with the objects which cast it; and as there was no sign of
+halting, the conduct of the traveller became each moment more strange.
+
+No one, be it remembered, seeks the desert for a pleasure-ground. Life
+and business traverse it by paths along which the bones of things dead
+are strewn as so many blazons. Such are the roads from well to well,
+from pasture to pasture. The heart of the most veteran sheik beats
+quicker when he finds himself alone in the pathless tracts. So the man
+with whom we are dealing could not have been in search of pleasure;
+neither was his manner that of a fugitive; not once did he look behind
+him. In such situations fear and curiosity are the most common
+sensations; he was not moved by them. When men are lonely, they stoop
+to any companionship; the dog becomes a comrade, the horse a friend,
+and it is no shame to shower them with caresses and speeches of love.
+The camel received no such token, not a touch, not a word.
+
+Exactly at noon the dromedary, of its own will, stopped, and uttered
+the cry or moan, peculiarly piteous, by which its kind always protest
+against an overload, and sometimes crave attention and rest. The master
+thereupon bestirred himself, waking, as it were, from sleep. He threw
+the curtains of the _houdah_ up, looked at the sun, surveyed the
+country on every side long and carefully, as if to identify an
+appointed place. Satisfied with the inspection, he drew a deep breath
+and nodded, much as to say, “At last, at last!” A moment after, he
+crossed his hands upon his breast, bowed his head, and prayed silently.
+The pious duty done, he prepared to dismount. From his throat proceeded
+the sound heard doubtless by the favorite camels of Job—_Ikh! ikh!_—the
+signal to kneel. Slowly the animal obeyed, grunting the while. The
+rider then put his foot upon the slender neck, and stepped upon the
+sand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The man as now revealed was of admirable proportions, not so tall as
+powerful. Loosening the silken rope which held the kufiyeh on his head,
+he brushed the fringed folds back until his face was bare—a strong
+face, almost negro in color; yet the low, broad forehead, aquiline
+nose, the outer corners of the eyes turned slightly upward, the hair
+profuse, straight, harsh, of metallic lustre, and falling to the
+shoulder in many plaits, were signs of origin impossible to disguise.
+So looked the Pharaohs and the later Ptolemies; so looked Mizraim,
+father of the Egyptian race. He wore the kamis, a white cotton shirt
+tight-sleeved, open in front, extending to the ankles and embroidered
+down the collar and breast, over which was thrown a brown woollen
+cloak, now, as in all probability it was then, called the aba, an outer
+garment with long skirt and short sleeves, lined inside with stuff of
+mixed cotton and silk, edged all round with a margin of clouded yellow.
+His feet were protected by sandals, attached by thongs of soft leather.
+A sash held the kamis to his waist. What was very noticeable,
+considering he was alone, and that the desert was the haunt of leopards
+and lions, and men quite as wild, he carried no arms, not even the
+crooked stick used for guiding camels; wherefore we may at least infer
+his errand peaceful, and that he was either uncommonly bold or under
+extraordinary protection.
+
+The traveller’s limbs were numb, for the ride had been long and
+wearisome; so he rubbed his hands and stamped his feet, and walked
+round the faithful servant, whose lustrous eyes were closing in calm
+content with the cud he had already found. Often, while making the
+circuit, he paused, and, shading his eyes with his hands, examined the
+desert to the extremest verge of vision; and always, when the survey
+was ended, his face clouded with disappointment, slight, but enough to
+advise a shrewd spectator that he was there expecting company, if not
+by appointment; at the same time, the spectator would have been
+conscious of a sharpening of the curiosity to learn what the business
+could be that required transaction in a place so far from civilized
+abode.
+
+However disappointed, there could be little doubt of the stranger’s
+confidence in the coming of the expected company. In token thereof, he
+went first to the litter, and, from the cot or box opposite the one he
+had occupied in coming, produced a sponge and a small gurglet of water,
+with which he washed the eyes, face, and nostrils of the camel; that
+done, from the same depository he drew a circular cloth, red-and
+white-striped, a bundle of rods, and a stout cane. The latter, after
+some manipulation, proved to be a cunning device of lesser joints, one
+within another, which, when united together, formed a centre pole
+higher than his head. When the pole was planted, and the rods set
+around it, he spread the cloth over them, and was literally at home—a
+home much smaller than the habitations of emir and sheik, yet their
+counterpart in all other respects. From the litter again he brought a
+carpet or square rug, and covered the floor of the tent on the side
+from the sun. That done, he went out, and once more, and with greater
+care and more eager eyes, swept the encircling country. Except a
+distant jackal, galloping across the plain, and an eagle flying towards
+the Gulf of Akaba, the waste below, like the blue above it, was
+lifeless.
+
+He turned to the camel, saying low, and in a tongue strange to the
+desert, “We are far from home, O racer with the swiftest winds—we are
+far from home, but God is with us. Let us be patient.”
+
+Then he took some beans from a pocket in the saddle, and put them in a
+bag made to hang below the animal’s nose; and when he saw the relish
+with which the good servant took to the food, he turned and again
+scanned the world of sand, dim with the glow of the vertical sun.
+
+“They will come,” he said, calmly. “He that led me is leading them. I
+will make ready.”
+
+From the pouches which lined the interior of the cot, and from a willow
+basket which was part of its furniture, he brought forth materials for
+a meal: platters close-woven of the fibres of palms; wine in small
+gurglets of skin; mutton dried and smoked; stoneless shami, or Syrian
+pomegranates; dates of El Shelebi, wondrous rich and grown in the
+nakhil, or palm orchards, of Central Arabia; cheese, like David’s
+“slices of milk;” and leavened bread from the city bakery—all which he
+carried and set upon the carpet under the tent. As the final
+preparation, about the provisions he laid three pieces of silk cloth,
+used among refined people of the East to cover the knees of guests
+while at table—a circumstance significant of the number of persons who
+were to partake of his entertainment—the number he was awaiting.
+
+All was now ready. He stepped out: lo! in the east a dark speck on the
+face of the desert. He stood as if rooted to the ground; his eyes
+dilated; his flesh crept chilly, as if touched by something
+supernatural. The speck grew; became large as a hand; at length assumed
+defined proportions. A little later, full into view swung a duplication
+of his own dromedary, tall and white, and bearing a houdah, the
+travelling litter of Hindostan. Then the Egyptian crossed his hands
+upon his breast, and looked to heaven.
+
+“God only is great!” he exclaimed, his eyes full of tears, his soul in
+awe.
+
+The stranger drew nigh—at last stopped. Then he, too, seemed just
+waking. He beheld the kneeling camel, the tent, and the man standing
+prayerfully at the door. He crossed his hands, bent his head, and
+prayed silently; after which, in a little while, he stepped from his
+camel’s neck to the sand, and advanced towards the Egyptian, as did the
+Egyptian towards him. A moment they looked at each other; then they
+embraced—that is, each threw his right arm over the other’s shoulder,
+and the left round the side, placing his chin first upon the left, then
+upon the right breast.
+
+“Peace be with thee, O servant of the true God!” the stranger said.
+
+“And to thee, O brother of the true faith!—to thee peace and welcome,”
+the Egyptian replied, with fervor.
+
+The new-comer was tall and gaunt, with lean face, sunken eyes, white
+hair and beard, and a complexion between the hue of cinnamon and
+bronze. He, too, was unarmed. His costume was Hindostani; over the
+skull-cap a shawl was wound in great folds, forming a turban; his body
+garments were in the style of the Egyptian’s, except that the aba was
+shorter, exposing wide flowing breeches gathered at the ankles. In
+place of sandals, his feet were clad in half-slippers of red leather,
+pointed at the toes. Save the slippers, the costume from head to foot
+was of white linen. The air of the man was high, stately, severe.
+Visvamitra, the greatest of the ascetic heroes of the Iliad of the
+East, had in him a perfect representative. He might have been called a
+Life drenched with the wisdom of Brahma—Devotion Incarnate. Only in his
+eyes was there proof of humanity; when he lifted his face from the
+Egyptian’s breast, they were glistening with tears.
+
+“God only is great!” he exclaimed, when the embrace was finished.
+
+“And blessed are they that serve him!” the Egyptian answered, wondering
+at the paraphrase of his own exclamation. “But let us wait,” he added,
+“let us wait; for see, the other comes yonder!”
+
+They looked to the north, where, already plain to view, a third camel,
+of the whiteness of the others, came careening like a ship. They
+waited, standing together—waited until the new-comer arrived,
+dismounted, and advanced towards them.
+
+“Peace to you, O my brother!” he said, while embracing the Hindoo.
+
+And the Hindoo answered, “God’s will be done!”
+
+The last comer was all unlike his friends: his frame was slighter; his
+complexion white; a mass of waving light hair was a perfect crown for
+his small but beautiful head; the warmth of his dark-blue eyes
+certified a delicate mind, and a cordial, brave nature. He was
+bareheaded and unarmed. Under the folds of the Tyrian blanket which he
+wore with unconscious grace appeared a tunic, short-sleeved and
+low-necked, gathered to the waist by a band, and reaching nearly to the
+knee; leaving the neck, arms, and legs bare. Sandals guarded his feet.
+Fifty years, probably more, had spent themselves upon him, with no
+other effect, apparently, than to tinge his demeanor with gravity and
+temper his words with forethought. The physical organization and the
+brightness of soul were untouched. No need to tell the student from
+what kindred he was sprung; if he came not himself from the groves of
+Athene’, his ancestry did.
+
+When his arms fell from the Egyptian, the latter said, with a tremulous
+voice, “The Spirit brought me first; wherefore I know myself chosen to
+be the servant of my brethren. The tent is set, and the bread is ready
+for the breaking. Let me perform my office.”
+
+Taking each by the hand, he led them within, and removed their sandals
+and washed their feet, and he poured water upon their hands, and dried
+them with napkins.
+
+Then, when he had laved his own hands, he said, “Let us take care of
+ourselves, brethren, as our service requires, and eat, that we may be
+strong for what remains of the day’s duty. While we eat, we will each
+learn who the others are, and whence they come, and how they are
+called.”
+
+He took them to the repast, and seated them so that they faced each
+other. Simultaneously their heads bent forward, their hands crossed
+upon their breasts, and, speaking together, they said aloud this simple
+grace:
+
+“Father of all—God!—what we have here is of thee; take our thanks and
+bless us, that we may continue to do thy will.”
+
+With the last word they raised their eyes, and looked at each other in
+wonder. Each had spoken in a language never before heard by the others;
+yet each understood perfectly what was said. Their souls thrilled with
+divine emotion; for by the miracle they recognized the Divine Presence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+To speak in the style of the period, the meeting just described took
+place in the year of Rome 747. The month was December, and winter
+reigned over all the regions east of the Mediterranean. Such as ride
+upon the desert in this season go not far until smitten with a keen
+appetite. The company under the little tent were not exceptions to the
+rule. They were hungry, and ate heartily; and, after the wine, they
+talked.
+
+“To a wayfarer in a strange land nothing is so sweet as to hear his
+name on the tongue of a friend,” said the Egyptian, who assumed to be
+president of the repast. “Before us lie many days of companionship. It
+is time we knew each other. So, if it be agreeable, he who came last
+shall be first to speak.”
+
+Then, slowly at first, like one watchful of himself, the Greek began:
+
+“What I have to tell, my brethren, is so strange that I hardly know
+where to begin or what I may with propriety speak. I do not yet
+understand myself. The most I am sure of is that I am doing a Master’s
+will, and that the service is a constant ecstasy. When I think of the
+purpose I am sent to fulfil, there is in me a joy so inexpressible that
+I know the will is God’s.”
+
+The good man paused, unable to proceed, while the others, in sympathy
+with his feelings, dropped their gaze.
+
+“Far to the west of this,” he began again, “there is a land which may
+never be forgotten; if only because the world is too much its debtor,
+and because the indebtedness is for things that bring to men their
+purest pleasures. I will say nothing of the arts, nothing of
+philosophy, of eloquence, of poetry, of war: O my brethren, hers is the
+glory which must shine forever in perfected letters, by which He we go
+to find and proclaim will be made known to all the earth. The land I
+speak of is Greece. I am Gaspar, son of Cleanthes the Athenian.
+
+“My people,” he continued, “were given wholly to study, and from them I
+derived the same passion. It happens that two of our philosophers, the
+very greatest of the many, teach, one the doctrine of a Soul in every
+man, and its Immortality; the other the doctrine of One God, infinitely
+just. From the multitude of subjects about which the schools were
+disputing, I separated them, as alone worth the labor of solution; for
+I thought there was a relation between God and the soul as yet unknown.
+On this theme the mind can reason to a point, a dead, impassable wall;
+arrived there, all that remains is to stand and cry aloud for help. So
+I did; but no voice came to me over the wall. In despair, I tore myself
+from the cities and the schools.”
+
+At these words a grave smile of approval lighted the gaunt face of the
+Hindoo.
+
+“In the northern part of my country—in Thessaly,” the Greek proceeded
+to say, “there is a mountain famous as the home of the gods, where
+Theus, whom my countrymen believe supreme, has his abode; Olympus is
+its name. Thither I betook myself. I found a cave in a hill where the
+mountain, coming from the west, bends to the southeast; there I dwelt,
+giving myself up to meditation—no, I gave myself up to waiting for what
+every breath was a prayer—for revelation. Believing in God, invisible
+yet supreme, I also believed it possible so to yearn for him with all
+my soul that he would take compassion and give me answer.”
+
+“And he did—he did!” exclaimed the Hindoo, lifting his hands from the
+silken cloth upon his lap.
+
+“Hear me, brethren,” said the Greek, calming himself with an effort.
+“The door of my hermitage looks over an arm of the sea, over the
+Thermaic Gulf. One day I saw a man flung overboard from a ship sailing
+by. He swam ashore. I received and took care of him. He was a Jew,
+learned in the history and laws of his people; and from him I came to
+know that the God of my prayers did indeed exist; and had been for ages
+their lawmaker, ruler, and king. What was that but the Revelation I
+dreamed of? My faith had not been fruitless; God answered me!”
+
+“As he does all who cry to him with such faith,” said the Hindoo.
+
+“But, alas!” the Egyptian added, “how few are there wise enough to know
+when he answers them!”
+
+“That was not all,” the Greek continued. “The man so sent to me told me
+more. He said the prophets who, in the ages which followed the first
+revelation, walked and talked with God, declared he would come again.
+He gave me the names of the prophets, and from the sacred books quoted
+their very language. He told me, further, that the second coming was at
+hand—was looked for momentarily in Jerusalem.”
+
+The Greek paused, and the brightness of his countenance faded.
+
+“It is true,” he said, after a little—“it is true the man told me that
+as God and the revelation of which he spoke had been for the Jews
+alone, so it would be again. He that was to come should be King of the
+Jews. ‘Had he nothing for the rest of the world?’ I asked. ‘No,’ was
+the answer, given in a proud voice—‘No, we are his chosen people.’ The
+answer did not crush my hope. Why should such a God limit his love and
+benefaction to one land, and, as it were, to one family? I set my heart
+upon knowing. At last I broke through the man’s pride, and found that
+his fathers had been merely chosen servants to keep the Truth alive,
+that the world might at last know it and be saved. When the Jew was
+gone, and I was alone again, I chastened my soul with a new prayer—that
+I might be permitted to see the King when he was come, and worship him.
+One night I sat by the door of my cave trying to get nearer the
+mysteries of my existence, knowing which is to know God; suddenly, on
+the sea below me, or rather in the darkness that covered its face, I
+saw a star begin to burn; slowly it arose and drew nigh, and stood over
+the hill and above my door, so that its light shone full upon me. I
+fell down, and slept, and in my dream I heard a voice say:
+
+“‘O Gaspar! Thy faith hath conquered! Blessed art thou! With two
+others, come from the uttermost parts of the earth, thou shalt see Him
+that is promised, and be a witness for him, and the occasion of
+testimony in his behalf. In the morning arise, and go meet them, and
+keep trust in the Spirit that shall guide thee.’
+
+“And in the morning I awoke with the Spirit as a light within me
+surpassing that of the sun. I put off my hermit’s garb, and dressed
+myself as of old. From a hiding-place I took the treasure which I had
+brought from the city. A ship went sailing past. I hailed it, was taken
+aboard, and landed at Antioch. There I bought the camel and his
+furniture. Through the gardens and orchards that enamel the banks of
+the Orontes, I journeyed to Emesa, Damascus, Bostra, and Philadelphia;
+thence hither. And so, O brethren, you have my story. Let me now listen
+to you.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The Egyptian and the Hindoo looked at each other; the former waved his
+hand; the latter bowed, and began:
+
+“Our brother has spoken well. May my words be as wise.”
+
+He broke off, reflected a moment, then resumed:
+
+“You may know me, brethren, by the name of Melchior. I speak to you in
+a language which, if not the oldest in the world, was at least the
+soonest to be reduced to letters—I mean the Sanscrit of India. I am a
+Hindoo by birth. My people were the first to walk in the fields of
+knowledge, first to divide them, first to make them beautiful. Whatever
+may hereafter befall, the four Vedas must live, for they are the primal
+fountains of religion and useful intelligence. From them were derived
+the Upa-Vedas, which, delivered by Brahma, treat of medicine, archery,
+architecture, music, and the four-and-sixty mechanical arts; the
+Ved-Angas, revealed by inspired saints, and devoted to astronomy,
+grammar, prosody, pronunciation, charms and incantations, religious
+rites and ceremonies; the Up-Angas, written by the sage Vyasa, and
+given to cosmogony, chronology, and geography; therein also are the
+Ramayana and the Mahabharata, heroic poems, designed for the
+perpetuation of our gods and demi-gods. Such, O brethren, are the Great
+Shastras, or books of sacred ordinances. They are dead to me now; yet
+through all time they will serve to illustrate the budding genius of my
+race. They were promises of quick perfection. Ask you why the promises
+failed? Alas! the books themselves closed all the gates of progress.
+Under pretext of care for the creature, their authors imposed the fatal
+principle that a man must not address himself to discovery or
+invention, as Heaven had provided him all things needful. When that
+condition became a sacred law, the lamp of Hindoo genius was let down a
+well, where ever since it has lighted narrow walls and bitter waters.
+
+“These allusions, brethren, are not from pride, as you will understand
+when I tell you that the Shastras teach a Supreme God called Brahm;
+also, that the Puranas, or sacred poems of the Up-Angas, tell us of
+Virtue and Good Works, and of the Soul. So, if my brother will permit
+the saying”—the speaker bowed deferentially to the Greek—“ages before
+his people were known, the two great ideas, God and the Soul, had
+absorbed all the forces of the Hindoo mind. In further explanation let
+me say that Brahm is taught, by the same sacred books, as a
+Triad—Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Of these, Brahma is said to have been
+the author of our race; which, in course of creation, he divided into
+four castes. First, he peopled the worlds below and the heavens above;
+next, he made the earth ready for terrestrial spirits; then from his
+mouth proceeded the Brahman caste, nearest in likeness to himself,
+highest and noblest, sole teachers of the Vedas, which at the same time
+flowed from his lips in finished state, perfect in all useful
+knowledge. From his arms next issued the Kshatriya, or warriors; from
+his breast, the seat of life, came the Vaisya, or producers—shepherds,
+farmers, merchants; from his foot, in sign of degradation, sprang the
+Sudra, or serviles, doomed to menial duties for the other
+classes—serfs, domestics, laborers, artisans. Take notice, further,
+that the law, so born with them, forbade a man of one caste becoming a
+member of another; the Brahman could not enter a lower order; if he
+violated the laws of his own grade, he became an outcast, lost to all
+but outcasts like himself.”
+
+At this point, the imagination of the Greek, flashing forward upon all
+the consequences of such a degradation, overcame his eager attention,
+and he exclaimed, “In such a state, O brethren, what mighty need of a
+loving God!”
+
+“Yes,” added the Egyptian, “of a loving God like ours.”
+
+The brows of the Hindoo knit painfully; when the emotion was spent, he
+proceeded, in a softened voice.
+
+“I was born a Brahman. My life, consequently, was ordered down to its
+least act, its last hour. My first draught of nourishment; the giving
+me my compound name; taking me out the first time to see the sun;
+investing me with the triple thread by which I became one of the
+twice-born; my induction into the first order—were all celebrated with
+sacred texts and rigid ceremonies. I might not walk, eat, drink, or
+sleep without danger of violating a rule. And the penalty, O brethren,
+the penalty was to my soul! According to the degrees of omission, my
+soul went to one of the heavens—Indra’s the lowest, Brahma’s the
+highest; or it was driven back to become the life of a worm, a fly, a
+fish, or a brute. The reward for perfect observance was Beatitude, or
+absorption into the being of Brahm, which was not existence as much as
+absolute rest.”
+
+The Hindoo gave himself a moment’s thought; proceeding, he said: “The
+part of a Brahman’s life called the first order is his student life.
+When I was ready to enter the second order—that is to say, when I was
+ready to marry and become a householder—I questioned everything, even
+Brahm; I was a heretic. From the depths of the well I had discovered a
+light above, and yearned to go up and see what all it shone upon. At
+last—ah, with what years of toil!—I stood in the perfect day, and
+beheld the principle of life, the element of religion, the link between
+the soul and God—Love!”
+
+The shrunken face of the good man kindled visibly, and he clasped his
+hands with force. A silence ensued, during which the others looked at
+him, the Greek through tears. At length he resumed:
+
+“The happiness of love is in action; its test is what one is willing to
+do for others. I could not rest. Brahm had filled the world with so
+much wretchedness. The Sudra appealed to me, so did the countless
+devotees and victims. The island of Ganga Lagor lies where the sacred
+waters of the Ganges disappear in the Indian Ocean. Thither I betook
+myself. In the shade of the temple built there to the sage Kapila, in a
+union of prayers with the disciples whom the sanctified memory of the
+holy man keeps around his house, I thought to find rest. But twice
+every year came pilgrimages of Hindoos seeking the purification of the
+waters. Their misery strengthened my love. Against its impulse to speak
+I clenched my jaws; for one word against Brahm or the Triad or the
+Shastras would doom me; one act of kindness to the outcast Brahmans who
+now and then dragged themselves to die on the burning sands—a blessing
+said, a cup of water given—and I became one of them, lost to family,
+country, privileges, caste. The love conquered! I spoke to the
+disciples in the temple; they drove me out. I spoke to the pilgrims;
+they stoned me from the island. On the highways I attempted to preach;
+my hearers fled from me, or sought my life. In all India, finally,
+there was not a place in which I could find peace or safety—not even
+among the outcasts, for, though fallen, they were still believers in
+Brahm. In my extremity, I looked for a solitude in which to hide from
+all but God. I followed the Ganges to its source, far up in the
+Himalayas. When I entered the pass at Hurdwar, where the river, in
+unstained purity, leaps to its course through the muddy lowlands, I
+prayed for my race, and thought myself lost to them forever. Through
+gorges, over cliffs, across glaciers, by peaks that seemed star-high, I
+made my way to the Lang Tso, a lake of marvellous beauty, asleep at the
+feet of the Tise Gangri, the Gurla, and the Kailas Parbot, giants which
+flaunt their crowns of snow everlastingly in the face of the sun.
+There, in the centre of the earth, where the Indus, Ganges, and
+Brahmapootra rise to run their different courses; where mankind took up
+their first abode, and separated to replete the world, leaving Balk,
+the mother of cities, to attest the great fact; where Nature, gone back
+to its primeval condition, and secure in its immensities, invites the
+sage and the exile, with promise of safety to the one and solitude to
+the other—there I went to abide alone with God, praying, fasting,
+waiting for death.”
+
+Again the voice fell, and the bony hands met in a fervent clasp.
+
+“One night I walked by the shores of the lake, and spoke to the
+listening silence, ‘When will God come and claim his own? Is there to
+be no redemption?’ Suddenly a light began to glow tremulously out on
+the water; soon a star arose, and moved towards me, and stood overhead.
+The brightness stunned me. While I lay upon the ground, I heard a voice
+of infinite sweetness say, ‘Thy love hath conquered. Blessed art thou,
+O son of India! The redemption is at hand. With two others, from far
+quarters of the earth, thou shalt see the Redeemer, and be a witness
+that he hath come. In the morning arise, and go meet them; and put all
+thy trust in the Spirit which shall guide thee.’
+
+“And from that time the light has stayed with me; so I knew it was the
+visible presence of the Spirit. In the morning I started to the world
+by the way I had come. In a cleft of the mountain I found a stone of
+vast worth, which I sold in Hurdwar. By Lahore, and Cabool, and Yezd, I
+came to Ispahan. There I bought the camel, and thence was led to
+Bagdad, not waiting for caravans. Alone I traveled, fearless, for the
+Spirit was with me, and is with me yet. What glory is ours, O brethren!
+We are to see the Redeemer—to speak to him—to worship him! I am done.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The vivacious Greek broke forth in expressions of joy and
+congratulations; after which the Egyptian said, with characteristic
+gravity:
+
+“I salute you, my brother. You have suffered much, and I rejoice in
+your triumph. If you are both pleased to hear me, I will now tell you
+who I am, and how I came to be called. Wait for me a moment.”
+
+He went out and tended the camels; coming back, he resumed his seat.
+
+“Your words, brethren, were of the Spirit,” he said, in commencement;
+“and the Spirit gives me to understand them. You each spoke
+particularly of your countries; in that there was a great object, which
+I will explain; but to make the interpretation complete, let me first
+speak of myself and my people. I am Balthasar the Egyptian.”
+
+The last words were spoken quietly, but with so much dignity that both
+listeners bowed to the speaker.
+
+“There are many distinctions I might claim for my race,” he continued;
+“but I will content myself with one. History began with us. We were the
+first to perpetuate events by records kept. So we have no traditions;
+and instead of poetry, we offer you certainty. On the facades of
+palaces and temples, on obelisks, on the inner walls of tombs, we wrote
+the names of our kings, and what they did; and to the delicate papyri
+we intrusted the wisdom of our philosophers and the secrets of our
+religion—all the secrets but one, whereof I will presently speak. Older
+than the Vedas of Para-Brahm or the Up-Angas of Vyasa, O Melchior;
+older than the songs of Homer or the metaphysics of Plato, O my Gaspar;
+older than the sacred books or kings of the people of China, or those
+of Siddartha, son of the beautiful Maya; older than the Genesis of
+Mosche the Hebrew—oldest of human records are the writings of Menes,
+our first king.” Pausing an instant, he fixed his large eves kindly
+upon the Greek, saying, “In the youth of Hellas, who, O Gaspar, were
+the teachers of her teachers?”
+
+The Greek bowed, smiling.
+
+“By those records,” Balthasar continued, “we know that when the fathers
+came from the far East, from the region of the birth of the three
+sacred rivers, from the centre of the earth—the Old Iran of which you
+spoke, O Melchior—came bringing with them the history of the world
+before the Flood, and of the Flood itself, as given to the Aryans by
+the sons of Noah, they taught God, the Creator and the Beginning, and
+the Soul, deathless as God. When the duty which calls us now is happily
+done, if you choose to go with me, I will show you the sacred library
+of our priesthood; among others, the Book of the Dead, in which is the
+ritual to be observed by the soul after Death has despatched it on its
+journey to judgment. The ideas—God and the Immortal Soul—were borne to
+Mizraim over the desert, and by him to the banks of the Nile. They were
+then in their purity, easy of understanding, as what God intends for
+our happiness always is; so, also, was the first worship—a song and a
+prayer natural to a soul joyous, hopeful, and in love with its Maker.”
+
+Here the Greek threw up his hands, exclaiming, “Oh! the light deepens
+within me!”
+
+“And in me!” said the Hindoo, with equal fervor.
+
+The Egyptian regarded them benignantly, then went on, saying, “Religion
+is merely the law which binds man to his Creator: in purity it has but
+these elements—God, the Soul, and their Mutual Recognition; out of
+which, when put in practise, spring Worship, Love, and Reward. This
+law, like all others of divine origin—like that, for instance, which
+binds the earth to the sun—was perfected in the beginning by its
+Author. Such, my brothers, was the religion of the first family; such
+was the religion of our father Mizraim, who could not have been blind
+to the formula of creation, nowhere so discernible as in the first
+faith and the earliest worship. Perfection is God; simplicity is
+perfection. The curse of curses is that men will not let truths like
+these alone.”
+
+He stopped, as if considering in what manner to continue.
+
+“Many nations have loved the sweet waters of the Nile,” he said next;
+“the Ethiopian, the Pali-Putra, the Hebrew, the Assyrian, the Persian,
+the Macedonian, the Roman—of whom all, except the Hebrew, have at one
+time or another been its masters. So much coming and going of peoples
+corrupted the old Mizraimic faith. The Valley of Palms became a Valley
+of Gods. The Supreme One was divided into eight, each personating a
+creative principle in nature, with Ammon-Re at the head. Then Isis and
+Osiris, and their circle, representing water, fire, air, and other
+forces, were invented. Still the multiplication went on until we had
+another order, suggested by human qualities, such as strength,
+knowledge, love, and the like.”
+
+“In all which there was the old folly!” cried the Greek, impulsively.
+“Only the things out of reach remain as they came to us.”
+
+The Egyptian bowed, and proceeded:
+
+“Yet a little further, O my brethren, a little further, before I come
+to myself. What we go to will seem all the holier of comparison with
+what is and has been. The records show that Mizraim found the Nile in
+possession of the Ethiopians, who were spread thence through the
+African desert; a people of rich, fantastic genius, wholly given to the
+worship of nature. The Poetic Persian sacrificed to the sun, as the
+completest image of Ormuzd, his God; the devout children of the far
+East carved their deities out of wood and ivory; but the Ethiopian,
+without writing, without books, without mechanical faculty of any kind,
+quieted his soul by the worship of animals, birds, and insects, holding
+the cat sacred to Re, the bull to Isis, the beetle to Pthah. A long
+struggle against their rude faith ended in its adoption as the religion
+of the new empire. Then rose the mighty monuments that cumber the
+river-bank and the desert—obelisk, labyrinth, pyramid, and tomb of
+king, blent with tomb of crocodile. Into such deep debasement, O
+brethren, the sons of the Aryan fell!”
+
+Here, for the first time, the calmness of the Egyptian forsook him:
+though his countenance remained impassive, his voice gave way.
+
+“Do not too much despise my countrymen,” he began again. “They did not
+all forget God. I said awhile ago, you may remember, that to papyri we
+intrusted all the secrets of our religion except one; of that I will
+now tell you. We had as king once a certain Pharaoh, who lent himself
+to all manner of changes and additions. To establish the new system, he
+strove to drive the old entirely out of mind. The Hebrews then dwelt
+with us as slaves. They clung to their God; and when the persecution
+became intolerable, they were delivered in a manner never to be
+forgotten. I speak from the records now. Mosche, himself a Hebrew, came
+to the palace, and demanded permission for the slaves, then millions in
+number, to leave the country. The demand was in the name of the Lord
+God of Israel. Pharaoh refused. Hear what followed. First, all the
+water, that in the lakes and rivers, like that in the wells and
+vessels, turned to blood. Yet the monarch refused. Then frogs came up
+and covered all the land. Still he was firm. Then Mosche threw ashes in
+the air, and a plague attacked the Egyptians. Next, all the cattle,
+except of the Hebrews, were struck dead. Locusts devoured the green
+things of the valley. At noon the day was turned into a darkness so
+thick that lamps would not burn. Finally, in the night all the
+first-born of the Egyptians died; not even Pharaoh’s escaped. Then he
+yielded. But when the Hebrews were gone he followed them with his army.
+At the last moment the sea was divided, so that the fugitives passed it
+dry-shod. When the pursuers drove in after them, the waves rushed back
+and drowned horse, foot, charioteers, and king. You spoke of
+revelation, my Gaspar—”
+
+The blue eyes of the Greek sparkled.
+
+“I had the story from the Jew,” he cried. “You confirm it, O
+Balthasar!”
+
+“Yes, but through me Egypt speaks, not Mosche. I interpret the marbles.
+The priests of that time wrote in their way what they witnessed, and
+the revelation has lived. So I come to the one unrecorded secret. In my
+country, brethren, we have, from the day of the unfortunate Pharaoh,
+always had two religions—one private, the other public; one of many
+gods, practised by the people; the other of one God, cherished only by
+the priesthood. Rejoice with me, O brothers! All the trampling by the
+many nations, all the harrowing by kings, all the inventions of
+enemies, all the changes of time, have been in vain. Like a seed under
+the mountains waiting its hour, the glorious Truth has lived; and
+this—this is its day!”
+
+The wasted frame of the Hindoo trembled with delight, and the Greek
+cried aloud,
+
+“It seems to me the very desert is singing.”
+
+From a gurglet of water near-by the Egyptian took a draught, and
+proceeded:
+
+“I was born at Alexandria, a prince and a priest, and had the education
+usual to my class. But very early I became discontented. Part of the
+faith imposed was that after death upon the destruction of the body,
+the soul at once began its former progression from the lowest up to
+humanity, the highest and last existence; and that without reference to
+conduct in the mortal life. When I heard of the Persian’s Realm of
+Light, his Paradise across the bridge Chinevat, where only the good go,
+the thought haunted me; insomuch that in the day, as in the night, I
+brooded over the comparative ideas Eternal Transmigration and Eternal
+Life in Heaven. If, as my teacher taught, God was just, why was there
+no distinction between the good and the bad? At length it became clear
+to me, a certainty, a corollary of the law to which I reduced pure
+religion, that death was only the point of separation at which the
+wicked are left or lost, and the faithful rise to a higher life; not
+the nirvana of Buddha, or the negative rest of Brahma, O Melchior; nor
+the better condition in hell, which is all of Heaven allowed by the
+Olympic faith, O Gaspar; but life—life active, joyous, everlasting—LIFE
+WITH GOD! The discovery led to another inquiry. Why should the Truth be
+longer kept a secret for the selfish solace of the priesthood? The
+reason for the suppression was gone. Philosophy had at least brought us
+toleration. In Egypt we had Rome instead of Rameses. One day, in the
+Brucheium, the most splendid and crowded quarter of Alexandria, I arose
+and preached. The East and West contributed to my audience. Students
+going to the Library, priests from the Serapeion, idlers from the
+Museum, patrons of the race-course, countrymen from the Rhacotis—a
+multitude—stopped to hear me. I preached God, the Soul, Right and
+Wrong, and Heaven, the reward of a virtuous life. You, O Melchior, were
+stoned; my auditors first wondered, then laughed. I tried again; they
+pelted me with epigrams, covered my God with ridicule, and darkened my
+Heaven with mockery. Not to linger needlessly, I fell before them.”
+
+The Hindoo here drew a long sigh, as he said, “The enemy of man is man,
+my brother.”
+
+Balthasar lapsed into silence.
+
+“I gave much thought to finding the cause of my failure, and at last
+succeeded,” he said, upon beginning again. “Up the river, a day’s
+journey from the city, there is a village of herdsmen and gardeners. I
+took a boat and went there. In the evening I called the people
+together, men and women, the poorest of the poor. I preached to them
+exactly as I had preached in the Brucheium. They did not laugh. Next
+evening I spoke again, and they believed and rejoiced, and carried the
+news abroad. At the third meeting a society was formed for prayer. I
+returned to the city then. Drifting down the river, under the stars,
+which never seemed so bright and so near, I evolved this lesson: To
+begin a reform, go not into the places of the great and rich; go rather
+to those whose cups of happiness are empty—to the poor and humble. And
+then I laid a plan and devoted my life. As a first step, I secured my
+vast property, so that the income would be certain, and always at call
+for the relief of the suffering. From that day, O brethren, I travelled
+up and down the Nile, in the villages, and to all the tribes, preaching
+One God, a righteous life, and reward in Heaven. I have done good—it
+does not become me to say how much. I also know that part of the world
+to be ripe for the reception of Him we go to find.”
+
+A flush suffused the swarthy cheek of the speaker; but he overcame the
+feeling, and continued:
+
+“The years so given, O my brothers, were troubled by one thought—When I
+was gone, what would become of the cause I had started? Was it to end
+with me? I had dreamed many times of organization as a fitting crown
+for my work. To hide nothing from you, I had tried to effect it, and
+failed. Brethren, the world is now in the condition that, to restore
+the old Mizraimic faith, the reformer must have a more than human
+sanction; he must not merely come in God’s name, he must have the
+proofs subject to his word; he must demonstrate all he says, even God.
+So preoccupied is the mind with myths and systems; so much do false
+deities crowd every place—earth, air, sky; so have they become of
+everything a part, that return to the first religion can only be along
+bloody paths, through fields of persecution; that is to say, the
+converts must be willing to die rather than recant. And who in this age
+can carry the faith of men to such a point but God himself? To redeem
+the race—I do not mean to destroy it—to REDEEM the race, he must make
+himself once more manifest; HE MUST COME IN PERSON.”
+
+Intense emotion seized the three.
+
+“Are we not going to find him?” exclaimed the Greek.
+
+“You understand why I failed in the attempt to organize,” said the
+Egyptian, when the spell was past. “I had not the sanction. To know
+that my work must be lost made me intolerably wretched. I believed in
+prayer, and to make my appeals pure and strong, like you, my brethren,
+I went out of the beaten ways, I went where man had not been, where
+only God was. Above the fifth cataract, above the meeting of rivers in
+Sennar, up the Bahr el Abiad, into the far unknown of Africa, I went.
+There, in the morning, a mountain blue as the sky flings a cooling
+shadow wide over the western desert, and, with its cascades of melted
+snow, feeds a broad lake nestling at its base on the east. The lake is
+the mother of the great river. For a year and more the mountain gave me
+a home. The fruit of the palm fed my body, prayer my spirit. One night
+I walked in the orchard close by the little sea. ‘The world is dying.
+When wilt thou come? Why may I not see the redemption, O God?’ So I
+prayed. The glassy water was sparkling with stars. One of them seemed
+to leave its place, and rise to the surface, where it became a
+brilliancy burning to the eyes. Then it moved towards me, and stood
+over my head, apparently in hand’s reach. I fell down and hid my face.
+A voice, not of the earth, said, ‘Thy good works have conquered.
+Blessed art thou, O son of Mizraim! The redemption cometh. With two
+others, from the remotenesses of the world, thou shalt see the Saviour,
+and testify for him. In the morning arise, and go meet them. And when
+ye have all come to the holy city of Jerusalem, ask of the people,
+Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in
+the East and are sent to worship him. Put all thy trust in the Spirit
+which will guide thee.’
+
+“And the light became an inward illumination not to be doubted, and has
+stayed with me, a governor and a guide. It led me down the river to
+Memphis, where I made ready for the desert. I bought my camel, and came
+hither without rest, by way of Suez and Kufileh, and up through the
+lands of Moab and Ammon. God is with us, O my brethren!”
+
+He paused, and thereupon, with a prompting not their own, they all
+arose, and looked at each other.
+
+“I said there was a purpose in the particularity with which we
+described our people and their histories,” so the Egyptian proceeded.
+“He we go to find was called ‘King of the Jews;’ by that name we are
+bidden to ask for him. But, now that we have met, and heard from each
+other, we may know him to be the Redeemer, not of the Jews alone, but
+of all the nations of the earth. The patriarch who survived the Flood
+had with him three sons, and their families, by whom the world was
+repeopled. From the old Aryana-Vaejo, the well-remembered Region of
+Delight in the heart of Asia, they parted. India and the far East
+received the children of the first; the descendant of the youngest,
+through the North, streamed into Europe; those of the second overflowed
+the deserts about the Red Sea, passing into Africa; and though most of
+the latter are yet dwellers in shifting tents, some of them became
+builders along the Nile.”
+
+By a simultaneous impulse the three joined hands.
+
+“Could anything be more divinely ordered?” Balthasar continued. “When
+we have found the Lord, the brothers, and all the generations that have
+succeeded them, will kneel to him in homage with us. And when we part
+to go our separate ways, the world will have learned a new lesson—that
+Heaven may be won, not by the sword, not by human wisdom, but by Faith,
+Love, and Good Works.”
+
+There was silence, broken by sighs and sanctified with tears; for the
+joy that filled them might not be stayed. It was the unspeakable joy of
+souls on the shores of the River of Life, resting with the Redeemed in
+God’s presence.
+
+Presently their hands fell apart, and together they went out of the
+tent. The desert was still as the sky. The sun was sinking fast. The
+camels slept.
+
+A little while after, the tent was struck, and, with the remains of the
+repast, restored to the cot; then the friends mounted, and set out
+single file, led by the Egyptian. Their course was due west, into the
+chilly night. The camels swung forward in steady trot, keeping the line
+and the intervals so exactly that those following seemed to tread in
+the tracks of the leader. The riders spoke not once.
+
+By-and-by the moon came up. And as the three tall white figures sped,
+with soundless tread, through the opalescent light, they appeared like
+specters flying from hateful shadows. Suddenly, in the air before them,
+not farther up than a low hill-top flared a lambent flame; as they
+looked at it, the apparition contracted into a focus of dazzling
+lustre. Their hearts beat fast; their souls thrilled; and they shouted
+as with one voice, “The Star! the Star! God is with us!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+In an aperture of the western wall of Jerusalem hang the “oaken valves”
+called the Bethlehem or Joppa Gate. The area outside of them is one of
+the notable places of the city. Long before David coveted Zion there
+was a citadel there. When at last the son of Jesse ousted the Jebusite,
+and began to build, the site of the citadel became the northwest corner
+of the new wall, defended by a tower much more imposing than the old
+one. The location of the gate, however, was not disturbed, for the
+reasons, most likely, that the roads which met and merged in front of
+it could not well be transferred to any other point, while the area
+outside had become a recognized market-place. In Solomon’s day there
+was great traffic at the locality, shared in by traders from Egypt and
+the rich dealers from Tyre and Sidon. Nearly three thousand years have
+passed, and yet a kind of commerce clings to the spot. A pilgrim
+wanting a pin or a pistol, a cucumber or a camel, a house or a horse, a
+loan or a lentil, a date or a dragoman, a melon or a man, a dove or a
+donkey, has only to inquire for the article at the Joppa Gate.
+Sometimes the scene is quite animated, and then it suggests, What a
+place the old market must have been in the days of Herod the Builder!
+And to that period and that market the reader is now to be transferred.
+
+Following the Hebrew system, the meeting of the wise men described in
+the preceding chapters took place in the afternoon of the twenty-fifth
+day of the third month of the year; that is to say, on the twenty-fifth
+day of December. The year was the second of the 193d Olympiad, or the
+747th of Rome; the sixty-seventh of Herod the Great, and the
+thirty-fifth of his reign; the fourth before the beginning of the
+Christian era. The hours of the day, by Judean custom, begin with the
+sun, the first hour being the first after sunrise; so, to be precise;
+the market at the Joppa Gate during the first hour of the day stated
+was in full session, and very lively. The massive valves had been wide
+open since dawn. Business, always aggressive, had pushed through the
+arched entrance into a narrow lane and court, which, passing by the
+walls of the great tower, conducted on into the city. As Jerusalem is
+in the hill country, the morning air on this occasion was not a little
+crisp. The rays of the sun, with their promise of warmth, lingered
+provokingly far up on the battlements and turrets of the great piles
+about, down from which fell the crooning of pigeons and the whir of the
+flocks coming and going.
+
+As a passing acquaintance with the people of the Holy City, strangers
+as well as residents, will be necessary to an understanding of some of
+the pages which follow, it will be well to stop at the gate and pass
+the scene in review. Better opportunity will not offer to get sight of
+the populace who will afterwhile go forward in a mood very different
+from that which now possesses them.
+
+The scene is at first one of utter confusion—confusion of action,
+sounds, colors, and things. It is especially so in the lane and court.
+The ground there is paved with broad unshaped flags, from which each
+cry and jar and hoof-stamp arises to swell the medley that rings and
+roars up between the solid impending walls. A little mixing with the
+throng, however, a little familiarity with the business going on, will
+make analysis possible.
+
+Here stands a donkey, dozing under panniers full of lentils, beans,
+onions, and cucumbers, brought fresh from the gardens and terraces of
+Galilee. When not engaged in serving customers, the master, in a voice
+which only the initiated can understand, cries his stock. Nothing can
+be simpler than his costume—sandals, and an unbleached, undyed blanket,
+crossed over one shoulder and girt round the waist. Near-by, and far
+more imposing and grotesque, though scarcely as patient as the donkey,
+kneels a camel, raw-boned, rough, and gray, with long shaggy tufts of
+fox-colored hair under its throat, neck, and body, and a load of boxes
+and baskets curiously arranged upon an enormous saddle. The owner is an
+Egyptian, small, lithe, and of a complexion which has borrowed a good
+deal from the dust of the roads and the sands of the desert. He wears a
+faded tarbooshe, a loose gown, sleeveless, unbelted, and dropping from
+the neck to the knee. His feet are bare. The camel, restless under the
+load, groans and occasionally shows his teeth; but the man paces
+indifferently to and fro, holding the driving-strap, and all the time
+advertising his fruits fresh from the orchards of the Kedron—grapes,
+dates, figs, apples, and pomegranates.
+
+At the corner where the lane opens out into the court, some women sit
+with their backs against the gray stones of the wall. Their dress is
+that common to the humbler classes of the country—a linen frock
+extending the full length of the person, loosely gathered at the waist,
+and a veil or wimple broad enough, after covering the head, to wrap the
+shoulders. Their merchandise is contained in a number of earthen jars,
+such as are still used in the East for bringing water from the wells,
+and some leathern bottles. Among the jars and bottles, rolling upon the
+stony floor, regardless of the crowd and cold, often in danger but
+never hurt, play half a dozen half-naked children, their brown bodies,
+jetty eyes, and thick black hair attesting the blood of Israel.
+Sometimes, from under the wimples, the mothers look up, and in the
+vernacular modestly bespeak their trade: in the bottles “honey of
+grapes,” in the jars “strong drink.” Their entreaties are usually lost
+in the general uproar, and they fare illy against the many competitors:
+brawny fellows with bare legs, dirty tunics, and long beards, going
+about with bottles lashed to their backs, and shouting “Honey of wine!
+Grapes of En-Gedi!” When a customer halts one of them, round comes the
+bottle, and, upon lifting the thumb from the nozzle, out into the ready
+cup gushes the deep-red blood of the luscious berry.
+
+Scarcely less blatant are the dealers in birds—doves, ducks, and
+frequently the singing bulbul, or nightingale, most frequently pigeons;
+and buyers, receiving them from the nets, seldom fail to think of the
+perilous life of the catchers, bold climbers of the cliffs; now hanging
+with hand and foot to the face of the crag, now swinging in a basket
+far down the mountain fissure.
+
+Blent with peddlers of jewelry—sharp men cloaked in scarlet and blue,
+top-heavy under prodigious white turbans, and fully conscious of the
+power there is in the lustre of a ribbon and the incisive gleam of
+gold, whether in bracelet or necklace, or in rings for the finger or
+the nose—and with peddlers of household utensils, and with dealers in
+wearing-apparel, and with retailers of unguents for anointing the
+person, and with hucksters of all articles, fanciful as well as of
+need, hither and thither, tugging at halters and ropes, now screaming,
+now coaxing, toil the venders of animals—donkeys, horses, calves,
+sheep, bleating kids, and awkward camels; animals of every kind except
+the outlawed swine. All these are there; not singly, as described, but
+many times repeated; not in one place, but everywhere in the market.
+
+Turning from this scene in the lane and court, this glance at the
+sellers and their commodities, the reader has need to give attention,
+in the next place, to visitors and buyers, for which the best studies
+will be found outside the gates, where the spectacle is quite as varied
+and animated; indeed, it may be more so, for there are superadded the
+effects of tent, booth, and sook, greater space, larger crowd, more
+unqualified freedom, and the glory of the Eastern sunshine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Let us take our stand by the gate, just out of the edge of the
+currents—one flowing in, the other out—and use our eyes and ears
+awhile.
+
+In good time! Here come two men of a most noteworthy class.
+
+“Gods! How cold it is!” says one of them, a powerful figure in armor;
+on his head a brazen helmet, on his body a shining breastplate and
+skirts of mail. “How cold it is! Dost thou remember, my Caius, that
+vault in the Comitium at home which the flamens say is the entrance to
+the lower world? By Pluto! I could stand there this morning, long
+enough at least to get warm again!”
+
+The party addressed drops the hood of his military cloak, leaving bare
+his head and face, and replies, with an ironic smile, “The helmets of
+the legions which conquered Mark Antony were full of Gallic snow; but
+thou—ah, my poor friend!—thou hast just come from Egypt, bringing its
+summer in thy blood.”
+
+And with the last word they disappear through the entrance. Though they
+had been silent, the armor and the sturdy step would have published
+them Roman soldiers.
+
+From the throng a Jew comes next, meager of frame, round-shouldered,
+and wearing a coarse brown robe; over his eyes and face, and down his
+back, hangs a mat of long, uncombed hair. He is alone. Those who meet
+him laugh, if they do not worse; for he is a Nazarite, one of a
+despised sect which rejects the books of Moses, devotes itself to
+abhorred vows, and goes unshorn while the vows endure.
+
+As we watch his retiring figure, suddenly there is a commotion in the
+crowd, a parting quickly to the right and left, with exclamations sharp
+and decisive. Then the cause comes—a man, Hebrew in feature and dress.
+The mantle of snow-white linen, held to his head by cords of yellow
+silk, flows free over his shoulders; his robe is richly embroidered, a
+red sash with fringes of gold wraps his waist several times. His
+demeanor is calm; he even smiles upon those who, with such rude haste,
+make room for him. A leper? No, he is only a Samaritan. The shrinking
+crowd, if asked, would say he is a mongrel—an Assyrian—whose touch of
+the robe is pollution; from whom, consequently, an Israelite, though
+dying, might not accept life. In fact, the feud is not of blood. When
+David set his throne here on Mount Zion, with only Judah to support
+him, the ten tribes betook themselves to Shechem, a city much older,
+and, at that date, infinitely richer in holy memories. The final union
+of the tribes did not settle the dispute thus begun. The Samaritans
+clung to their tabernacle on Gerizim, and, while maintaining its
+superior sanctity, laughed at the irate doctors in Jerusalem. Time
+brought no assuagement of the hate. Under Herod, conversion to the
+faith was open to all the world except the Samaritans; they alone were
+absolutely and forever shut out from communion with Jews.
+
+As the Samaritan goes in under the arch of the gate, out come three men
+so unlike all whom we have yet seen that they fix our gaze, whether we
+will or not. They are of unusual stature and immense brawn; their eyes
+are blue, and so fair is their complexion that the blood shines through
+the skin like blue pencilling; their hair is light and short; their
+heads, small and round, rest squarely upon necks columnar as the trunks
+of trees. Woollen tunics, open at the breast, sleeveless and loosely
+girt, drape their bodies, leaving bare arms and legs of such
+development that they at once suggest the arena; and when thereto we
+add their careless, confident, insolent manner, we cease to wonder that
+the people give them way, and stop after they have passed to look at
+them again. They are gladiators—wrestlers, runners, boxers, swordsmen;
+professionals unknown in Judea before the coming of the Roman; fellows
+who, what time they are not in training, may be seen strolling through
+the king’s gardens or sitting with the guards at the palace gates; or
+possibly they are visitors from Cæsarea, Sebaste, or Jericho; in which
+Herod, more Greek than Jew, and with all a Roman’s love of games and
+bloody spectacles, has built vast theaters, and now keeps schools of
+fighting-men, drawn, as is the custom, from the Gallic provinces or the
+Slavic tribes on the Danube.
+
+“By Bacchus!” says one of them, drawing his clenched hand to his
+shoulder, “their skulls are not thicker than eggshells.”
+
+The brutal look which goes with the gesture disgusts us, and we turn
+happily to something more pleasant.
+
+Opposite us is a fruit-stand. The proprietor has a bald head, a long
+face, and a nose like the beak of a hawk. He sits upon a carpet spread
+upon the dust; the wall is at his back; overhead hangs a scant curtain,
+around him, within hand’s reach and arranged upon little stools, lie
+osier boxes full of almonds, grapes, figs, and pomegranates. To him now
+comes one at whom we cannot help looking, though for another reason
+than that which fixed our eyes upon the gladiators; he is really
+beautiful—a beautiful Greek. Around his temples, holding the waving
+hair, is a crown of myrtle, to which still cling the pale flowers and
+half ripe berries. His tunic, scarlet in color, is of the softest
+woollen fabric; below the girdle of buff leather, which is clasped in
+front by a fantastic device of shining gold, the skirt drops to the
+knee in folds heavy with embroidery of the same royal metal; a scarf,
+also woollen, and of mixed white and yellow, crosses his throat and
+falls trailing at his back; his arms and legs, where exposed, are white
+as ivory, and of the polish impossible except by perfect treatment with
+bath, oil, brushes, and pincers.
+
+The dealer, keeping his seat, bends forward, and throws his hands up
+until they meet in front of him, palm downwards and fingers extended.
+
+“What hast thou, this morning, O son of Paphos?” says the young Greek,
+looking at the boxes rather than at the Cypriote. “I am hungry. What
+hast thou for breakfast?”
+
+“Fruits from the Pedius—genuine—such as the singers of Antioch take of
+mornings to restore the waste of their voices,” the dealer answers, in
+a querulous nasal tone.
+
+“A fig, but not one of thy best, for the singers of Antioch!” says the
+Greek. “Thou art a worshiper of Aphrodite, and so am I, as the myrtle I
+wear proves; therefore I tell thee their voices have the chill of a
+Caspian wind. Seest thou this girdle?—a gift of the mighty Salome—”
+
+“The king’s sister!” exclaims the Cypriote, with another salaam.
+
+“And of royal taste and divine judgment. And why not? She is more Greek
+than the king. But—my breakfast! Here is thy money—red coppers of
+Cyprus. Give me grapes, and—”
+
+“Wilt thou not take the dates also?”
+
+“No, I am not an Arab.”
+
+“Nor figs?”
+
+“That would be to make me a Jew. No, nothing but the grapes. Never
+waters mixed so sweetly as the blood of the Greek and the blood of the
+grape.”
+
+The singer in the grimed and seething market, with all his airs of the
+court, is a vision not easily shut out of mind by such as see him; as
+if for the purpose, however, a person follows him challenging all our
+wonder. He comes up the road slowly, his face towards the ground; at
+intervals he stops, crosses his hands upon his breast, lengthens his
+countenance, and turns his eyes towards heaven, as if about to break
+into prayer. Nowhere, except in Jerusalem, can such a character be
+found. On his forehead, attached to the band which keeps the mantle in
+place, projects a leathern case, square in form; another similar case
+is tied by a thong to the left arm; the borders of his robe are
+decorated with deep fringe; and by such signs—the phylacteries, the
+enlarged borders of the garment, and the savor of intense holiness
+pervading the whole man—we know him to be a Pharisee, one of an
+organization (in religion a sect, in politics a party) whose bigotry
+and power will shortly bring the world to grief.
+
+The densest of the throng outside the gate covers the road leading off
+to Joppa. Turning from the Pharisee, we are attracted by some parties
+who, as subjects of study, opportunely separate themselves from the
+motley crowd. First among them a man of very noble appearance—clear,
+healthful complexion; bright black eyes; beard long and flowing, and
+rich with unguents; apparel well-fitting, costly, and suitable for the
+season. He carries a staff, and wears, suspended by a cord from his
+neck, a large golden seal. Several servants attend him, some of them
+with short swords stuck through their sashes; when they address him, it
+is with the utmost deference. The rest of the party consists of two
+Arabs of the pure desert stock; thin, wiry men, deeply bronzed, and
+with hollow cheeks, and eyes of almost evil brightness; on their heads
+red tarbooshes; over their abas, and wrapping the left shoulder and the
+body so as to leave the right arm free, brown woollen haicks, or
+blankets. There is loud chaffering, for the Arabs are leading horses
+and trying to sell them; and, in their eagerness, they speak in high,
+shrill voices. The courtly person leaves the talking mostly to his
+servants; occasionally he answers with much dignity; directly, seeing
+the Cypriote, he stops and buys some figs. And when the whole party has
+passed the portal, close after the Pharisee, if we betake ourselves to
+the dealer in fruits, he will tell, with a wonderful salaam, that the
+stranger is a Jew, one of the princes of the city, who has travelled,
+and learned the difference between the common grapes of Syria and those
+of Cyprus, so surpassingly rich with the dews of the sea.
+
+And so, till towards noon, sometimes later, the steady currents of
+business habitually flow in and out of the Joppa Gate, carrying with
+them every variety of character; including representatives of all the
+tribes of Israel, all the sects among whom the ancient faith has been
+parcelled and refined away, all the religious and social divisions, all
+the adventurous rabble who, as children of art and ministers of
+pleasure, riot in the prodigalities of Herod, and all the peoples of
+note at any time compassed by the Cæsars and their predecessors,
+especially those dwelling within the circuit of the Mediterranean.
+
+In other words, Jerusalem, rich in sacred history, richer in connection
+with sacred prophecies—the Jerusalem of Solomon, in which silver was as
+stones, and cedars as the sycamores of the vale—had come to be but a
+copy of Rome, a center of unholy practises, a seat of pagan power. A
+Jewish king one day put on priestly garments, and went into the Holy of
+Holies of the first temple to offer incense, and he came out a leper;
+but in the time of which we are reading, Pompey entered Herod’s temple
+and the same Holy of Holies, and came out without harm, finding but an
+empty chamber, and of God not a sign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The reader is now besought to return to the court described as part of
+the market at the Joppa Gate. It was the third hour of the day, and
+many of the people had gone away; yet the press continued without
+apparent abatement. Of the new-comers, there was a group over by the
+south wall, consisting of a man, a woman, and a donkey, which requires
+extended notice.
+
+The man stood by the animal’s head, holding a leading-strap, and
+leaning upon a stick which seemed to have been chosen for the double
+purpose of goad and staff. His dress was like that of the ordinary Jews
+around him, except that it had an appearance of newness. The mantle
+dropping from his head, and the robe or frock which clothed his person
+from neck to heel, were probably the garments he was accustomed to wear
+to the synagogue on Sabbath days. His features were exposed, and they
+told of fifty years of life, a surmise confirmed by the gray that
+streaked his otherwise black beard. He looked around him with the
+half-curious, half-vacant stare of a stranger and provincial.
+
+The donkey ate leisurely from an armful of green grass, of which there
+was an abundance in the market. In its sleepy content, the brute did
+not admit of disturbance from the bustle and clamor about; no more was
+it mindful of the woman sitting upon its back in a cushioned pillion.
+An outer robe of dull woollen stuff completely covered her person,
+while a white wimple veiled her head and neck. Once in a while,
+impelled by curiosity to see or hear something passing, she drew the
+wimple aside, but so slightly that the face remained invisible.
+
+At length the man was accosted.
+
+“Are you not Joseph of Nazareth?”
+
+The speaker was standing close by.
+
+“I am so called,” answered Joseph, turning gravely around; “And you—ah,
+peace be unto you! my friend, Rabbi Samuel!”
+
+“The same give I back to you.” The Rabbi paused, looking at the woman,
+then added, “To you, and unto your house and all your helpers, be
+peace.”
+
+With the last word, he placed one hand upon his breast, and inclined
+his head to the woman, who, to see him, had by this time withdrawn the
+wimple enough to show the face of one but a short time out of girlhood.
+Thereupon the acquaintances grasped right hands, as if to carry them to
+their lips; at the last moment, however, the clasp was let go, and each
+kissed his own hand, then put its palm upon his forehead.
+
+“There is so little dust upon your garments,” the Rabbi said,
+familiarly, “that I infer you passed the night in this city of our
+fathers.”
+
+“No,” Joseph replied, “as we could only make Bethany before the night
+came, we stayed in the khan there, and took the road again at
+daybreak.”
+
+“The journey before you is long, then—not to Joppa, I hope.”
+
+“Only to Bethlehem.”
+
+The countenance of the Rabbi, theretofore open and friendly, became
+lowering and sinister, and he cleared his throat with a growl instead
+of a cough.
+
+“Yes, yes—I see,” he said. “You were born in Bethlehem, and wend
+thither now, with your daughter, to be counted for taxation, as ordered
+by Cæsar. The children of Jacob are as the tribes in Egypt were—only
+they have neither a Moses nor a Joshua. How are the mighty fallen!”
+
+Joseph answered, without change of posture or countenance,
+
+“The woman is not my daughter.”
+
+But the Rabbi clung to the political idea; and he went on, without
+noticing the explanation, “What are the Zealots doing down in Galilee?”
+
+“I am a carpenter, and Nazareth is a village,” said Joseph, cautiously.
+“The street on which my bench stands is not a road leading to any city.
+Hewing wood and sawing plank leave me no time to take part in the
+disputes of parties.”
+
+“But you are a Jew,” said the Rabbi, earnestly. “You are a Jew, and of
+the line of David. It is not possible you can find pleasure in the
+payment of any tax except the shekel given by ancient custom to
+Jehovah.”
+
+Joseph held his peace.
+
+“I do not complain,” his friend continued, “of the amount of the tax—a
+denarius is a trifle. Oh no! The imposition of the tax is the offense.
+And, besides, what is paying it but submission to tyranny? Tell me, is
+it true that Judas claims to be the Messiah? You live in the midst of
+his followers.”
+
+“I have heard his followers say he was the Messiah,” Joseph replied.
+
+At this point the wimple was drawn aside, and for an instant the whole
+face of the woman was exposed. The eyes of the Rabbi wandered that way,
+and he had time to see a countenance of rare beauty, kindled by a look
+of intense interest; then a blush overspread her cheeks and brow, and
+the veil was returned to its place.
+
+The politician forgot his subject.
+
+“Your daughter is comely,” he said, speaking lower.
+
+“She is not my daughter,” Joseph repeated.
+
+The curiosity of the Rabbi was aroused; seeing which, the Nazarene
+hastened to say further, “She is the child of Joachim and Anna of
+Bethlehem, of whom you have at least heard, for they were of great
+repute—”
+
+“Yes,” remarked the Rabbi, deferentially, “I know them. They were
+lineally descended from David. I knew them well.”
+
+“Well, they are dead now,” the Nazarene proceeded. “They died in
+Nazareth. Joachim was not rich, yet he left a house and garden to be
+divided between his daughters Marian and Mary. This is one of them; and
+to save her portion of the property, the law required her to marry her
+next of kin. She is now my wife.”
+
+“And you were—”
+
+“Her uncle.”
+
+“Yes, yes! And as you were both born in Bethlehem, the Roman compels
+you to take her there with you to be also counted.”
+
+The Rabbi clasped his hands, and looked indignantly to heaven,
+exclaiming, “The God of Israel still lives! The vengeance is his!”
+
+With that he turned and abruptly departed. A stranger near by,
+observing Joseph’s amazement, said, quietly, “Rabbi Samuel is a zealot.
+Judas himself is not more fierce.”
+
+Joseph, not wishing to talk with the man, appeared not to hear, and
+busied himself gathering in a little heap the grass which the donkey
+had tossed abroad; after which he leaned upon his staff again, and
+waited.
+
+In another hour the party passed out the gate, and, turning to the
+left, took the road into Bethlehem. The descent into the valley of
+Hinnom was quite broken, garnished here and there with straggling wild
+olive-trees. Carefully, tenderly, the Nazarene walked by the woman’s
+side, leading-strap in hand. On their left, reaching to the south and
+east round Mount Zion, rose the city wall, and on their right the steep
+prominences which form the western boundary of the valley.
+
+Slowly they passed the Lower Pool of Gihon, out of which the sun was
+fast driving the lessening shadow of the royal hill; slowly they
+proceeded, keeping parallel with the aqueduct from the Pools of
+Solomon, until near the site of the country-house on what is now called
+the Hill of Evil Counsel; there they began to ascend to the plain of
+Rephaim. The sun streamed garishly over the stony face of the famous
+locality, and under its influence Mary, the daughter of Joachim,
+dropped the wimple entirely, and bared her head. Joseph told the story
+of the Philistines surprised in their camp there by David. He was
+tedious in the narrative, speaking with the solemn countenance and
+lifeless manner of a dull man. She did not always hear him.
+
+Wherever on the land men go, and on the sea ships, the face and figure
+of the Jew are familiar. The physical type of the race has always been
+the same; yet there have been some individual variations. “Now he was
+ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to.”
+Such was the son of Jesse when brought before Samuel. The fancies of
+men have been ever since ruled by the description. Poetic license has
+extended the peculiarities of the ancestor to his notable descendants.
+So all our ideal Solomons have fair faces, and hair and beard chestnut
+in the shade, and of the tint of gold in the sun. Such, we are also
+made believe, were the locks of Absalom the beloved. And, in the
+absence of authentic history, tradition has dealt no less lovingly by
+her whom we are now following down to the native city of the ruddy
+king.
+
+She was not more than fifteen. Her form, voice, and manner belonged to
+the period of transition from girlhood. Her face was perfectly oval,
+her complexion more pale than fair. The nose was faultless; the lips,
+slightly parted, were full and ripe, giving to the lines of the mouth
+warmth, tenderness, and trust; the eyes were blue and large, and shaded
+by drooping lids and long lashes; and, in harmony with all, a flood of
+golden hair, in the style permitted to Jewish brides, fell unconfined
+down her back to the pillion on which she sat. The throat and neck had
+the downy softness sometimes seen which leaves the artist in doubt
+whether it is an effect of contour or color. To these charms of feature
+and person were added others more indefinable—an air of purity which
+only the soul can impart, and of abstraction natural to such as think
+much of things impalpable. Often, with trembling lips, she raised her
+eyes to heaven, itself not more deeply blue; often she crossed her
+hands upon her breast, as in adoration and prayer; often she raised her
+head like one listening eagerly for a calling voice. Now and then,
+midst his slow utterances, Joseph turned to look at her, and, catching
+the expression kindling her face as with light, forgot his theme, and
+with bowed head, wondering, plodded on.
+
+So they skirted the great plain, and at length reached the elevation
+Mar Elias; from which, across a valley, they beheld Bethlehem, the old,
+old House of Bread, its white walls crowning a ridge, and shining above
+the brown scumbling of leafless orchards. They paused there, and
+rested, while Joseph pointed out the places of sacred renown; then they
+went down into the valley to the well which was the scene of one of the
+marvellous exploits of David’s strong men. The narrow space was crowded
+with people and animals. A fear came upon Joseph—a fear lest, if the
+town were so thronged, there might not be house-room for the gentle
+Mary. Without delay, he hurried on, past the pillar of stone marking
+the tomb of Rachel, up the gardened slope, saluting none of the many
+persons he met on the way, until he stopped before the portal of the
+khan that then stood outside the village gates, near a junction of
+roads.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+To understand thoroughly what happened to the Nazarene at the khan, the
+reader must be reminded that Eastern inns were different from the inns
+of the Western world. They were called khans, from the Persian, and, in
+simplest form, were fenced enclosures, without house or shed, often
+without a gate or entrance. Their sites were chosen with reference to
+shade, defence, or water. Such were the inns that sheltered Jacob when
+he went to seek a wife in Padan-Aram. Their like may been seen at this
+day in the stopping-places of the desert. On the other hand, some of
+them, especially those on the roads between great cities, like
+Jerusalem and Alexandria, were princely establishments, monuments to
+the piety of the kings who built them. In ordinary, however, they were
+no more than the house or possession of a sheik, in which, as in
+headquarters, he swayed his tribe. Lodging the traveller was the least
+of their uses; they were markets, factories, forts; places of
+assemblage and residence for merchants and artisans quite as much as
+places of shelter for belated and wandering wayfarers. Within their
+walls, all the year round, occurred the multiplied daily transactions
+of a town.
+
+The singular management of these hostelries was the feature likely to
+strike a Western mind with most force. There was no host or hostess; no
+clerk, cook, or kitchen; a steward at the gate was all the assertion of
+government or proprietorship anywhere visible. Strangers arriving
+stayed at will without rendering account. A consequence of the system
+was that whoever came had to bring his food and culinary outfit with
+him, or buy them of dealers in the khan. The same rule held good as to
+his bed and bedding, and forage for his beasts. Water, rest, shelter,
+and protection were all he looked for from the proprietor, and they
+were gratuities. The peace of synagogues was sometimes broken by
+brawling disputants, but that of the khans never. The houses and all
+their appurtenances were sacred: a well was not more so.
+
+The khan at Bethlehem, before which Joseph and his wife stopped, was a
+good specimen of its class, being neither very primitive nor very
+princely. The building was purely Oriental; that is to say, a
+quadrangular block of rough stones, one story high, flat-roofed,
+externally unbroken by a window, and with but one principal entrance—a
+doorway, which was also a gateway, on the eastern side, or front. The
+road ran by the door so near that the chalk dust half covered the
+lintel. A fence of flat rocks, beginning at the northeastern corner of
+the pile, extended many yards down the slope to a point from whence it
+swept westwardly to a limestone bluff; making what was in the highest
+degree essential to a respectable khan—a safe enclosure for animals.
+
+In a village like Bethlehem, as there was but one sheik, there could
+not well be more than one khan; and, though born in the place, the
+Nazarene, from long residence elsewhere, had no claim to hospitality in
+the town. Moreover, the enumeration for which he was coming might be
+the work of weeks or months; Roman deputies in the provinces were
+proverbially slow; and to impose himself and wife for a period so
+uncertain upon acquaintances or relations was out of the question. So,
+before he drew nigh the great house, while he was yet climbing the
+slope, in the steep places toiling to hasten the donkey, the fear that
+he might not find accommodations in the khan became a painful anxiety;
+for he found the road thronged with men and boys who, with great ado,
+were taking their cattle, horses, and camels to and from the valley,
+some to water, some to the neighboring caves. And when he was come
+close by, his alarm was not allayed by the discovery of a crowd
+investing the door of the establishment, while the enclosure adjoining,
+broad as it was, seemed already full.
+
+“We cannot reach the door,” Joseph said, in his slow way. “Let us stop
+here, and learn, if we can, what has happened.”
+
+The wife, without answering, quietly drew the wimple aside. The look of
+fatigue at first upon her face changed to one of interest. She found
+herself at the edge of an assemblage that could not be other than a
+matter of curiosity to her, although it was common enough at the khans
+on any of the highways which the great caravans were accustomed to
+traverse. There were men on foot, running hither and thither, talking
+shrilly and in all the tongues of Syria; men on horseback screaming to
+men on camels; men struggling doubtfully with fractious cows and
+frightened sheep; men peddling bread and wine; and among the mass a
+herd of boys apparently in chase of a herd of dogs. Everybody and
+everything seemed to be in motion at the same time. Possibly the fair
+spectator was too weary to be long attracted by the scene; in a little
+while she sighed, and settled down on the pillion, and, as if in search
+of peace and rest, or in expectation of some one, looked off to the
+south, and up to the tall cliffs of the Mount of Paradise, then faintly
+reddening under the setting sun.
+
+While she was thus looking, a man pushed his way out of the press, and,
+stopping close by the donkey, faced about with an angry brow. The
+Nazarene spoke to him.
+
+“As I am what I take you to be, good friend—a son of Judah—may I ask
+the cause of this multitude?”
+
+The stranger turned fiercely; but, seeing the solemn countenance of
+Joseph, so in keeping with his deep, slow voice and speech, he raised
+his hand in half-salutation, and replied,
+
+“Peace be to you, Rabbi! I am a son of Judah, and will answer you. I
+dwell in Beth-Dagon, which, you know, is in what used to be the land of
+the tribe of Dan.”
+
+“On the road to Joppa from Modin,” said Joseph.
+
+“Ah, you have been in Beth-Dagon,” the man said, his face softening yet
+more. “What wanderers we of Judah are! I have been away from the
+ridge—old Ephrath, as our father Jacob called it—for many years. When
+the proclamation went abroad requiring all Hebrews to be numbered at
+the cities of their birth— That is my business here, Rabbi.”
+
+Joseph’s face remained stolid as a mask, while he remarked, “I have
+come for that also—I and my wife.”
+
+The stranger glanced at Mary and kept silence. She was looking up at
+the bald top of Gedor. The sun touched her upturned face, and filled
+the violet depths of her eyes, and upon her parted lips trembled an
+aspiration which could not have been to a mortal. For the moment, all
+the humanity of her beauty seemed refined away: she was as we fancy
+they are who sit close by the gate in the transfiguring light of
+Heaven. The Beth-Dagonite saw the original of what, centuries after,
+came as a vision of genius to Sanzio the divine, and left him immortal.
+
+“Of what was I speaking? Ah! I remember. I was about to say that when I
+heard of the order to come here, I was angry. Then I thought of the old
+hill, and the town, and the valley falling away into the depths of
+Cedron; of the vines and orchards, and fields of grain, unfailing since
+the days of Boaz and Ruth, of the familiar mountains—Gedor here, Gibeah
+yonder, Mar Elias there—which, when I was a boy, were the walls of the
+world to me; and I forgave the tyrants and came—I, and Rachel, my wife,
+and Deborah and Michal, our roses of Sharon.”
+
+The man paused again, looking abruptly at Mary, who was now looking at
+him and listening. Then he said, “Rabbi, will not your wife go to mine?
+You may see her yonder with the children, under the leaning olive-tree
+at the bend of the road. I tell you”—he turned to Joseph and spoke
+positively—“I tell you the khan is full. It is useless to ask at the
+gate.”
+
+Joseph’s will was slow, like his mind; he hesitated, but at length
+replied, “The offer is kind. Whether there be room for us or not in the
+house, we will go see your people. Let me speak to the gate-keeper
+myself. I will return quickly.”
+
+And, putting the leading-strap in the stranger’s hand, he pushed into
+the stirring crowd.
+
+The keeper sat on a great cedar block outside the gate. Against the
+wall behind him leaned a javelin. A dog squatted on the block by his
+side.
+
+“The peace of Jehovah be with you,” said Joseph, at last confronting
+the keeper.
+
+“What you give, may you find again; and, when found, be it many times
+multiplied to you and yours,” returned the watchman, gravely, though
+without moving.
+
+“I am a Bethlehemite,” said Joseph, in his most deliberate way. “Is
+there not room for—”
+
+“There is not.”
+
+“You may have heard of me—Joseph of Nazareth. This is the house of my
+fathers. I am of the line of David.”
+
+These words held the Nazarene’s hope. If they failed him, further
+appeal was idle, even that of the offer of many shekels. To be a son of
+Judah was one thing—in the tribal opinion a great thing; to be of the
+house of David was yet another; on the tongue of a Hebrew there could
+be no higher boast. A thousand years and more had passed since the
+boyish shepherd became the successor of Saul and founded a royal
+family. Wars, calamities, other kings, and the countless obscuring
+processes of time had, as respects fortune, lowered his descendants to
+the common Jewish level; the bread they ate came to them of toil never
+more humble; yet they had the benefit of history sacredly kept, of
+which genealogy was the first chapter and the last; they could not
+become unknown, while, wherever they went In Israel, acquaintance drew
+after it a respect amounting to reverence.
+
+If this were so in Jerusalem and elsewhere, certainly one of the sacred
+line might reasonably rely upon it at the door of the khan of
+Bethlehem. To say, as Joseph said, “This is the house of my fathers,”
+was to say the truth most simply and literally; for it was the very
+house Ruth ruled as the wife of Boaz, the very house in which Jesse and
+his ten sons, David the youngest, were born, the very house in which
+Samuel came seeking a king, and found him; the very house which David
+gave to the son of Barzillai, the friendly Gileadite; the very house in
+which Jeremiah, by prayer, rescued the remnant of his race flying
+before the Babylonians.
+
+The appeal was not without effect. The keeper of the gate slid down
+from the cedar block, and, laying his hand upon his beard, said,
+respectfully, “Rabbi, I cannot tell you when this door first opened in
+welcome to the traveller, but it was more than a thousand years ago;
+and in all that time there is no known instance of a good man turned
+away, save when there was no room to rest him in. If it has been so
+with the stranger, just cause must the steward have who says no to one
+of the line of David. Wherefore, I salute you again; and, if you care
+to go with me, I will show you that there is not a lodging-place left
+in the house; neither in the chambers, nor in the lewens, nor in the
+court—not even on the roof. May I ask when you came?”
+
+“But now.”
+
+The keeper smiled.
+
+“‘The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be as one born among you,
+and thou shalt love him as thyself.’ Is not that the law, Rabbi?”
+
+Joseph was silent.
+
+“If it be the law, can I say to one a long time come, ‘Go thy way;
+another is here to take thy place?’”
+
+Yet Joseph held his peace.
+
+“And, if I said so, to whom would the place belong? See the many that
+have been waiting, some of them since noon.”
+
+“Who are all these people?” asked Joseph, turning to the crowd. “And
+why are they here at this time?”
+
+“That which doubtless brought you, Rabbi—the decree of the Cæsar”—the
+keeper threw an interrogative glance at the Nazarene, then
+continued—“brought most of those who have lodging in the house. And
+yesterday the caravan passing from Damascus to Arabia and Lower Egypt
+arrived. These you see here belong to it—men and camels.”
+
+Still Joseph persisted.
+
+“The court is large,” he said.
+
+“Yes, but it is heaped with cargoes—with bales of silk, and pockets of
+spices, and goods of every kind.”
+
+Then for a moment the face of the applicant lost its stolidity; the
+lustreless, staring eyes dropped. With some warmth he next said, “I do
+not care for myself, but I have with me my wife, and the night is
+cold—colder on these heights than in Nazareth. She cannot live in the
+open air. Is there not room in the town?”
+
+“These people”—the keeper waved his hand to the throng before the
+door—“have all besought the town, and they report its accommodations
+all engaged.”
+
+Again Joseph studied the ground, saying, half to himself, “She is so
+young! if I make her bed on the hill, the frosts will kill her.”
+
+Then he spoke to the keeper again.
+
+“It may be you knew her parents, Joachim and Anna, once of Bethlehem,
+and, like myself, of the line of David.”
+
+“Yes, I knew them. They were good people. That was in my youth.”
+
+This time the keeper’s eyes sought the ground in thought. Suddenly he
+raised his head.
+
+“If I cannot make room for you,” he said, “I cannot turn you away.
+Rabbi, I will do the best I can for you. How many are of your party?”
+
+Joseph reflected, then replied, “My wife and a friend with his family,
+from Beth-Dagon, a little town over by Joppa; in all, six of us.”
+
+“Very well. You shall not lie out on the ridge. Bring your people, and
+hasten; for, when the sun goes down behind the mountain, you know the
+night comes quickly, and it is nearly there now.”
+
+“I give you the blessing of the houseless traveller; that of the
+sojourner will follow.”
+
+So saying, the Nazarene went back joyfully to Mary and the
+Beth-Dagonite. In a little while the latter brought up his family, the
+women mounted on donkeys. The wife was matronly, the daughters were
+images of what she must have been in youth; and as they drew nigh the
+door, the keeper knew them to be of the humble class.
+
+“This is she of whom I spoke,” said the Nazarene; “and these are our
+friends.”
+
+Mary’s veil was raised.
+
+“Blue eyes and hair of gold,” muttered the steward to himself, seeing
+but her. “So looked the young king when he went to sing before Saul.”
+
+Then he took the leading-strap from Joseph, and said to Mary, “Peace to
+you, O daughter of David!” Then to the others, “Peace to you all!” Then
+to Joseph, “Rabbi, follow me.”
+
+The party were conducted into a wide passage paved with stone, from
+which they entered the court of the khan. To a stranger the scene would
+have been curious; but they noticed the lewens that yawned darkly upon
+them from all sides, and the court itself, only to remark how crowded
+they were. By a lane reserved in the stowage of the cargoes, and thence
+by a passage similar to the one at the entrance, they emerged into the
+enclosure adjoining the house, and came upon camels, horses, and
+donkeys, tethered and dozing in close groups; among them were the
+keepers, men of many lands; and they, too, slept or kept silent watch.
+They went down the slope of the crowded yard slowly, for the dull
+carriers of the women had wills of their own. At length they turned
+into a path running towards the gray limestone bluff overlooking the
+khan on the west.
+
+“We are going to the cave,” said Joseph, laconically.
+
+The guide lingered till Mary came to his side.
+
+“The cave to which we are going,” he said to her, “must have been a
+resort of your ancestor David. From the field below us, and from the
+well down in the valley, he used to drive his flocks to it for safety;
+and afterwards, when he was king, he came back to the old house here
+for rest and health, bringing great trains of animals. The mangers yet
+remain as they were in his day. Better a bed on the floor where he has
+slept than one in the court-yard or out by the roadside. Ah, here is
+the house before the cave!”
+
+This speech must not be taken as an apology for the lodging offered.
+There was no need of apology. The place was the best then at disposal.
+The guests were simple folks, by habits of life easily satisfied. To
+the Jew of that period, moreover, abode in caverns was a familiar idea,
+made so by every-day occurrences, and by what he heard of Sabbaths in
+the synagogues. How much of Jewish history, how many of the many
+exciting incidents in that history, had transpired in caves! Yet
+further, these people were Jews of Bethlehem, with whom the idea was
+especially commonplace; for their locality abounded with caves great
+and small, some of which had been dwelling-places from the time of the
+Emim and Horites. No more was there offence to them in the fact that
+the cavern to which they were being taken had been, or was, a stable.
+They were the descendants of a race of herdsmen, whose flocks
+habitually shared both their habitations and wanderings. In keeping
+with a custom derived from Abraham, the tent of the Bedawin yet
+shelters his horses and children alike. So they obeyed the keeper
+cheerfully, and gazed at the house, feeling only a natural curiosity.
+Everything associated with the history of David was interesting to
+them.
+
+The building was low and narrow, projecting but a little from the rock
+to which it was joined at the rear, and wholly without a window. In its
+blank front there was a door, swung on enormous hinges, and thickly
+daubed with ochreous clay. While the wooden bolt of the lock was being
+pushed back, the women were assisted from their pillions. Upon the
+opening of the door, the keeper called out,
+
+“Come in!”
+
+The guests entered, and stared about them. It became apparent
+immediately that the house was but a mask or covering for the mouth of
+a natural cave or grotto, probably forty feet long, nine or ten high,
+and twelve or fifteen in width. The light streamed through the doorway,
+over an uneven floor, falling upon piles of grain and fodder, and
+earthenware and household property, occupying the centre of the
+chamber. Along the sides were mangers, low enough for sheep, and built
+of stones laid in cement. There were no stalls or partitions of any
+kind. Dust and chaff yellowed the floor, filled all the crevices and
+hollows, and thickened the spider-webs, which dropped from the ceiling
+like bits of dirty linen; otherwise the place was cleanly, and, to
+appearance, as comfortable as any of the arched lewens of the khan
+proper. In fact, a cave was the model and first suggestion of the
+lewen.
+
+“Come in!” said the guide. “These piles upon the floor are for
+travellers like yourselves. Take what of them you need.”
+
+Then he spoke to Mary.
+
+“Can you rest here?”
+
+“The place is sanctified,” she answered.
+
+“I leave you then. Peace be with you all!”
+
+When he was gone, they busied themselves making the cave habitable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+At a certain hour in the evening the shouting and stir of the people in
+and about the khan ceased; at the same time, every Israelite, if not
+already upon his feet, arose, solemnized his face, looked towards
+Jerusalem, crossed his hands upon his breast, and prayed; for it was
+the sacred ninth hour, when sacrifices were offered in the temple on
+Moriah, and God was supposed to be there. When the hands of the
+worshippers fell down, the commotion broke forth again; everybody
+hastened to bread, or to make his pallet. A little later, the lights
+were put out, and there was silence, and then sleep.
+
+
+About midnight some one on the roof cried out, “What light is that in
+the sky? Awake, brethren, awake and see!”
+
+The people, half asleep, sat up and looked; then they became
+wide-awake, though wonder-struck. And the stir spread to the court
+below, and into the lewens; soon the entire tenantry of the house and
+court and enclosure were out gazing at the sky.
+
+And this was what they saw. A ray of light, beginning at a height
+immeasurably beyond the nearest stars, and dropping obliquely to the
+earth; at its top, a diminishing point; at its base, many furlongs in
+width; its sides blending softly with the darkness of the night, its
+core a roseate electrical splendor. The apparition seemed to rest on
+the nearest mountain southeast of the town, making a pale corona along
+the line of the summit. The khan was touched luminously, so that those
+upon the roof saw each other’s faces, all filled with wonder.
+
+Steadily, through minutes, the ray lingered, and then the wonder
+changed to awe and fear; the timid trembled; the boldest spoke in
+whispers.
+
+“Saw you ever the like?” asked one.
+
+“It seems just over the mountain there. I cannot tell what it is, nor
+did I ever see anything like it,” was the answer.
+
+“Can it be that a star has burst and fallen?” asked another, his tongue
+faltering.
+
+“When a star falls, its light goes out.”
+
+“I have it!” cried one, confidently. “The shepherds have seen a lion,
+and made fires to keep him from the flocks.”
+
+The men next the speaker drew a breath of relief, and said, “Yes, that
+is it! The flocks were grazing in the valley over there to-day.”
+
+A bystander dispelled the comfort.
+
+“No, no! Though all the wood in all the valleys of Judah was brought
+together in one pile and fired, the blaze would not throw a light so
+strong and high.”
+
+After that there was silence on the house-top, broken but once again
+while the mystery continued.
+
+“Brethren!” exclaimed a Jew of venerable mien, “what we see is the
+ladder our father Jacob saw in his dream. Blessed be the Lord God of
+our fathers!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+A mile and a half, it may be two miles, southeast of Bethlehem, there
+is a plain separated from the town by an intervening swell of the
+mountain. Besides being well sheltered from the north winds, the vale
+was covered with a growth of sycamore, dwarf-oak, and pine trees, while
+in the glens and ravines adjoining there were thickets of olive and
+mulberry; all at this season of the year invaluable for the support of
+sheep, goats, and cattle, of which the wandering flocks consisted.
+
+At the side farthest from the town, close under a bluff, there was an
+extensive marah, or sheepcot, ages old. In some long-forgotten foray,
+the building had been unroofed and almost demolished. The enclosure
+attached to it remained intact, however, and that was of more
+importance to the shepherds who drove their charges thither than the
+house itself. The stone wall around the lot was high as a man’s head,
+yet not so high but that sometimes a panther or a lion, hungering from
+the wilderness, leaped boldly in. On the inner side of the wall, and as
+an additional security against the constant danger, a hedge of the
+rhamnus had been planted, an invention so successful that now a sparrow
+could hardly penetrate the overtopping branches, armed as they were
+with great clusters of thorns hard as spikes.
+
+The day of the occurrences which occupy the preceding chapters, a
+number of shepherds, seeking fresh walks for their flocks, led them up
+to this plain; and from early morning the groves had been made ring
+with calls, and the blows of axes, the bleating of sheep and goats, the
+tinkling of bells, the lowing of cattle, and the barking of dogs. When
+the sun went down, they led the way to the marah, and by nightfall had
+everything safe in the field; then they kindled a fire down by the
+gate, partook of their humble supper, and sat down to rest and talk,
+leaving one on watch.
+
+There were six of these men, omitting the watchman; and afterwhile they
+assembled in a group near the fire, some sitting, some lying prone. As
+they went bareheaded habitually, their hair stood out in thick, coarse,
+sunburnt shocks; their beard covered their throats, and fell in mats
+down the breast; mantles of the skin of kids and lambs, with the fleece
+on, wrapped them from neck to knee, leaving the arms exposed; broad
+belts girthed the rude garments to their waists; their sandals were of
+the coarsest quality; from their right shoulders hung scrips containing
+food and selected stones for slings, with which they were armed; on the
+ground near each one lay his crook, a symbol of his calling and a
+weapon of offence.
+
+Such were the shepherds of Judea! In appearance, rough and savage as
+the gaunt dogs sitting with them around the blaze; in fact,
+simple-minded, tender-hearted; effects due, in part, to the primitive
+life they led, but chiefly to their constant care of things lovable and
+helpless.
+
+They rested and talked, and their talk was all about their flocks, a
+dull theme to the world, yet a theme which was all the world to them.
+If in narrative they dwelt long upon affairs of trifling moment; if one
+of them omitted nothing of detail in recounting the loss of a lamb, the
+relation between him and the unfortunate should be remembered: at birth
+it became his charge, his to keep all its days, to help over the
+floods, to carry down the hollows, to name and train; it was to be his
+companion, his object of thought and interest, the subject of his will;
+it was to enliven and share his wanderings; in its defense he might be
+called on to face the lion or robber—to die.
+
+The great events, such as blotted out nations and changed the mastery
+of the world, were trifles to them, if perchance they came to their
+knowledge. Of what Herod was doing in this city or that, building
+palaces and gymnasia, and indulging forbidden practises, they
+occasionally heard. As was her habit in those days, Rome did not wait
+for people slow to inquire about her; she came to them. Over the hills
+along which he was leading his lagging herd, or in the fastnesses in
+which he was hiding them, not unfrequently the shepherd was startled by
+the blare of trumpets, and, peering out, beheld a cohort, sometimes a
+legion, in march; and when the glittering crests were gone, and the
+excitement incident to the intrusion over, he bent himself to evolve
+the meaning of the eagles and gilded globes of the soldiery, and the
+charm of a life so the opposite of his own.
+
+Yet these men, rude and simple as they were, had a knowledge and a
+wisdom of their own. On Sabbaths they were accustomed to purify
+themselves, and go up into the synagogues, and sit on the benches
+farthest from the ark. When the chazzan bore the Torah round, none
+kissed it with greater zest; when the sheliach read the text, none
+listened to the interpreter with more absolute faith; and none took
+away with them more of the elder’s sermon, or gave it more thought
+afterwards. In a verse of the Shema they found all the learning and all
+the law of their simple lives—that their Lord was One God, and that
+they must love him with all their souls. And they loved him, and such
+was their wisdom, surpassing that of kings.
+
+While they talked, and before the first watch was over, one by one the
+shepherds went to sleep, each lying where he had sat.
+
+The night, like most nights of the winter season in the hill country,
+was clear, crisp, and sparkling with stars. There was no wind. The
+atmosphere seemed never so pure, and the stillness was more than
+silence; it was a holy hush, a warning that heaven was stooping low to
+whisper some good thing to the listening earth.
+
+By the gate, hugging his mantle close, the watchman walked; at times he
+stopped, attracted by a stir among the sleeping herds, or by a jackal’s
+cry off on the mountain-side. The midnight was slow coming to him; but
+at last it came. His task was done; now for the dreamless sleep with
+which labor blesses its wearied children! He moved towards the fire,
+but paused; a light was breaking around him, soft and white, like the
+moon’s. He waited breathlessly. The light deepened; things before
+invisible came to view; he saw the whole field, and all it sheltered. A
+chill sharper than that of the frosty air—a chill of fear—smote him. He
+looked up; the stars were gone; the light was dropping as from a window
+in the sky; as he looked, it became a splendor; then, in terror, he
+cried,
+
+“Awake, awake!”
+
+Up sprang the dogs, and, howling, ran away.
+
+The herds rushed together bewildered.
+
+The men clambered to their feet, weapons in hand.
+
+“What is it?” they asked, in one voice.
+
+“See!” cried the watchman, “the sky is on fire!”
+
+Suddenly the light became intolerably bright, and they covered their
+eyes, and dropped upon their knees; then, as their souls shrank with
+fear, they fell upon their faces blind and fainting, and would have
+died had not a voice said to them,
+
+“Fear not!”
+
+And they listened.
+
+“Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which
+shall be to all people.”
+
+The voice, in sweetness and soothing more than human, and low and
+clear, penetrated all their being, and filled them with assurance. They
+rose upon their knees, and, looking worshipfully, beheld in the centre
+of a great glory the appearance of a man, clad in a robe intensely
+white; above its shoulders towered the tops of wings shining and
+folded; a star over its forehead glowed with steady lustre, brilliant
+as Hesperus; its hands were stretched towards them in blessing; its
+face was serene and divinely beautiful.
+
+They had often heard, and, in their simple way, talked, of angels; and
+they doubted not now, but said, in their hearts, The glory of God is
+about us, and this is he who of old came to the prophet by the river of
+Ulai.
+
+Directly the angel continued:
+
+“For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which
+is Christ the Lord!”
+
+Again there was a rest, while the words sank into their minds.
+
+“And this shall be a sign unto you,” the annunciator said next. “Ye
+shall find the babe, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, lying in a manger.”
+
+The herald spoke not again; his good tidings were told; yet he stayed
+awhile. Suddenly the light, of which he seemed the centre, turned
+roseate and began to tremble; then up, far as the men could see, there
+was flashing of white wings, and coming and going of radiant forms, and
+voices as of a multitude chanting in unison,
+
+“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards
+men!”
+
+Not once the praise, but many times.
+
+Then the herald raised his eyes as seeking approval of one far off; his
+wings stirred, and spread slowly and majestically, on their upper side
+white as snow, in the shadow vari-tinted, like mother-of-pearl; when
+they were expanded many cubits beyond his stature, he arose lightly,
+and, without effort, floated out of view, taking the light up with him.
+Long after he was gone, down from the sky fell the refrain in measure
+mellowed by distance, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,
+good-will towards men.”
+
+When the shepherds came fully to their senses, they stared at each
+other stupidly, until one of them said, “It was Gabriel, the Lord’s
+messenger unto men.”
+
+None answered.
+
+“Christ the Lord is born; said he not so?”
+
+Then another recovered his voice, and replied, “That is what he said.”
+
+“And did he not also say, in the city of David, which is our Bethlehem
+yonder. And that we should find him a babe in swaddling-clothes?”
+
+“And lying in a manger.”
+
+The first speaker gazed into the fire thoughtfully, but at length said,
+like one possessed of a sudden resolve, “There is but one place in
+Bethlehem where there are mangers; but one, and that is in the cave
+near the old khan. Brethren, let us go see this thing which has come to
+pass. The priests and doctors have been a long time looking for the
+Christ. Now he is born, and the Lord has given us a sign by which to
+know him. Let us go up and worship him.”
+
+“But the flocks!”
+
+“The Lord will take care of them. Let us make haste.”
+
+Then they all arose and left the marah.
+
+
+Around the mountain and through the town they passed, and came to the
+gate of the khan, where there was a man on watch.
+
+“What would you have?” he asked.
+
+“We have seen and heard great things to-night,” they replied.
+
+“Well, we, too, have seen great things, but heard nothing. What did you
+hear?”
+
+“Let us go down to the cave in the enclosure, that we may be sure; then
+we will tell you all. Come with us, and see for yourself.”
+
+“It is a fool’s errand.”
+
+“No, the Christ is born.”
+
+“The Christ! How do you know?”
+
+“Let us go and see first.”
+
+The man laughed scornfully.
+
+“The Christ indeed! How are you to know him?”
+
+“He was born this night, and is now lying in a manger, so we were told;
+and there is but one place in Bethlehem with mangers.”
+
+“The cave?”
+
+“Yes. Come with us.”
+
+They went through the court-yard without notice, although there were
+some up even then talking about the wonderful light. The door of the
+cavern was open. A lantern was burning within, and they entered
+unceremoniously.
+
+“I give you peace,” the watchman said to Joseph and the Beth Dagonite.
+“Here are people looking for a child born this night, whom they are to
+know by finding him in swaddling-clothes and lying in a manger.”
+
+For a moment the face of the stolid Nazarene was moved; turning away,
+he said, “The child is here.”
+
+They were led to one of the mangers, and there the child was. The
+lantern was brought, and the shepherds stood by mute. The little one
+made no sign; it was as others just born.
+
+“Where is the mother?” asked the watchman.
+
+One of the women took the baby, and went to Mary, lying near, and put
+it in her arms. Then the bystanders collected about the two.
+
+“It is the Christ!” said a shepherd, at last.
+
+“The Christ!” they all repeated, falling upon their knees in worship.
+One of them repeated several times over,
+
+“It is the Lord, and his glory is above the earth and heaven.”
+
+And the simple men, never doubting, kissed the hem of the mother’s
+robe, and with joyful faces departed. In the khan, to all the people
+aroused and pressing about them, they told their story; and through the
+town, and all the way back to the marah, they chanted the refrain of
+the angels, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will
+towards men!”
+
+The story went abroad, confirmed by the light so generally seen; and
+the next day, and for days thereafter, the cave was visited by curious
+crowds, of whom some believed, though the greater part laughed and
+mocked.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The eleventh day after the birth of the child in the cave, about
+mid-afternoon, the three wise men approached Jerusalem by the road from
+Shechem. After crossing Brook Cedron, they met many people, of whom
+none failed to stop and look after them curiously.
+
+Judea was of necessity an international thoroughfare; a narrow ridge,
+raised, apparently, by the pressure of the desert on the east, and the
+sea on the west, was all she could claim to be; over the ridge,
+however, nature had stretched the line of trade between the east and
+the south; and that was her wealth. In other words, the riches of
+Jerusalem were the tolls she levied on passing commerce. Nowhere else,
+consequently, unless in Rome, was there such constant assemblage of so
+many people of so many different nations; in no other city was a
+stranger less strange to the residents than within her walls and
+purlieus. And yet these three men excited the wonder of all whom they
+met on the way to the gates.
+
+A child belonging to some women sitting by the roadside opposite the
+Tombs of the Kings saw the party coming; immediately it clapped its
+hands, and cried, “Look, look! What pretty bells! What big camels!”
+
+The bells were silver; the camels, as we have seen, were of unusual
+size and whiteness, and moved with singular stateliness; the trappings
+told of the desert and of long journeys thereon, and also of ample
+means in possession of the owners, who sat under the little canopies
+exactly as they appeared at the rendezvous beyond the Jebel. Yet it was
+not the bells or the camels, or their furniture, or the demeanor of the
+riders, that were so wonderful; it was the question put by the man who
+rode foremost of the three.
+
+The approach to Jerusalem from the north is across a plain which dips
+southward, leaving the Damascus Gate in a vale or hollow. The road is
+narrow, but deeply cut by long use, and in places difficult on account
+of the cobbles left loose and dry by the washing of the rains. On
+either side, however, there stretched, in the old time, rich fields and
+handsome olive-groves, which must, in luxurious growth, have been
+beautiful, especially to travellers fresh from the wastes of the
+desert. In this road, the three stopped before the party in front of
+the Tombs.
+
+“Good people,” said Balthasar, stroking his plaited beard, and bending
+from his cot, “is not Jerusalem close by?”
+
+“Yes,” answered the woman into whose arms the child had shrunk. “If the
+trees on yon swell were a little lower you could see the towers on the
+market-place.”
+
+Balthasar gave the Greek and the Hindoo a look, then asked,
+
+“Where is he that is born King of the Jews?”
+
+The women gazed at each other without reply.
+
+“You have not heard of him?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, tell everybody that we have seen his star in the east, and are
+come to worship him.”
+
+Thereupon the friends rode on. Of others they asked the same question,
+with like result. A large company whom they met going to the Grotto of
+Jeremiah were so astonished by the inquiry and the appearance of the
+travellers that they turned about and followed them into the city.
+
+So much were the three occupied with the idea of their mission that
+they did not care for the view which presently rose before them in the
+utmost magnificence: for the village first to receive them on Bezetha;
+for Mizpah and Olivet, over on their left; for the wall behind the
+village, with its forty tall and solid towers, superadded partly for
+strength, partly to gratify the critical taste of the kingly builder;
+for the same towered wall bending off to the right, with many an angle,
+and here and there an embattled gate, up to the three great white piles
+Phasaelus, Mariamne, and Hippicus; for Zion, tallest of the hills,
+crowned with marble palaces, and never so beautiful; for the glittering
+terraces of the temple on Moriah, admittedly one of the wonders of the
+earth; for the regal mountains rimming the sacred city round about
+until it seemed in the hollow of a mighty bowl.
+
+They came, at length, to a tower of great height and strength,
+overlooking the gate which, at that time, answered to the present
+Damascus Gate, and marked the meeting-place of the three roads from
+Shechem, Jericho, and Gibeon. A Roman guard kept the passage-way. By
+this time the people following the camels formed a train sufficient to
+draw the idlers hanging about the portal; so that when Balthasar
+stopped to speak to the sentinel, the three became instantly the centre
+of a close circle eager to hear all that passed.
+
+“I give you peace,” the Egyptian said, in a clear voice.
+
+The sentinel made no reply.
+
+“We have come great distances in search of one who is born King of the
+Jews. Can you tell us where he is?”
+
+The soldier raised the visor of his helmet, and called loudly. From an
+apartment at the right of the passage an officer appeared.
+
+“Give way,” he cried, to the crowd which now pressed closer in; and as
+they seemed slow to obey, he advanced twirling his javelin vigorously,
+now right, now left; and so he gained room.
+
+“What would you?” he asked of Balthasar, speaking in the idiom of the
+city.
+
+And Balthasar answered in the same,
+
+“Where is he that is born King of the Jews?”
+
+“Herod?” asked the officer, confounded.
+
+“Herod’s kingship is from Cæsar; not Herod.”
+
+“There is no other King of the Jews.”
+
+“But we have seen the star of him we seek, and come to worship him.”
+
+The Roman was perplexed.
+
+“Go farther,” he said, at last. “Go farther. I am not a Jew. Carry the
+question to the doctors in the Temple, or to Hannas the priest, or,
+better still, to Herod himself. If there be another King of the Jews,
+he will find him.”
+
+Thereupon he made way for the strangers, and they passed the gate. But,
+before entering the narrow street, Balthasar lingered to say to his
+friends, “We are sufficiently proclaimed. By midnight the whole city
+will have heard of us and of our mission. Let us to the khan now.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+That evening, before sunset, some women were washing clothes on the
+upper step of the flight that led down into the basin of the Pool of
+Siloam. They knelt each before a broad bowl of earthenware. A girl at
+the foot of the steps kept them supplied with water, and sang while she
+filled the jar. The song was cheerful, and no doubt lightened their
+labor. Occasionally they would sit upon their heels, and look up the
+slope of Ophel, and round to the summit of what is now the Mount of
+Offence, then faintly glorified by the dying sun.
+
+While they plied their hands, rubbing and wringing the clothes in the
+bowls, two other women came to them, each with an empty jar upon her
+shoulder.
+
+“Peace to you,” one of the new-comers said.
+
+The laborers paused, sat up, wrung the water from their hands, and
+returned the salutation.
+
+“It is nearly night—time to quit.”
+
+“There is no end to work,” was the reply.
+
+“But there is a time to rest, and—”
+
+“To hear what may be passing,” interposed another.
+
+“What news have you?”
+
+“Then you have not heard?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“They say the Christ is born,” said the newsmonger, plunging into her
+story.
+
+It was curious to see the faces of the laborers brighten with interest;
+on the other side down came the jars, which, in a moment, were turned
+into seats for their owners.
+
+“The Christ!” the listeners cried.
+
+“So they say.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Everybody; it is common talk.”
+
+“Does anybody believe it?”
+
+“This afternoon three men came across Brook Cedron on the road from
+Shechem,” the speaker replied, circumstantially, intending to smother
+doubt. “Each one of them rode a camel spotless white, and larger than
+any ever before seen in Jerusalem.”
+
+The eyes and mouths of the auditors opened wide.
+
+“To prove how great and rich the men were,” the narrator continued,
+“they sat under awnings of silk; the buckles of their saddles were of
+gold, as was the fringe of their bridles; the bells were of silver, and
+made real music. Nobody knew them; they looked as if they had come from
+the ends of the world. Only one of them spoke, and of everybody on the
+road, even the women and children, he asked this question—‘Where is he
+that is born King of the Jews?’ No one gave them answer—no one
+understood what they meant; so they passed on, leaving behind them this
+saying: ‘For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship
+him.’ They put the question to the Roman at the gate; and he, no wiser
+than the simple people on the road, sent them up to Herod.”
+
+“Where are they now?”
+
+“At the khan. Hundreds have been to look at them already, and hundreds
+more are going.”
+
+“Who are they?”
+
+“Nobody knows. They are said to be Persians—wise men who talk with the
+stars—prophets, it may be, like Elijah and Jeremiah.”
+
+“What do they mean by King of the Jews?”
+
+“The Christ, and that he is just born.”
+
+One of the women laughed, and resumed her work, saying, “Well, when I
+see him I will believe.”
+
+Another followed her example: “And I—well, when I see him raise the
+dead, I will believe.”
+
+A third said, quietly, “He has been a long time promised. It will be
+enough for me to see him heal one leper.”
+
+And the party sat talking until the night came, and, with the help of
+the frosty air, drove them home.
+
+
+Later in the evening, about the beginning of the first watch, there was
+an assemblage in the palace on Mount Zion, of probably fifty persons,
+who never came together except by order of Herod, and then only when he
+had demanded to know some one or more of the deeper mysteries of the
+Jewish law and history. It was, in short, a meeting of the teachers of
+the colleges, of the chief priests, and of the doctors most noted in
+the city for learning—the leaders of opinion, expounders of the
+different creeds; princes of the Sadducees; Pharisaic debaters; calm,
+soft-spoken, stoical philosophers of the Essene socialists.
+
+The chamber in which the session was held belonged to one of the
+interior court-yards of the palace, and was quite large and Romanesque.
+The floor was tessellated with marble blocks; the walls, unbroken by a
+window, were frescoed in panels of saffron yellow; a divan occupied the
+centre of the apartment, covered with cushions of bright-yellow cloth,
+and fashioned in form of the letter U, the opening towards the doorway;
+in the arch of the divan, or, as it were, in the bend of the letter,
+there was an immense bronze tripod, curiously inlaid with gold and
+silver, over which a chandelier dropped from the ceiling, having seven
+arms, each holding a lighted lamp. The divan and the lamp were purely
+Jewish.
+
+The company sat upon the divan after the style of Orientals, in costume
+singularly uniform, except as to color. They were mostly men advanced
+in years; immense beards covered their faces; to their large noses were
+added the effects of large black eyes, deeply shaded by bold brows;
+their demeanor was grave, dignified, even patriarchal. In brief, their
+session was that of the Sanhedrim.
+
+He who sat before the tripod, however, in the place which may be called
+the head of the divan, having all the rest of his associates on his
+right and left, and, at the same time, before him, evidently president
+of the meeting, would have instantly absorbed the attention of a
+spectator. He had been cast in large mould, but was now shrunken and
+stooped to ghastliness; his white robe dropped from his shoulders in
+folds that gave no hint of muscle or anything but an angular skeleton.
+His hands, half concealed by sleeves of silk, white and crimson
+striped, were clasped upon his knees. When he spoke, sometimes the
+first finger of the right hand extended tremulously; he seemed
+incapable of other gesture. But his head was a splendid dome. A few
+hairs, whiter than fine-drawn silver, fringed the base; over a broad,
+full-sphered skull the skin was drawn close, and shone in the light
+with positive brilliance; the temples were deep hollows, from which the
+forehead beetled like a wrinkled crag; the eyes were wan and dim; the
+nose was pinched; and all the lower face was muffed in a beard flowing
+and venerable as Aaron’s. Such was Hillel the Babylonian! The line of
+prophets, long extinct in Israel, was now succeeded by a line of
+scholars, of whom he was first in learning—a prophet in all but the
+divine inspiration! At the age of one hundred and six, he was still
+Rector of the Great College.
+
+On the table before him lay outspread a roll or volume of parchment
+inscribed with Hebrew characters; behind him, in waiting, stood a page
+richly habited.
+
+There had been discussion, but at this moment of introduction the
+company had reached a conclusion; each one was in an attitude of rest,
+and the venerable Hillel, without moving, called the page.
+
+“Hist!”
+
+The youth advanced respectfully.
+
+“Go tell the king we are ready to give him answer.”
+
+The boy hurried away.
+
+After a time two officers entered and stopped, one on each side the
+door; after them slowly followed a most striking personage—an old man
+clad in a purple robe bordered with scarlet, and girt to his waist by a
+band of gold linked so fine that it was pliable as leather; the
+latchets of his shoes sparkled with precious stones; a narrow crown
+wrought in filigree shone outside a tarbooshe of softest crimson plush,
+which, encasing his head, fell down the neck and shoulders, leaving the
+throat and neck exposed. Instead of a seal, a dagger dangled from his
+belt. He walked with a halting step, leaning heavily upon a staff. Not
+until he reached the opening of the divan, did he pause or look up from
+the floor; then, as for the first time conscious of the company, and
+roused by their presence, he raised himself, and looked haughtily
+round, like one startled and searching for an enemy—so dark,
+suspicious, and threatening was the glance. Such was Herod the Great—a
+body broken by diseases, a conscience seared with crimes, a mind
+magnificently capable, a soul fit for brotherhood with the Cæsars; now
+seven-and-sixty years old, but guarding his throne with a jealousy
+never so vigilant, a power never so despotic, and a cruelty never so
+inexorable.
+
+There was a general movement on the part of the assemblage—a bending
+forward in salaam by the more aged, a rising-up by the more courtierly,
+followed by low genuflections, hands upon the beard or breast.
+
+His observations taken, Herod moved on until at the tripod opposite the
+venerable Hillel, who met his cold glance with an inclination of the
+head, and a slight lifting of the hands.
+
+“The answer!” said the king, with imperious simplicity, addressing
+Hillel, and planting his staff before him with both hands. “The
+answer!”
+
+The eyes of the patriarch glowed mildly, and, raising his head, and
+looking the inquisitor full in the face, he answered, his associates
+giving him closest attention,
+
+“With thee, O king, be the peace of God, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!”
+
+His manner was that of invocation; changing it, he resumed:
+
+“Thou hast demanded of us where the Christ should be born.”
+
+The king bowed, though the evil eyes remained fixed upon the sage’s
+face.
+
+“That is the question.”
+
+“Then, O king, speaking for myself, and all my brethren here, not one
+dissenting, I say, in Bethlehem of Judea.”
+
+Hillel glanced at the parchment on the tripod; and, pointing with his
+tremulous finger, continued, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is
+written by the prophet, ‘And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judea, art
+not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come a
+governor that shall rule my people Israel.’”
+
+Herod’s face was troubled, and his eyes fell upon the parchment while
+he thought. Those beholding him scarcely breathed; they spoke not, nor
+did he. At length he turned about and left the chamber.
+
+“Brethren,” said Hillel, “we are dismissed.”
+
+The company then arose, and in groups departed.
+
+“Simeon,” said Hillel again.
+
+A man, quite fifty years old, but in the hearty prime of life, answered
+and came to him.
+
+“Take up the sacred parchment, my son; roll it tenderly.”
+
+The order was obeyed.
+
+“Now lend me thy arm; I will to the litter.”
+
+The strong man stooped; with his withered hands the old one took the
+offered support, and, rising, moved feebly to the door.
+
+So departed the famous Rector, and Simeon, his son, who was to be his
+successor in wisdom, learning, and office.
+
+
+Yet later in the evening the wise men were lying in a lewen of the khan
+awake. The stones which served them as pillows raised their heads so
+they could look out of the open arch into the depths of the sky; and as
+they watched the twinkling of the stars, they thought of the next
+manifestation. How would it come? What would it be? They were in
+Jerusalem at last; they had asked at the gate for Him they sought; they
+had borne witness of his birth; it remained only to find him; and as to
+that, they placed all trust in the Spirit. Men listening for the voice
+of God, or waiting a sign from Heaven, cannot sleep.
+
+While they were in this condition, a man stepped in under the arch,
+darkening the lewen.
+
+“Awake!” he said to them; “I bring you a message which will not be put
+off.”
+
+They all sat up.
+
+“From whom?” asked the Egyptian.
+
+“Herod the king.”
+
+Each one felt his spirit thrill.
+
+“Are you not the steward of the khan?” Balthasar asked next.
+
+“I am.”
+
+“What would the king with us?”
+
+“His messenger is without; let him answer.”
+
+“Tell him, then, to abide our coming.”
+
+“You were right, O my brother!” said the Greek, when the steward was
+gone. “The question put to the people on the road, and to the guard at
+the gate, has given us quick notoriety. I am impatient; let us up
+quickly.”
+
+They arose, put on their sandals, girt their mantles about them, and
+went out.
+
+“I salute you, and give you peace, and pray your pardon; but my master,
+the king, has sent me to invite you to the palace, where he would have
+speech with you privately.”
+
+Thus the messenger discharged his duty.
+
+A lamp hung in the entrance, and by its light they looked at each
+other, and knew the Spirit was upon them. Then the Egyptian stepped to
+the steward, and said, so as not to be heard by the others, “You know
+where our goods are stored in the court, and where our camels are
+resting. While we are gone, make all things ready for our departure, if
+it should be needful.”
+
+“Go your way assured; trust me,” the steward replied.
+
+“The king’s will is our will,” said Balthasar to the messenger. “We
+will follow you.”
+
+The streets of the Holy City were narrow then as now, but not so rough
+and foul; for the great builder, not content with beauty, enforced
+cleanliness and convenience also. Following their guide, the brethren
+proceeded without a word. Through the dim starlight, made dimmer by the
+walls on both sides, sometimes almost lost under bridges connecting the
+house-tops, out of a low ground they ascended a hill. At last they came
+to a portal reared across the way. In the light of fires blazing before
+it in two great braziers, they caught a glimpse of the structure, and
+also of some guards leaning motionlessly upon their arms. They passed
+into a building unchallenged. Then by passages and arched halls;
+through courts, and under colonnades not always lighted; up long
+flights of stairs, past innumerable cloisters and chambers, they were
+conducted into a tower of great height. Suddenly the guide halted, and,
+pointing through an open door, said to them,
+
+“Enter. The king is there.”
+
+The air of the chamber was heavy with the perfume of sandal-wood, and
+all the appointments within were effeminately rich. Upon the floor,
+covering the central space, a tufted rug was spread, and upon that a
+throne was set. The visitors had but time, however, to catch a confused
+idea of the place—of carved and gilt ottomans and couches; of fans and
+jars and musical instruments; of golden candlesticks glittering in
+their own lights; of walls painted in the style of the voluptuous
+Grecian school, one look at which had made a Pharisee hide his head
+with holy horror. Herod, sitting upon the throne to receive them, clad
+as when at the conference with the doctors and lawyers, claimed all
+their minds.
+
+At the edge of the rug, to which they advanced uninvited, they
+prostrated themselves. The king touched a bell. An attendant came in,
+and placed three stools before the throne.
+
+“Seat yourselves,” said the monarch, graciously.
+
+“From the North Gate,” he continued, when they were at rest, “I had
+this afternoon report of the arrival of three strangers, curiously
+mounted, and appearing as if from far countries. Are you the men?”
+
+The Egyptian took the sign from the Greek and the Hindoo, and answered,
+with the profoundest salaam, “Were we other than we are, the mighty
+Herod, whose fame is as incense to the whole world, would not have sent
+for us. We may not doubt that we are the strangers.”
+
+Herod acknowledged the speech with a wave of the hand.
+
+“Who are you? Whence do you come?” he asked, adding significantly, “Let
+each speak for himself.”
+
+In turn they gave him account, referring simply to the cities and lands
+of their birth, and the routes by which they came to Jerusalem.
+Somewhat disappointed, Herod plied them more directly.
+
+“What was the question you put to the officer at the gate?”
+
+“We asked him, Where is he that is born King of the Jews.”
+
+“I see now why the people were so curious. You excite me no less. Is
+there another King of the Jews?”
+
+The Egyptian did not blanch.
+
+“There is one newly born.”
+
+An expression of pain knit the dark face of the monarch, as if his mind
+were swept by a harrowing recollection.
+
+“Not to me, not to me!” he exclaimed.
+
+Possibly the accusing images of his murdered children flitted before
+him; recovering from the emotion, whatever it was, he asked, steadily,
+“Where is the new king?”
+
+“That, O king, is what we would ask.”
+
+“You bring me a wonder—a riddle surpassing any of Solomon’s,” the
+inquisitor said next. “As you see, I am in the time of life when
+curiosity is as ungovernable as it was in childhood, when to trifle
+with it is cruelty. Tell me further, and I will honor you as kings
+honor each other. Give me all you know about the newly born, and I will
+join you in the search for him; and when we have found him, I will do
+what you wish; I will bring him to Jerusalem, and train him in
+kingcraft; I will use my grace with Cæsar for his promotion and glory.
+Jealousy shall not come between us, so I swear. But tell me first how,
+so widely separated by seas and deserts, you all came to hear of him.”
+
+“I will tell you truly, O king.”
+
+“Speak on,” said Herod.
+
+Balthasar raised himself erect, and said, solemnly,
+
+“There is an Almighty God.”
+
+Herod was visibly startled.
+
+“He bade us come hither, promising that we should find the Redeemer of
+the World; that we should see and worship him, and bear witness that he
+was come; and, as a sign, we were each given to see a star. His Spirit
+stayed with us. O king, his Spirit is with us now!”
+
+An overpowering feeling seized the three. The Greek with difficulty
+restrained an outcry. Herod’s gaze darted quickly from one to the
+other; he was more suspicious and dissatisfied than before.
+
+“You are mocking me,” he said. “If not, tell me more. What is to follow
+the coming of the new king?”
+
+“The salvation of men.”
+
+“From what?”
+
+“Their wickedness.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“By the divine agencies—Faith, Love, and Good Works.”
+
+“Then”—Herod paused, and from his look no man could have said with what
+feeling he continued—“you are the heralds of the Christ. Is that all?”
+
+Balthasar bowed low.
+
+“We are your servants, O king.”
+
+The monarch touched a bell, and the attendant appeared.
+
+“Bring the gifts,” the master said.
+
+The attendant went out, but in a little while returned, and, kneeling
+before the guests, gave to each one an outer robe or mantle of scarlet
+and blue, and a girdle of gold. They acknowledged the honors with
+Eastern prostrations.
+
+“A word further,” said Herod, when the ceremony was ended. “To the
+officer of the gate, and but now to me, you spoke of seeing a star in
+the east.”
+
+“Yes,” said Balthasar, “his star, the star of the newly born.”
+
+“What time did it appear?”
+
+“When we were bidden come hither.”
+
+Herod arose, signifying the audience was over. Stepping from the throne
+towards them, he said, with all graciousness,
+
+“If, as I believe, O illustrious men, you are indeed the heralds of the
+Christ just born, know that I have this night consulted those wisest in
+things Jewish, and they say with one voice he should be born in
+Bethlehem of Judea. I say to you, go thither; go and search diligently
+for the young child; and when you have found him bring me word again,
+that I may come and worship him. To your going there shall be no let or
+hindrance. Peace be with you!”
+
+And, folding his robe about him, he left the chamber.
+
+Directly the guide came, and led them back to the street, and thence to
+the khan, at the portal of which the Greek said, impulsively, “Let us
+to Bethlehem, O brethren, as the king has advised.”
+
+“Yes,” cried the Hindoo. “The Spirit burns within me.”
+
+“Be it so,” said Balthasar, with equal warmth. “The camels are ready.”
+
+They gave gifts to the steward, mounted into their saddles, received
+directions to the Joppa Gate, and departed. At their approach the great
+valves were unbarred, and they passed out into the open country, taking
+the road so lately travelled by Joseph and Mary. As they came up out of
+Hinnom, on the plain of Rephaim, a light appeared, at first wide-spread
+and faint. Their pulses fluttered fast. The light intensified rapidly;
+they closed their eyes against its burning brilliance: when they dared
+look again, lo! the star, perfect as any in the heavens, but low down
+and moving slowly before them. And they folded their hands, and
+shouted, and rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
+
+“God is with us! God is with us!” they repeated, in frequent cheer, all
+the way, until the star, rising out of the valley beyond Mar Elias,
+stood still over a house up on the slope of the hill near the town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+It was now the beginning of the third watch, and at Bethlehem the
+morning was breaking over the mountains in the east, but so feebly that
+it was yet night in the valley. The watchman on the roof of the old
+khan, shivering in the chilly air, was listening for the first
+distinguishable sounds with which life, awakening, greets the dawn,
+when a light came moving up the hill towards the house. He thought it a
+torch in some one’s hand; next moment he thought it a meteor; the
+brilliance grew, however, until it became a star. Sore afraid, he cried
+out, and brought everybody within the walls to the roof. The
+phenomenon, in eccentric motion, continued to approach; the rocks,
+trees, and roadway under it shone as in a glare of lightning; directly
+its brightness became blinding. The more timid of the beholders fell
+upon their knees, and prayed, with their faces hidden; the boldest,
+covering their eyes, crouched, and now and then snatched glances
+fearfully. Afterwhile the khan and everything thereabout lay under the
+intolerable radiance. Such as dared look beheld the star standing still
+directly over the house in front of the cave where the Child had been
+born.
+
+In the height of this scene, the wise men came up, and at the gate
+dismounted from their camels, and shouted for admission. When the
+steward so far mastered his terror as to give them heed, he drew the
+bars and opened to them. The camels looked spectral in the unnatural
+light, and, besides their outlandishness, there were in the faces and
+manner of the three visitors an eagerness and exaltation which still
+further excited the keeper’s fears and fancy; he fell back, and for a
+time could not answer the question they put to him.
+
+“Is not this Bethlehem of Judea?”
+
+But others came, and by their presence gave him assurance.
+
+“No, this is but the khan; the town lies farther on.”
+
+“Is there not here a child newly born?”
+
+The bystanders turned to each other marvelling, though some of them
+answered, “Yes, yes.”
+
+“Show us to him!” said the Greek, impatiently.
+
+“Show us to him!” cried Balthasar, breaking through his gravity; “for
+we have seen his star, even that which ye behold over the house, and
+are come to worship him.”
+
+The Hindoo clasped his hands, exclaiming, “God indeed lives! Make
+haste, make haste! The Savior is found. Blessed, blessed are we above
+men!”
+
+The people from the roof came down and followed the strangers as they
+were taken through the court and out into the enclosure; at sight of
+the star yet above the cave, though less candescent than before, some
+turned back afraid; the greater part went on. As the strangers neared
+the house, the orb arose; when they were at the door, it was high up
+overhead vanishing; when they entered, it went out lost to sight. And
+to the witnesses of what then took place came a conviction that there
+was a divine relation between the star and the strangers, which
+extended also to at least some of the occupants of the cave. When the
+door was opened, they crowded in.
+
+The apartment was lighted by a lantern enough to enable the strangers
+to find the mother, and the child awake in her lap.
+
+“Is the child thine?” asked Balthasar of Mary.
+
+And she who had kept all the things in the least affecting the little
+one, and pondered them in her heart, held it up in the light, saying,
+
+“He is my son!”
+
+And they fell down and worshipped him.
+
+They saw the child was as other children: about its head was neither
+nimbus nor material crown; its lips opened not in speech; if it heard
+their expressions of joy, their invocations, their prayers, it made no
+sign whatever, but, baby-like, looked longer at the flame in the
+lantern than at them.
+
+In a little while they arose, and, returning to the camels, brought
+gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and laid them before the child,
+abating nothing of their worshipful speeches; of which no part is
+given, for the thoughtful know that the pure worship of the pure heart
+was then what it is now, and has always been, an inspired song.
+
+And this was the Savior they had come so far to find!
+
+Yet they worshipped without a doubt.
+
+Why?
+
+Their faith rested upon the signs sent them by him whom we have since
+come to know as the Father; and they were of the kind to whom his
+promises were so all-sufficient that they asked nothing about his ways.
+Few there were who had seen the signs and heard the promises—the Mother
+and Joseph, the shepherds, and the Three—yet they all believed alike;
+that is to say, in this period of the plan of salvation, God was all
+and the Child nothing. But look forward, O reader! A time will come
+when the signs will all proceed from the Son. Happy they who then
+believe in him!
+
+Let us wait that period.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SECOND
+
+
+“There is a fire
+And motion of the soul which will not dwell
+In its own narrow being, but aspire
+Beyond the fitting medium of desire;
+And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,
+Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
+Of aught but rest.”
+
+Childe Harold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It is necessary now to carry the reader forward twenty-one years, to
+the beginning of the administration of Valerius Gratus, the fourth
+imperial governor of Judea—a period which will be remembered as rent by
+political agitations in Jerusalem, if, indeed, it be not the precise
+time of the opening of the final quarrel between the Jew and the Roman.
+
+In the interval Judea had been subjected to changes affecting her in
+many ways, but in nothing so much as her political status. Herod the
+Great died within one year after the birth of the Child—died so
+miserably that the Christian world had reason to believe him overtaken
+by the Divine wrath. Like all great rulers who spend their lives in
+perfecting the power they create, he dreamed of transmitting his throne
+and crown—of being the founder of a dynasty. With that intent, he left
+a will dividing his territories between his three sons, Antipas,
+Philip, and Archelaus, of whom the last was appointed to succeed to the
+title. The testament was necessarily referred to Augustus, the emperor,
+who ratified all its provisions with one exception: he withheld from
+Archelaus the title of king until he proved his capacity and loyalty;
+in lieu thereof, he created him ethnarch, and as such permitted him to
+govern nine years, when, for misconduct and inability to stay the
+turbulent elements that grew and strengthened around him, he was sent
+into Gaul as an exile.
+
+Cæsar was not content with deposing Archelaus; he struck the people of
+Jerusalem in a manner that touched their pride, and keenly wounded the
+sensibilities of the haughty habitues of the Temple. He reduced Judea
+to a Roman province, and annexed it to the prefecture of Syria. So,
+instead of a king ruling royally from the palace left by Herod on Mount
+Zion, the city fell into the hands of an officer of the second grade,
+an appointee called procurator, who communicated with the court in Rome
+through the Legate of Syria, residing in Antioch. To make the hurt more
+painful, the procurator was not permitted to establish himself in
+Jerusalem; Cæsarea was his seat of government. Most humiliating,
+however, most exasperating, most studied, Samaria, of all the world the
+most despised—Samaria was joined to Judea as a part of the same
+province! What ineffable misery the bigoted Separatists or Pharisees
+endured at finding themselves elbowed and laughed at in the
+procurator’s presence in Cæsarea by the devotees of Gerizim!
+
+In this rain of sorrows, one consolation, and one only, remained to the
+fallen people: the high-priest occupied the Herodian palace in the
+market-place, and kept the semblance of a court there. What his
+authority really was is a matter of easy estimate. Judgment of life and
+death was retained by the procurator. Justice was administered in the
+name and according to the decretals of Rome. Yet more significant, the
+royal house was jointly occupied by the imperial exciseman, and all his
+corps of assistants, registrars, collectors, publicans, informers, and
+spies. Still, to the dreamers of liberty to come, there was a certain
+satisfaction in the fact that the chief ruler in the palace was a Jew.
+His mere presence there day after day kept them reminded of the
+covenants and promises of the prophets, and the ages when Jehovah
+governed the tribes through the sons of Aaron; it was to them a certain
+sign that he had not abandoned them: so their hopes lived, and served
+their patience, and helped them wait grimly the son of Judah who was to
+rule Israel.
+
+Judea had been a Roman province eighty years and more—ample time for
+the Cæsars to study the idiosyncrasies of the people—time enough, at
+least, to learn that the Jew, with all his pride, could be quietly
+governed if his religion were respected. Proceeding upon that policy,
+the predecessors of Gratus had carefully abstained from interfering
+with any of the sacred observances of their subjects. But he chose a
+different course: almost his first official act was to expel Hannas
+from the high-priesthood, and give the place to Ishmael, son of Fabus.
+
+Whether the act was directed by Augustus, or proceeded from Gratus
+himself, its impolicy became speedily apparent. The reader shall be
+spared a chapter on Jewish politics; a few words upon the subject,
+however, are essential to such as may follow the succeeding narration
+critically. At this time, leaving origin out of view, there were in
+Judea the party of the nobles and the Separatist or popular party. Upon
+Herod’s death, the two united against Archelaus; from temple to palace,
+from Jerusalem to Rome, they fought him; sometimes with intrigue,
+sometimes with the actual weapons of war. More than once the holy
+cloisters on Moriah resounded with the cries of fighting-men. Finally,
+they drove him into exile. Meantime throughout this struggle the allies
+had their diverse objects in view. The nobles hated Joazar, the
+high-priest; the Separatists, on the other hand, were his zealous
+adherents. When Herod’s settlement went down with Archelaus, Joazar
+shared the fall. Hannas, the son of Seth, was selected by the nobles to
+fill the great office; thereupon the allies divided. The induction of
+the Sethian brought them face to face in fierce hostility.
+
+In the course of the struggle with the unfortunate ethnarch, the nobles
+had found it expedient to attach themselves to Rome. Discerning that
+when the existing settlement was broken up some form of government must
+needs follow, they suggested the conversion of Judea into a province.
+The fact furnished the Separatists an additional cause for attack; and,
+when Samaria was made part of the province, the nobles sank into a
+minority, with nothing to support them but the imperial court and the
+prestige of their rank and wealth; yet for fifteen years—down, indeed,
+to the coming of Valerius Gratus—they managed to maintain themselves in
+both palace and Temple.
+
+Hannas, the idol of his party, had used his power faithfully in the
+interest of his imperial patron. A Roman garrison held the Tower of
+Antonia; a Roman guard kept the gates of the palace; a Roman judge
+dispensed justice civil and criminal; a Roman system of taxation,
+mercilessly executed, crushed both city and country; daily, hourly, and
+in a thousand ways, the people were bruised and galled, and taught the
+difference between a life of independence and a life of subjection; yet
+Hannas kept them in comparative quiet. Rome had no truer friend; and he
+made his loss instantly felt. Delivering his vestments to Ishmael, the
+new appointee, he walked from the courts of the Temple into the
+councils of the Separatists, and became the head of a new combination,
+Bethusian and Sethian.
+
+Gratus, the procurator, left thus without a party, saw the fires which,
+in the fifteen years, had sunk into sodden smoke begin to glow with
+returning life. A month after Ishmael took the office, the Roman found
+it necessary to visit him in Jerusalem. When from the walls, hooting
+and hissing him, the Jews beheld his guard enter the north gate of the
+city and march to the Tower of Antonia, they understood the real
+purpose of the visit—a full cohort of legionaries was added to the
+former garrison, and the keys of their yoke could now be tightened with
+impunity. If the procurator deemed it important to make an example,
+alas for the first offender!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+With the foregoing explanation in mind, the reader is invited to look
+into one of the gardens of the palace on Mount Zion. The time was
+noonday in the middle of July, when the heat of summer was at its
+highest.
+
+The garden was bounded on every side by buildings, which in places
+arose two stories, with verandas shading the doors and windows of the
+lower story, while retreating galleries, guarded by strong balustrades,
+adorned and protected the upper. Here and there, moreover, the
+structures fell into what appeared low colonnades, permitting the
+passage of such winds as chanced to blow, and allowing other parts of
+the house to be seen, the better to realize its magnitude and beauty.
+The arrangement of the ground was equally pleasant to the eye. There
+were walks, and patches of grass and shrubbery, and a few large trees,
+rare specimens of the palm, grouped with the carob, apricot, and
+walnut. In all directions the grade sloped gently from the centre,
+where there was a reservoir, or deep marble basin, broken at intervals
+by little gates which, when raised, emptied the water into sluices
+bordering the walks—a cunning device for the rescue of the place from
+the aridity too prevalent elsewhere in the region.
+
+Not far from the fountain, there was a small pool of clear water
+nourishing a clump of cane and oleander, such as grow on the Jordan and
+down by the Dead Sea. Between the clump and the pool, unmindful of the
+sun shining full upon them in the breathless air, two boys, one about
+nineteen, the other seventeen, sat engaged in earnest conversation.
+
+They were both handsome, and, at first glance, would have been
+pronounced brothers. Both had hair and eyes black; their faces were
+deeply browned; and, sitting, they seemed of a size proper for the
+difference in their ages.
+
+The elder was bareheaded. A loose tunic, dropping to the knees, was his
+attire complete, except sandals and a light-blue mantle spread under
+him on the seat. The costume left his arms and legs exposed, and they
+were brown as the face; nevertheless, a certain grace of manner,
+refinement of features, and culture of voice decided his rank. The
+tunic, of softest woollen, gray-tinted, at the neck, sleeves, and edge
+of the skirt bordered with red, and bound to the waist by a tasselled
+silken cord, certified him the Roman he was. And if in speech he now
+and then gazed haughtily at his companion and addressed him as an
+inferior, he might almost be excused, for he was of a family noble even
+in Rome—a circumstance which in that age justified any assumption. In
+the terrible wars between the first Cæsar and his great enemies, a
+Messala had been the friend of Brutus. After Philippi, without
+sacrifice of his honor, he and the conqueror became reconciled. Yet
+later, when Octavius disputed for the empire, Messala supported him.
+Octavius, as the Emperor Augustus, remembered the service, and showered
+the family with honors. Among other things, Judea being reduced to a
+province, he sent the son of his old client or retainer to Jerusalem,
+charged with the receipt and management of the taxes levied in that
+region; and in that service the son had since remained, sharing the
+palace with the high-priest. The youth just described was his son,
+whose habit it was to carry about with him all too faithfully a
+remembrance of the relation between his grandfather and the great
+Romans of his day.
+
+The associate of the Messala was slighter in form, and his garments
+were of fine white linen and of the prevalent style in Jerusalem; a
+cloth covered his head, held by a yellow cord, and arranged so as to
+fall away from the forehead down low over the back of the neck. An
+observer skilled in the distinctions of race, and studying his features
+more than his costume, would have soon discovered him to be of Jewish
+descent. The forehead of the Roman was high and narrow, his nose sharp
+and aquiline, while his lips were thin and straight, and his eyes cold
+and close under the brows. The front of the Israelite, on the other
+hand, was low and broad; his nose long, with expanded nostrils; his
+upper lip, slightly shading the lower one, short and curving to the
+dimpled corners, like a Cupid’s bow; points which, in connection with
+the round chin, full eyes, and oval cheeks reddened with a wine-like
+glow, gave his face the softness, strength, and beauty peculiar to his
+race. The comeliness of the Roman was severe and chaste, that of the
+Jew rich and voluptuous.
+
+“Did you not say the new procurator is to arrive to-morrow?”
+
+The question proceeded from the younger of the friends, and was couched
+in Greek, at the time, singularly enough, the language everywhere
+prevalent in the politer circles of Judea; having passed from the
+palace into the camp and college; thence, nobody knew exactly when or
+how, into the Temple itself, and, for that matter, into precincts of
+the Temple far beyond the gates and cloisters—precincts of a sanctity
+intolerable for a Gentile.
+
+“Yes, to-morrow,” Messala answered.
+
+“Who told you?”
+
+“I heard Ishmael, the new governor in the palace—you call him high
+priest—tell my father so last night. The news had been more credible, I
+grant you, coming from an Egyptian, who is of a race that has forgotten
+what truth is, or even from an Idumaean, whose people never knew what
+truth was; but, to make quite certain, I saw a centurion from the Tower
+this morning, and he told me preparations were going on for the
+reception; that the armorers were furbishing the helmets and shields,
+and regilding the eagles and globes; and that apartments long unused
+were being cleansed and aired as if for an addition to the garrison—the
+body-guard, probably, of the great man.”
+
+A perfect idea of the manner in which the answer was given cannot be
+conveyed, as its fine points continually escape the power behind the
+pen. The reader’s fancy must come to his aid; and for that he must be
+reminded that reverence as a quality of the Roman mind was fast
+breaking down, or, rather, it was becoming unfashionable. The old
+religion had nearly ceased to be a faith; at most it was a mere habit
+of thought and expression, cherished principally by the priests who
+found service in the Temple profitable, and the poets who, in the turn
+of their verses, could not dispense with the familiar deities: there
+are singers of this age who are similarly given. As philosophy was
+taking the place of religion, satire was fast substituting reverence;
+insomuch that in Latin opinion it was to every speech, even to the
+little diatribes of conversation, as salt to viands, and aroma to wine.
+The young Messala, educated in Rome, but lately returned, had caught
+the habit and manner; the scarce perceptible movement of the outer
+corner of the lower eyelid, the decided curl of the corresponding
+nostril, and a languid utterance affected as the best vehicle to convey
+the idea of general indifference, but more particularly because of the
+opportunities it afforded for certain rhetorical pauses thought to be
+of prime importance to enable the listener to take the happy conceit or
+receive the virus of the stinging epigram. Such a stop occurred in the
+answer just given, at the end of the allusion to the Egyptian and
+Idumaean. The color in the Jewish lad’s cheeks deepened, and he may not
+have heard the rest of the speech, for he remained silent, looking
+absently into the depths of the pool.
+
+“Our farewell took place in this garden. ‘The peace of the Lord go with
+you!’—your last words. ‘The gods keep you!’ I said. Do you remember?
+How many years have passed since then?”
+
+“Five,” answered the Jew, gazing into the water.
+
+“Well, you have reason to be thankful to—whom shall I say? The gods? No
+matter. You have grown handsome; the Greeks would call you
+beautiful—happy achievement of the years! If Jupiter would stay content
+with one Ganymede, what a cup-bearer you would make for the emperor!
+Tell me, my Judah, how the coming of the procurator is of such interest
+to you.”
+
+Judah bent his large eyes upon the questioner; the gaze was grave and
+thoughtful, and caught the Roman’s, and held it while he replied, “Yes,
+five years. I remember the parting; you went to Rome; I saw you start,
+and cried, for I love you. The years are gone, and you have come back
+to me accomplished and princely—I do not jest; and yet—yet—I do wish
+you were the Messala you went away.”
+
+The fine nostril of the satirist stirred, and he put on a longer drawl
+as he said, “No, no; not a Ganymede—an oracle, my Judah. A few lessons
+from my teacher of rhetoric hard by the Forum—I will give you a letter
+to him when you become wise enough to accept a suggestion which I am
+reminded to make you—a little practise of the art of mystery, and
+Delphi will receive you as Apollo himself. At the sound of your solemn
+voice, the Pythia will come down to you with her crown. Seriously, O my
+friend, in what am I not the Messala I went away? I once heard the
+greatest logician in the world. His subject was Disputation. One saying
+I remember—‘Understand your antagonist before you answer him.’ Let me
+understand you.”
+
+The lad reddened under the cynical look to which he was subjected; yet
+he replied, firmly, “You have availed yourself, I see, of your
+opportunities; from your teachers you have brought away much knowledge
+and many graces. You talk with the ease of a master, yet your speech
+carries a sting. My Messala, when he went away, had no poison in his
+nature; not for the world would he have hurt the feelings of a friend.”
+
+The Roman smiled as if complimented, and raised his patrician head a
+toss higher.
+
+“O my solemn Judah, we are not at Dodona or Pytho. Drop the oracular,
+and be plain. Wherein have I hurt you?”
+
+The other drew a long breath, and said, pulling at the cord about his
+waist, “In the five years, I, too, have learned somewhat. Hillel may
+not be the equal of the logician you heard, and Simeon and Shammai are,
+no doubt, inferior to your master hard by the Forum. Their learning
+goes not out into forbidden paths; those who sit at their feet arise
+enriched simply with knowledge of God, the law, and Israel; and the
+effect is love and reverence for everything that pertains to them.
+Attendance at the Great College, and study of what I heard there, have
+taught me that Judea is not as she used to be. I know the space that
+lies between an independent kingdom and the petty province Judea is. I
+were meaner, viler, than a Samaritan not to resent the degradation of
+my country. Ishmael is not lawfully high-priest, and he cannot be while
+the noble Hannas lives; yet he is a Levite; one of the devoted who for
+thousands of years have acceptably served the Lord God of our faith and
+worship. His—”
+
+Messala broke in upon him with a biting laugh.
+
+“Oh, I understand you now. Ishmael, you say, is a usurper, yet to
+believe an Idumaean sooner than Ishmael is to sting like an adder. By
+the drunken son of Semele, what it is to be a Jew! All men and things,
+even heaven and earth, change; but a Jew never. To him there is no
+backward, no forward; he is what his ancestor was in the beginning. In
+this sand I draw you a circle—there! Now tell me what more a Jew’s life
+is? Round and round, Abraham here, Isaac and Jacob yonder, God in the
+middle. And the circle—by the master of all thunders! the circle is too
+large. I draw it again—” He stopped, put his thumb upon the ground, and
+swept the fingers about it. “See, the thumb spot is the Temple, the
+finger-lines Judea. Outside the little space is there nothing of value?
+The arts! Herod was a builder; therefore he is accursed. Painting,
+sculpture! to look upon them is sin. Poetry you make fast to your
+altars. Except in the synagogue, who of you attempts eloquence? In war
+all you conquer in the six days you lose on the seventh. Such your life
+and limit; who shall say no if I laugh at you? Satisfied with the
+worship of such a people, what is your God to our Roman Jove, who lends
+us his eagles that we may compass the universe with our arms? Hillel,
+Simeon, Shammai, Abtalion—what are they to the masters who teach that
+everything is worth knowing that can be known?”
+
+The Jew arose, his face much flushed.
+
+“No, no; keep your place, my Judah, keep your place,” Messala cried,
+extending his hand.
+
+“You mock me.”
+
+“Listen a little further. Directly”—the Roman smiled
+derisively—“directly Jupiter and his whole family, Greek and Latin,
+will come to me, as is their habit, and make an end of serious speech.
+I am mindful of your goodness in walking from the old house of your
+fathers to welcome me back and renew the love of our childhood—if we
+can. ‘Go,’ said my teacher, in his last lecture—‘Go, and, to make your
+lives great, remember Mars reigns and Eros has found his eyes.’ He
+meant love is nothing, war everything. It is so in Rome. Marriage is
+the first step to divorce. Virtue is a tradesman’s jewel. Cleopatra,
+dying, bequeathed her arts, and is avenged; she has a successor in
+every Roman’s house. The world is going the same way; so, as to our
+future, down Eros, up Mars! I am to be a soldier; and you, O my Judah,
+I pity you; what can you be?”
+
+The Jew moved nearer the pool; Messala’s drawl deepened.
+
+“Yes, I pity you, my fine Judah. From the college to the synagogue;
+then to the Temple; then—oh, a crowning glory!—the seat in the
+Sanhedrim. A life without opportunities; the gods help you! But I—”
+
+Judah looked at him in time to see the flush of pride that kindled in
+his haughty face as he went on.
+
+“But I—ah, the world is not all conquered. The sea has islands unseen.
+In the north there are nations yet unvisited. The glory of completing
+Alexander’s march to the Far East remains to some one. See what
+possibilities lie before a Roman.”
+
+Next instant he resumed his drawl.
+
+“A campaign into Africa; another after the Scythian; then—a legion!
+Most careers end there; but not mine. I—by Jupiter! what a
+conception!—I will give up my legion for a prefecture. Think of life in
+Rome with money—money, wine, women, games—poets at the banquet,
+intrigues in the court, dice all the year round. Such a rounding of
+life may be—a fat prefecture, and it is mine. O my Judah, here is
+Syria! Judea is rich; Antioch a capital for the gods. I will succeed
+Cyrenius, and you—shall share my fortune.”
+
+The sophists and rhetoricians who thronged the public resorts of Rome,
+almost monopolizing the business of teaching her patrician youth, might
+have approved these sayings of Messala, for they were all in the
+popular vein; to the young Jew, however, they were new, and unlike the
+solemn style of discourse and conversation to which he was accustomed.
+He belonged, moreover, to a race whose laws, modes, and habits of
+thought forbade satire and humor; very naturally, therefore, he
+listened to his friend with varying feelings; one moment indignant,
+then uncertain how to take him. The superior airs assumed had been
+offensive to him in the beginning; soon they became irritating, and at
+last an acute smart. Anger lies close by this point in all of us; and
+that the satirist evoked in another way. To the Jew of the Herodian
+period patriotism was a savage passion scarcely hidden under his common
+humor, and so related to his history, religion, and God that it
+responded instantly to derision of them. Wherefore it is not speaking
+too strongly to say that Messala’s progress down to the last pause was
+exquisite torture to his hearer; at that point the latter said, with a
+forced smile,
+
+“There are a few, I have heard, who can afford to make a jest of their
+future; you convince me, O my Messala, that I am not one of them.”
+
+The Roman studied him; then replied, “Why not the truth in a jest as
+well as a parable? The great Fulvia went fishing the other day; she
+caught more than all the company besides. They said it was because the
+barb of her hook was covered with gold.”
+
+“Then you were not merely jesting?”
+
+“My Judah, I see I did not offer you enough,” the Roman answered,
+quickly, his eyes sparkling. “When I am prefect, with Judea to enrich
+me, I—will make you high-priest.”
+
+The Jew turned off angrily.
+
+“Do not leave me,” said Messala.
+
+The other stopped irresolute.
+
+“Gods, Judah, how hot the sun shines!” cried the patrician, observing
+his perplexity. “Let us seek a shade.”
+
+Judah answered, coldly,
+
+“We had better part. I wish I had not come. I sought a friend and find
+a—”
+
+“Roman,” said Messala, quickly.
+
+The hands of the Jew clenched, but controlling himself again, he
+started off. Messala arose, and, taking the mantle from the bench,
+flung it over his shoulder, and followed after; when he gained his
+side, he put his hand upon his shoulder and walked with him.
+
+“This is the way—my hand thus—we used to walk when we were children.
+Let us keep it as far as the gate.”
+
+Apparently Messala was trying to be serious and kind, though he could
+not rid his countenance of the habitual satirical expression. Judah
+permitted the familiarity.
+
+“You are a boy; I am a man; let me talk like one.”
+
+The complacency of the Roman was superb. Mentor lecturing the young
+Telemachus could not have been more at ease.
+
+“Do you believe in the Parcae? Ah, I forgot, you are a Sadducee: the
+Essenes are your sensible people; they believe in the sisters. So do I.
+How everlastingly the three are in the way of our doing what we please!
+I sit down scheming. I run paths here and there. Perpol! Just when I am
+reaching to take the world in hand, I hear behind me the grinding of
+scissors. I look, and there she is, the accursed Atropos! But, my
+Judah, why did you get mad when I spoke of succeeding old Cyrenius? You
+thought I meant to enrich myself plundering your Judea. Suppose so; it
+is what some Roman will do. Why not I?”
+
+Judah shortened his step.
+
+“There have been strangers in mastery of Judea before the Roman,” he
+said, with lifted hand. “Where are they, Messala? She has outlived them
+all. What has been will be again.”
+
+Messala put on his drawl.
+
+“The Parcae have believers outside the Essenes. Welcome, Judah, welcome
+to the faith!”
+
+“No, Messala, count me not with them. My faith rests on the rock which
+was the foundation of the faith of my fathers back further than
+Abraham; on the covenants of the Lord God of Israel.”
+
+“Too much passion, my Judah. How my master would have been shocked had
+I been guilty of so much heat in his presence! There were other things
+I had to tell you, but I fear to now.”
+
+When they had gone a few yards, the Roman spoke again.
+
+“I think you can hear me now, especially as what I have to say concerns
+yourself. I would serve you, O handsome as Ganymede; I would serve you
+with real good-will. I love you—all I can. I told you I meant to be a
+soldier. Why not you also? Why not you step out of the narrow circle
+which, as I have shown, is all of noble life your laws and customs
+allow?”
+
+Judah made no reply.
+
+“Who are the wise men of our day?” Messala continued. “Not they who
+exhaust their years quarrelling about dead things; about Baals, Joves,
+and Jehovahs; about philosophies and religions. Give me one great name,
+O Judah; I care not where you go to find it—to Rome, Egypt, the East,
+or here in Jerusalem—Pluto take me if it belong not to a man who
+wrought his fame out of the material furnished him by the present;
+holding nothing sacred that did not contribute to the end, scorning
+nothing that did! How was it with Herod? How with the Maccabees? How
+with the first and second Cæsars? Imitate them. Begin now. At hand
+see—Rome, as ready to help you as she was the Idumaean Antipater.”
+
+The Jewish lad trembled with rage; and, as the garden gate was close
+by, he quickened his steps, eager to escape.
+
+“O Rome, Rome!” he muttered.
+
+“Be wise,” continued Messala. “Give up the follies of Moses and the
+traditions; see the situation as it is. Dare look the Parcae in the
+face, and they will tell you, Rome is the world. Ask them of Judea, and
+they will answer, She is what Rome wills.”
+
+They were now at the gate. Judah stopped, and took the hand gently from
+his shoulder, and confronted Messala, tears trembling in his eyes.
+
+“I understand you, because you are a Roman; you cannot understand me—I
+am an Israelite. You have given me suffering to-day by convincing me
+that we can never be the friends we have been—never! Here we part. The
+peace of the God of my fathers abide with you!”
+
+Messala offered him his hand; the Jew walked on through the gateway.
+When he was gone, the Roman was silent awhile; then he, too, passed
+through, saying to himself, with a toss of the head,
+
+“Be it so. Eros is dead, Mars reigns!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+From the entrance to the Holy City, equivalent to what is now called
+St. Stephen’s Gate, a street extended westwardly, on a line parallel
+with the northern front of the Tower of Antonia, though a square from
+that famous castle. Keeping the course as far as the Tyropoeon Valley,
+which it followed a little way south, it turned and again ran west
+until a short distance beyond what tradition tells us was the Judgment
+Gate, from whence it broke abruptly south. The traveller or the student
+familiar with the sacred locality will recognize the thoroughfare
+described as part of the Via Dolorosa—with Christians of more interest,
+though of a melancholy kind, than any street in the world. As the
+purpose in view does not at present require dealing with the whole
+street, it will be sufficient to point out a house standing in the
+angle last mentioned as marking the change of direction south, and
+which, as an important centre of interest, needs somewhat particular
+description.
+
+The building fronted north and west, probably four hundred feet each
+way, and, like most pretentious Eastern structures, was two stories in
+height, and perfectly quadrangular. The street on the west side was
+about twelve feet wide, that on the north not more than ten; so that
+one walking close to the walls, and looking up at them, would have been
+struck by the rude, unfinished, uninviting, but strong and imposing,
+appearance they presented; for they were of stone laid in large blocks,
+undressed—on the outer side, in fact, just as they were taken from the
+quarry. A critic of this age would have pronounced the house
+fortelesque in style, except for the windows, with which it was
+unusually garnished, and the ornate finish of the doorways or gates.
+The western windows were four in number, the northern only two, all set
+on the line of the second story in such manner as to overhang the
+thoroughfares below. The gates were the only breaks of wall externally
+visible in the first story; and, besides being so thickly riven with
+iron bolts as to suggest resistance to battering-rams, they were
+protected by cornices of marble, handsomely executed, and of such bold
+projection as to assure visitors well informed of the people that the
+rich man who resided there was a Sadducee in politics and creed.
+
+Not long after the young Jew parted from the Roman at the palace up on
+the Market-place, he stopped before the western gate of the house
+described, and knocked. The wicket (a door hung in one of the valves of
+the gate) was opened to admit him. He stepped in hastily, and failed to
+acknowledge the low salaam of the porter.
+
+To get an idea of the interior arrangement of the structure, as well as
+to see what more befell the youth, we will follow him.
+
+The passage into which he was admitted appeared not unlike a narrow
+tunnel with panelled walls and pitted ceiling. There were benches of
+stone on both sides, stained and polished by long use. Twelve or
+fifteen steps carried him into a court-yard, oblong north and south,
+and in every quarter, except the east, bounded by what seemed the
+fronts of two-story houses; of which the lower floor was divided into
+lewens, while the upper was terraced and defended by strong
+balustrading. The servants coming and going along the terraces; the
+noise of millstones grinding; the garments fluttering from ropes
+stretched from point to point; the chickens and pigeons in full
+enjoyment of the place; the goats, cows, donkeys, and horses stabled in
+the lewens; a massive trough of water, apparently for the common use,
+declared this court appurtenant to the domestic management of the
+owner. Eastwardly there was a division wall broken by another
+passage-way in all respects like the first one.
+
+Clearing the second passage, the young man entered a second court,
+spacious, square, and set with shrubbery and vines, kept fresh and
+beautiful by water from a basin erected near a porch on the north side.
+The lewens here were high, airy, and shaded by curtains striped
+alternate white and red. The arches of the lewens rested on clustered
+columns. A flight of steps on the south ascended to the terraces of the
+upper story, over which great awnings were stretched as a defence
+against the sun. Another stairway reached from the terraces to the
+roof, the edge of which, all around the square, was defined by a
+sculptured cornice, and a parapet of burned-clay tiling, sexangular and
+bright red. In this quarter, moreover, there was everywhere observable
+a scrupulous neatness, which, allowing no dust in the angles, not even
+a yellow leaf upon a shrub, contributed quite as much as anything else
+to the delightful general effect; insomuch that a visitor, breathing
+the sweet air, knew, in advance of introduction, the refinement of the
+family he was about calling upon.
+
+A few steps within the second court, the lad turned to the right, and,
+choosing a walk through the shrubbery, part of which was in flower,
+passed to the stairway, and ascended to the terrace—a broad pavement of
+white and brown flags closely laid, and much worn. Making way under the
+awning to a doorway on the north side, he entered an apartment which
+the dropping of the screen behind him returned to darkness.
+Nevertheless, he proceeded, moving over a tiled floor to a divan, upon
+which he flung himself, face downwards, and lay at rest, his forehead
+upon his crossed arms.
+
+About nightfall a woman came to the door and called; he answered, and
+she went in.
+
+“Supper is over, and it is night. Is not my son hungry?” she asked.
+
+“No,” he replied.
+
+“Are you sick?”
+
+“I am sleepy.”
+
+“Your mother has asked for you.”
+
+“Where is she?”
+
+“In the summer-house on the roof.”
+
+He stirred himself, and sat up.
+
+“Very well. Bring me something to eat.”
+
+“What do you want?”
+
+“What you please, Amrah. I am not sick, but indifferent. Life does not
+seem as pleasant as it did this morning. A new ailment, O my Amrah; and
+you who know me so well, who never failed me, may think of the things
+now that answer for food and medicine. Bring me what you choose.”
+
+Amrah’s questions, and the voice in which she put them—low,
+sympathetic, and solicitous—were significant of an endeared relation
+between the two. She laid her hand upon his forehead; then, as
+satisfied, went out, saying, “I will see.”
+
+After a while she returned, bearing on a wooden platter a bowl of milk,
+some thin cakes of white bread broken, a delicate paste of brayed
+wheat, a bird broiled, and honey and salt. On one end of the platter
+there was a silver goblet full of wine, on the other a brazen hand-lamp
+lighted.
+
+The room was then revealed: its walls smoothly plastered; the ceiling
+broken by great oaken rafters, brown with rain stains and time; the
+floor of small diamond-shaped white and blue tiles, very firm and
+enduring; a few stools with legs carved in imitation of the legs of
+lions; a divan raised a little above the floor, trimmed with blue
+cloth, and partially covered by an immense striped woollen blanket or
+shawl—in brief, a Hebrew bedroom.
+
+The same light also gave the woman to view. Drawing a stool to the
+divan, she placed the platter upon it, then knelt close by ready to
+serve him. Her face was that of a woman of fifty, dark-skinned,
+dark-eyed, and at the moment softened by a look of tenderness almost
+maternal. A white turban covered her head, leaving the lobes of the ear
+exposed, and in them the sign that settled her condition—an orifice
+bored by a thick awl. She was a slave, of Egyptian origin, to whom not
+even the sacred fiftieth year could have brought freedom; nor would she
+have accepted it, for the boy she was attending was her life. She had
+nursed him through babyhood, tended him as a child, and could not break
+the service. To her love he could never be a man.
+
+He spoke but once during the meal.
+
+“You remember, O my Amrah,” he said, “the Messala who used to visit me
+here days at a time.”
+
+“I remember him.”
+
+“He went to Rome some years ago, and is now back. I called upon him
+to-day.”
+
+A shudder of disgust seized the lad.
+
+“I knew something had happened,” she said, deeply interested. “I never
+liked the Messala. Tell me all.”
+
+But he fell into musing, and to her repeated inquiries only said, “He
+is much changed, and I shall have nothing more to do with him.”
+
+When Amrah took the platter away, he also went out, and up from the
+terrace to the roof.
+
+The reader is presumed to know somewhat of the uses of the house-top in
+the East. In the matter of customs, climate is a lawgiver everywhere.
+The Syrian summer day drives the seeker of comfort into the darkened
+lewen; night, however, calls him forth early, and the shadows deepening
+over the mountain-sides seem veils dimly covering Circean singers; but
+they are far off, while the roof is close by, and raised above the
+level of the shimmering plain enough for the visitation of cool airs,
+and sufficiently above the trees to allure the stars down closer, down
+at least into brighter shining. So the roof became a resort—became
+playground, sleeping-chamber, boudoir, rendezvous for the family, place
+of music, dance, conversation, reverie, and prayer.
+
+The motive that prompts the decoration, at whatever cost, of interiors
+in colder climes suggested to the Oriental the embellishment of his
+house-top. The parapet ordered by Moses became a potter’s triumph;
+above that, later, arose towers, plain and fantastic; still later,
+kings and princes crowned their roofs with summer-houses of marble and
+gold. When the Babylonian hung gardens in the air, extravagance could
+push the idea no further.
+
+The lad whom we are following walked slowly across the house-top to a
+tower built over the northwest corner of the palace. Had he been a
+stranger, he might have bestowed a glance upon the structure as he drew
+nigh it, and seen all the dimness permitted—a darkened mass, low,
+latticed, pillared, and domed. He entered, passing under a half-raised
+curtain. The interior was all darkness, except that on four sides there
+were arched openings like doorways, through which the sky, lighted with
+stars, was visible. In one of the openings, reclining against a cushion
+from a divan, he saw the figure of a woman, indistinct even in white
+floating drapery. At the sound of his steps upon the floor, the fan in
+her hand stopped, glistening where the starlight struck the jewels with
+which it was sprinkled, and she sat up, and called his name.
+
+“Judah, my son!”
+
+“It is I, mother,” he answered, quickening his approach.
+
+Going to her, he knelt, and she put her arms around him, and with
+kisses pressed him to her bosom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The mother resumed her easy position against the cushion, while the son
+took place on the divan, his head in her lap. Both of them, looking out
+of the opening, could see a stretch of lower house-tops in the
+vicinity, a bank of blue-blackness over in the west which they knew to
+be mountains, and the sky, its shadowy depths brilliant with stars. The
+city was still. Only the winds stirred.
+
+“Amrah tells me something has happened to you,” she said, caressing his
+cheek. “When my Judah was a child, I allowed small things to trouble
+him, but he is now a man. He must not forget”—her voice became very
+soft—“that one day he is to be my hero.”
+
+She spoke in the language almost lost in the land, but which a few—and
+they were always as rich in blood as in possessions—cherished in its
+purity, that they might be more certainly distinguished from Gentile
+peoples—the language in which the loved Rebekah and Rachel sang to
+Benjamin.
+
+The words appeared to set him thinking anew; after a while, however, he
+caught the hand with which she fanned him, and said, “Today, O my
+mother, I have been made to think of many things that never had place
+in my mind before. Tell me, first, what am I to be?”
+
+“Have I not told you? You are to be my hero.”
+
+He could not see her face, yet he knew she was in play. He became more
+serious.
+
+“You are very good, very kind, O my mother. No one will ever love me as
+you do.”
+
+He kissed the hand over and over again.
+
+“I think I understand why you would have me put off the question,” he
+continued. “Thus far my life has belonged to you. How gentle, how sweet
+your control has been! I wish it could last forever. But that may not
+be. It is the Lord’s will that I shall one day become owner of myself—a
+day of separation, and therefore a dreadful day to you. Let us be brave
+and serious. I will be your hero, but you must put me in the way. You
+know the law—every son of Israel must have some occupation. I am not
+exempt, and ask now, shall I tend the herds? or till the soil? or drive
+the saw? or be a clerk or lawyer? What shall I be? Dear, good mother,
+help me to an answer.”
+
+“Gamaliel has been lecturing today,” she said, thoughtfully.
+
+“If so, I did not hear him.”
+
+“Then you have been walking with Simeon, who, they tell me, inherits
+the genius of his family.”
+
+“No, I have not seen him. I have been up on the Market-place, not to
+the Temple. I visited the young Messala.”
+
+A certain change in his voice attracted the mother’s attention. A
+presentiment quickened the beating of her heart; the fan became
+motionless again.
+
+“The Messala!” she said. “What could he say to so trouble you?”
+
+“He is very much changed.”
+
+“You mean he has come back a Roman.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Roman!” she continued, half to herself. “To all the world the word
+means master. How long has he been away?”
+
+“Five years.”
+
+She raised her head, and looked off into the night.
+
+“The airs of the Via Sacra are well enough in the streets of the
+Egyptian and in Babylon; but in Jerusalem—our Jerusalem—the covenant
+abides.”
+
+And, full of the thought, she settled back into her easy place. He was
+first to speak.
+
+“What Messala said, my mother, was sharp enough in itself; but, taken
+with the manner, some of the sayings were intolerable.”
+
+“I think I understand you. Rome, her poets, orators, senators,
+courtiers, are mad with affectation of what they call satire.”
+
+“I suppose all great peoples are proud,” he went on, scarcely noticing
+the interruption; “but the pride of that people is unlike all others;
+in these latter days it is so grown the gods barely escape it.”
+
+“The gods escape!” said the mother, quickly. “More than one Roman has
+accepted worship as his divine right.”
+
+“Well, Messala always had his share of the disagreeable quality. When
+he was a child, I have seen him mock strangers whom even Herod
+condescended to receive with honors; yet he always spared Judea. For
+the first time, in conversation with me to-day, he trifled with our
+customs and God. As you would have had me do, I parted with him
+finally. And now, O my dear mother, I would know with more certainty if
+there be just ground for the Roman’s contempt. In what am I his
+inferior? Is ours a lower order of people? Why should I, even in
+Cæsar’s presence; feel the shrinking of a slave? Tell me especially
+why, if I have the soul, and so choose, I may not hunt the honors of
+the world in all its fields? Why may not I take sword and indulge the
+passion of war? As a poet, why may not I sing of all themes? I can be a
+worker in metals, a keeper of flocks, a merchant, why not an artist
+like the Greek? Tell me, O my mother—and this is the sum of my
+trouble—why may not a son of Israel do all a Roman may?”
+
+The reader will refer these questions back to the conversation in the
+Market-place; the mother, listening with all her faculties awake, from
+something which would have been lost upon one less interested in
+him—from the connections of the subject, the pointing of the questions,
+possibly his accent and tone—was not less swift in making the same
+reference. She sat up, and in a voice quick and sharp as his own,
+replied, “I see, I see! From association Messala, in boyhood, was
+almost a Jew; had he remained here, he might have become a proselyte,
+so much do we all borrow from the influences that ripen our lives; but
+the years in Rome have been too much for him. I do not wonder at the
+change; yet”—her voice fell—“he might have dealt tenderly at least with
+you. It is a hard, cruel nature which in youth can forget its first
+loves.”
+
+Her hand dropped lightly upon his forehead, and the fingers caught in
+his hair and lingered there lovingly, while her eyes sought the highest
+stars in view. Her pride responded to his, not merely in echo, but in
+the unison of perfect sympathy. She would answer him; at the same time,
+not for the world would she have had the answer unsatisfactory: an
+admission of inferiority might weaken his spirit for life. She faltered
+with misgivings of her own powers.
+
+“What you propose, O my Judah, is not a subject for treatment by a
+woman. Let me put its consideration off till to-morrow, and I will have
+the wise Simeon—”
+
+“Do not send me to the Rector,” he said, abruptly.
+
+“I will have him come to us.”
+
+“No, I seek more than information; while he might give me that better
+than you, O my mother, you can do better by giving me what he
+cannot—the resolution which is the soul of a man’s soul.”
+
+She swept the heavens with a rapid glance, trying to compass all the
+meaning of his questions.
+
+“While craving justice for ourselves, it is never wise to be unjust to
+others. To deny valor in the enemy we have conquered is to underrate
+our victory; and if the enemy be strong enough to hold us at bay, much
+more to conquer us”—she hesitated—“self-respect bids us seek some other
+explanation of our misfortunes than accusing him of qualities inferior
+to our own.”
+
+Thus, speaking to herself rather than to him, she began:
+
+“Take heart, O my son. The Messala is nobly descended; his family has
+been illustrious through many generations. In the days of Republican
+Rome—how far back I cannot tell—they were famous, some as soldiers,
+some as civilians. I can recall but one consul of the name; their rank
+was senatorial, and their patronage always sought because they were
+always rich. Yet if to-day your friend boasted of his ancestry, you
+might have shamed him by recounting yours. If he referred to the ages
+through which the line is traceable, or to deeds, rank, or wealth—such
+allusions, except when great occasion demands them, are tokens of small
+minds—if he mentioned them in proof of his superiority, then without
+dread, and standing on each particular, you might have challenged him
+to a comparison of records.”
+
+Taking a moment’s thought, the mother proceeded:
+
+“One of the ideas of fast hold now is that time has much to do with the
+nobility of races and families. A Roman boasting his superiority on
+that account over a son of Israel will always fail when put to the
+proof. The founding of Rome was his beginning; the very best of them
+cannot trace their descent beyond that period; few of them pretend to
+do so; and of such as do, I say not one could make good his claim
+except by resort to tradition. Messala certainly could not. Let us look
+now to ourselves. Could we better?”
+
+A little more light would have enabled him to see the pride that
+diffused itself over her face.
+
+“Let us imagine the Roman putting us to the challenge. I would answer
+him, neither doubting nor boastful.”
+
+Her voice faltered; a tender thought changed the form of the argument.
+
+“Your father, O my Judah, is at rest with his fathers; yet I remember,
+as though it were this evening, the day he and I, with many rejoicing
+friends, went up into the Temple to present you to the Lord. We
+sacrificed the doves, and to the priest I gave your name, which he
+wrote in my presence—‘Judah, son of Ithamar, of the House of Hur.’ The
+name was then carried away, and written in a book of the division of
+records devoted to the saintly family.
+
+“I cannot tell you when the custom of registration in this mode began.
+We know it prevailed before the flight from Egypt. I have heard Hillel
+say Abraham caused the record to be first opened with his own name, and
+the names of his sons, moved by the promises of the Lord which
+separated him and them from all other races, and made them the highest
+and noblest, the very chosen of the earth. The covenant with Jacob was
+of like effect. ‘In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be
+blessed’—so said the angel to Abraham in the place Jehovah-jireh. ‘And
+the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy
+seed’—so the Lord himself said to Jacob asleep at Bethel on the way to
+Haran. Afterwards the wise men looked forward to a just division of the
+land of promise; and, that it might be known in the day of partition
+who were entitled to portions, the Book of Generations was begun. But
+not for that alone. The promise of a blessing to all the earth through
+the patriarch reached far into the future. One name was mentioned in
+connection with the blessing—the benefactor might be the humblest of
+the chosen family, for the Lord our God knows no distinctions of rank
+or riches. So, to make the performance clear to men of the generation
+who were to witness it, and that they might give the glory to whom it
+belonged, the record was required to be kept with absolute certainty.
+Has it been so kept?”
+
+The fan played to and fro, until, becoming impatient, he repeated the
+question, “Is the record absolutely true?”
+
+“Hillel said it was, and of all who have lived no one was so
+well-informed upon the subject. Our people have at times been heedless
+of some parts of the law, but never of this part. The good rector
+himself has followed the Books of Generations through three
+periods—from the promises to the opening of the Temple; thence to the
+Captivity; thence, again, to the present. Once only were the records
+disturbed, and that was at the end of the second period; but when the
+nation returned from the long exile, as a first duty to God, Zerubbabel
+restored the Books, enabling us once more to carry the lines of Jewish
+descent back unbroken fully two thousand years. And now—”
+
+She paused as if to allow the hearer to measure the time comprehended
+in the statement.
+
+“And now,” she continued, “what becomes of the Roman boast of blood
+enriched by ages? By that test, the sons of Israel watching the herds
+on old Rephaim yonder are nobler than the noblest of the Marcii.”
+
+“And I, mother—by the Books, who am I?”
+
+“What I have said thus far, my son, had reference to your question. I
+will answer you. If Messala were here, he might say, as others have
+said, that the exact trace of your lineage stopped when the Assyrian
+took Jerusalem, and razed the Temple, with all its precious stores; but
+you might plead the pious action of Zerubbabel, and retort that all
+verity in Roman genealogy ended when the barbarians from the West took
+Rome, and camped six months upon her desolated site. Did the government
+keep family histories? If so, what became of them in those dreadful
+days? No, no; there is verity in our Books of Generations; and,
+following them back to the Captivity, back to the foundation of the
+first Temple, back to the march from Egypt, we have absolute assurance
+that you are lineally sprung from Hur, the associate of Joshua. In the
+matter of descent sanctified by time, is not the honor perfect? Do you
+care to pursue further? if so, take the Torah, and search the Book of
+Numbers, and of the seventy-two generations after Adam, you can find
+the very progenitor of your house.”
+
+There was silence for a time in the chamber on the roof.
+
+“I thank you, O my mother,” Judah next said, clasping both her hands in
+his; “I thank you with all my heart. I was right in not having the good
+rector called in; he could not have satisfied me more than you have.
+Yet to make a family truly noble, is time alone sufficient?”
+
+“Ah, you forget, you forget; our claim rests not merely upon time; the
+Lord’s preference is our especial glory.”
+
+“You are speaking of the race, and I, mother, of the family—our family.
+In the years since Father Abraham, what have they achieved? What have
+they done? What great things to lift them above the level of their
+fellows?”
+
+She hesitated, thinking she might all this time have mistaken his
+object. The information he sought might have been for more than
+satisfaction of wounded vanity. Youth is but the painted shell within
+which, continually growing, lives that wondrous thing the spirit of
+man, biding its moment of apparition, earlier in some than in others.
+She trembled under a perception that this might be the supreme moment
+come to him; that as children at birth reach out their untried hands
+grasping for shadows, and crying the while, so his spirit might, in
+temporary blindness, be struggling to take hold of its impalpable
+future. They to whom a boy comes asking, Who am I, and what am I to be?
+have need of ever so much care. Each word in answer may prove to the
+after-life what each finger-touch of the artist is to the clay he is
+modelling.
+
+“I have a feeling, O my Judah,” she said, patting his cheek with the
+hand he had been caressing—“I have the feeling that all I have said has
+been in strife with an antagonist more real than imaginary. If Messala
+is the enemy, do not leave me to fight him in the dark. Tell me all he
+said.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The young Israelite proceeded then, and rehearsed his conversation with
+Messala, dwelling with particularity upon the latter’s speeches in
+contempt of the Jews, their customs, and much pent round of life.
+
+Afraid to speak the while, the mother listened, discerning the matter
+plainly. Judah had gone to the palace on the Market-place, allured by
+love of a playmate whom he thought to find exactly as he had been at
+the parting years before; a man met him, and, in place of laughter and
+references to the sports of the past, the man had been full of the
+future, and talked of glory to be won, and of riches and power.
+Unconscious of the effect, the visitor had come away hurt in pride, yet
+touched with a natural ambition; but she, the jealous mother, saw it,
+and, not knowing the turn the aspiration might take, became at once
+Jewish in her fear. What if it lured him away from the patriarchal
+faith? In her view, that consequence was more dreadful than any or all
+others. She could discover but one way to avert it, and she set about
+the task, her native power reinforced by love to such degree that her
+speech took a masculine strength and at times a poet’s fervor.
+
+“There never has been a people,” she began, “who did not think
+themselves at least equal to any other; never a great nation, my son,
+that did not believe itself the very superior. When the Roman looks
+down upon Israel and laughs, he merely repeats the folly of the
+Egyptian, the Assyrian, and the Macedonian; and as the laugh is against
+God, the result will be the same.”
+
+Her voice became firmer.
+
+“There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations;
+hence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about it. A
+people risen, run their race, and die either of themselves or at the
+hands of another, who, succeeding to their power, take possession of
+their place, and upon their monuments write new names; such is history.
+If I were called upon to symbolize God and man in the simplest form, I
+would draw a straight line and a circle, and of the line I would say,
+‘This is God, for he alone moves forever straightforward,’ and of the
+circle, ‘This is man—such is his progress.’ I do not mean that there is
+no difference between the careers of nations; no two are alike. The
+difference, however, is not, as some say, in the extent of the circle
+they describe or the space of earth they cover, but in the sphere of
+their movement, the highest being nearest God.
+
+“To stop here, my son, would be to leave the subject where we began.
+Let us go on. There are signs by which to measure the height of the
+circle each nation runs while in its course. By them let us compare the
+Hebrew and the Roman.
+
+“The simplest of all the signs is the daily life of the people. Of this
+I will only say, Israel has at times forgotten God, while the Roman
+never knew him; consequently comparison is not possible.
+
+“Your friend—or your former friend—charged, if I understood you
+rightly, that we have had no poets, artists, or warriors; by which he
+meant, I suppose, to deny that we have had great men, the next most
+certain of the signs. A just consideration of this charge requires a
+definition at the commencement. A great man, O my boy, is one whose
+life proves him to have been recognized, if not called, by God. A
+Persian was used to punish our recreant fathers, and he carried them
+into captivity; another Persian was selected to restore their children
+to the Holy Land; greater than either of them, however, was the
+Macedonian through whom the desolation of Judea and the Temple was
+avenged. The special distinction of the men was that they were chosen
+by the Lord, each for a divine purpose; and that they were Gentiles
+does not lessen their glory. Do not lose sight of this definition while
+I proceed.
+
+“There is an idea that war is the most noble occupation of men, and
+that the most exalted greatness is the growth of battle-fields. Because
+the world has adopted the idea, be not you deceived. That we must
+worship something is a law which will continue as long as there is
+anything we cannot understand. The prayer of the barbarian is a wail of
+fear addressed to Strength, the only divine quality he can clearly
+conceive; hence his faith in heroes. What is Jove but a Roman hero? The
+Greeks have their great glory because they were the first to set Mind
+above Strength. In Athens the orator and philosopher were more revered
+than the warrior. The charioteer and the swiftest runner are still
+idols of the arena; yet the immortelles are reserved for the sweetest
+singer. The birthplace of one poet was contested by seven cities. But
+was the Hellene the first to deny the old barbaric faith? No. My son,
+that glory is ours; against brutalism our fathers erected God; in our
+worship, the wail of fear gave place to the Hosanna and the Psalm. So
+the Hebrew and the Greek would have carried all humanity forward and
+upward. But, alas! the government of the world presumes war as an
+eternal condition; wherefore, over Mind and above God, the Roman has
+enthroned his Cæsar, the absorbent of all attainable power, the
+prohibition of any other greatness.
+
+“The sway of the Greek was a flowering time for genius. In return for
+the liberty it then enjoyed, what a company of thinkers the Mind led
+forth? There was a glory for every excellence, and a perfection so
+absolute that in everything but war even the Roman has stooped to
+imitation. A Greek is now the model of the orators in the Forum;
+listen, and in every Roman song you will hear the rhythm of the Greek;
+if a Roman opens his mouth speaking wisely of moralities, or
+abstractions, or of the mysteries of nature, he is either a plagiarist
+or the disciple of some school which had a Greek for its founder. In
+nothing but war, I say again, has Rome a claim to originality. Her
+games and spectacles are Greek inventions, dashed with blood to gratify
+the ferocity of her rabble; her religion, if such it may be called, is
+made up of contributions from the faiths of all other peoples; her most
+venerated gods are from Olympus—even her Mars, and, for that matter,
+the Jove she much magnifies. So it happens, O my son, that of the whole
+world our Israel alone can dispute the superiority of the Greek, and
+with him contest the palm of original genius.
+
+“To the excellences of other peoples the egotism of a Roman is a
+blindfold, impenetrable as his breastplate. Oh, the ruthless robbers!
+Under their trampling the earth trembles like a floor beaten with
+flails. Along with the rest we are fallen—alas that I should say it to
+you, my son! They have our highest places, and the holiest, and the end
+no man can tell; but this I know—they may reduce Judea as an almond
+broken with hammers, and devour Jerusalem, which is the oil and
+sweetness thereof; yet the glory of the men of Israel will remain a
+light in the heavens overhead out of reach: for their history is the
+history of God, who wrote with their hands, spake with their tongues,
+and was himself in all the good they did, even the least; who dwelt
+with them, a Lawgiver on Sinai, a Guide in the wilderness, in war a
+Captain, in government a King; who once and again pushed back the
+curtains of the pavilion which is his resting-place, intolerably
+bright, and, as a man speaking to men, showed them the right, and the
+way to happiness, and how they should live, and made them promises
+binding the strength of his Almightiness with covenants sworn to
+everlastingly. O my son, could it be that they with whom Jehovah thus
+dwelt, an awful familiar, derived nothing from him?—that in their lives
+and deeds the common human qualities should not in some degree have
+been mixed and colored with the divine? that their genius should not
+have in it, even after the lapse of ages, some little of heaven?”
+
+For a time the rustling of the fan was all the sound heard in the
+chamber.
+
+“In the sense which limits art to sculpture and painting, it is true,”
+she next said, “Israel has had no artists.”
+
+The admission was made regretfully, for it must be remembered she was a
+Sadducee, whose faith, unlike that of the Pharisees, permitted a love
+of the beautiful in every form, and without reference to its origin.
+
+“Still he who would do justice,” she proceeded, “will not forget that
+the cunning of our hands was bound by the prohibition, ‘Thou shalt not
+make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything;’ which
+the Sopherim wickedly extended beyond its purpose and time. Nor should
+it be forgotten that long before Dædalus appeared in Attica and with
+his wooden statues so transformed sculpture as to make possible the
+schools of Corinth and Ægina, and their ultimate triumphs the Poecile
+and Capitolium—long before the age of Dædalus, I say, two Israelites,
+Bezaleel and Aholiab, the master-builders of the first tabernacle, said
+to have been skilled ‘in all manner of workmanship,’ wrought the
+cherubim of the mercy-seat above the ark. Of gold beaten, not chiseled,
+were they; and they were statues in form both human and divine. ‘And
+they shall stretch forth their wings on high, .... and their faces
+shall look one to another.’ Who will say they were not beautiful? or
+that they were not the first statues?”
+
+“Oh, I see now why the Greek outstripped us,” said Judah, intensely
+interested. “And the ark; accursed be the Babylonians who destroyed
+it!”
+
+“Nay, Judah, be of faith. It was not destroyed, only lost, hidden away
+too safely in some cavern of the mountains. One day—Hillel and Shammai
+both say so—one day, in the Lord’s good time, it will be found and
+brought forth, and Israel dance before it, singing as of old. And they
+who look upon the faces of the cherubim then, though they have seen the
+face of the ivory Minerva, will be ready to kiss the hand of the Jew
+from love of his genius, asleep through all the thousands of years.”
+
+The mother, in her eagerness, had risen into something like the
+rapidity and vehemence of a speech-maker; but now, to recover herself,
+or to pick up the thread of her thought, she rested awhile.
+
+“You are so good, my mother,” he said, in a grateful way. “And I will
+never be done saying so. Shammai could not have talked better, nor
+Hillel. I am a true son of Israel again.”
+
+“Flatterer!” she said. “You do not know that I am but repeating what I
+heard Hillel say in an argument he had one day in my presence with a
+sophist from Rome.”
+
+“Well, the hearty words are yours.”
+
+Directly all her earnestness returned.
+
+“Where was I? Oh yes, I was claiming for our Hebrew fathers the first
+statues. The trick of the sculptor, Judah, is not all there is of art,
+any more than art is all there is of greatness. I always think of great
+men marching down the centuries in groups and goodly companies,
+separable according to nationalities; here the Indian, there the
+Egyptian, yonder the Assyrian; above them the music of trumpets and the
+beauty of banners; and on their right hand and left, as reverent
+spectators, the generations from the beginning, numberless. As they go,
+I think of the Greek, saying, ‘Lo! The Hellene leads the way.’ Then the
+Roman replies, ‘Silence! what was your place is ours now; we have left
+you behind as dust trodden on.’ And all the time, from the far front
+back over the line of march, as well as forward into the farthest
+future, streams a light of which the wranglers know nothing, except
+that it is forever leading them on—the Light of Revelation! Who are
+they that carry it? Ah, the old Judean blood! How it leaps at the
+thought! By the light we know them. Thrice blessed, O our fathers,
+servants of God, keepers of the covenants! Ye are the leaders of men,
+the living and the dead. The front is thine; and though every Roman
+were a Cæsar, ye shall not lose it!”
+
+Judah was deeply stirred.
+
+“Do not stop, I pray you,” he cried. “You give me to hear the sound of
+timbrels. I wait for Miriam and the women who went after her dancing
+and singing.”
+
+She caught his feeling, and, with ready wit, wove it into her speech.
+
+“Very well, my son. If you can hear the timbrel of the prophetess, you
+can do what I was about to ask; you can use your fancy, and stand with
+me, as if by the wayside, while the chosen of Israel pass us at the
+head of the procession. Now they come—the patriarchs first; next the
+fathers of the tribes. I almost hear the bells of their camels and the
+lowing of their herds. Who is he that walks alone between the
+companies? An old man, yet his eye is not dim, nor his natural force
+abated. He knew the Lord face to face! Warrior, poet, orator, lawgiver,
+prophet, his greatness is as the sun at morning, its flood of splendor
+quenching all other lights, even that of the first and noblest of the
+Cæsars. After him the judges. And then the kings—the son of Jesse, a
+hero in war, and a singer of songs eternal as that of the sea; and his
+son, who, passing all other kings in riches and wisdom, and while
+making the Desert habitable, and in its waste places planting cities,
+forgot not Jerusalem which the Lord had chosen for his seat on earth.
+Bend lower, my son! These that come next are the first of their kind,
+and the last. Their faces are raised, as if they heard a voice in the
+sky and were listening. Their lives were full of sorrows. Their
+garments smell of tombs and caverns. Hearken to a woman among
+them—‘Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously!’ Nay, put
+your forehead in the dust before them! They were tongues of God, his
+servants, who looked through heaven, and, seeing all the future, wrote
+what they saw, and left the writing to be proven by time. Kings turned
+pale as they approached them, and nations trembled at the sound of
+their voices. The elements waited upon them. In their hands they
+carried every bounty and every plague. See the Tishbite and his servant
+Elisha! See the sad son of Hilkiah, and him, the seer of visions, by
+the river of Chebar! And of the three children of Judah who refused the
+image of the Babylonian, lo! that one who, in the feast to the thousand
+lords, so confounded the astrologers. And yonder—O my son, kiss the
+dust again!—yonder the gentle son of Amoz, from whom the world has its
+promise of the Messiah to come!”
+
+In this passage the fan had been kept in rapid play; it stopped now,
+and her voice sank low.
+
+“You are tired,” she said.
+
+“No,” he replied, “I was listening to a new song of Israel.”
+
+The mother was still intent upon her purpose, and passed the pleasant
+speech.
+
+“In such light as I could, my Judah, I have set our great men before
+you—patriarchs, legislators, warriors, singers, prophets. Turn we to
+the best of Rome. Against Moses place Cæsar, and Tarquin against
+David; Sylla against either of the Maccabees; the best of the consuls
+against the judges; Augustus against Solomon, and you are done:
+comparison ends there. But think then of the prophets—greatest of the
+great.”
+
+She laughed scornfully.
+
+“Pardon me. I was thinking of the soothsayer who warned Caius Julius
+against the Ides of March, and fancied him looking for the omens of
+evil which his master despised in the entrails of a chicken. From that
+picture turn to Elijah sitting on the hill-top on the way to Samaria,
+amid the smoking bodies of the captains and their fifties, warning the
+son of Ahab of the wrath of our God. Finally, O my Judah—if such speech
+be reverent—how shall we judge Jehovah and Jupiter unless it be by what
+their servants have done in their names? And as for what you shall do—”
+
+She spoke the latter words slowly, and with a tremulous utterance.
+
+“As for what you shall do, my boy—serve the Lord, the Lord God of
+Israel, not Rome. For a child of Abraham there is no glory except in
+the Lord’s ways, and in them there is much glory.”
+
+“I may be a soldier then?” Judah asked.
+
+“Why not? Did not Moses call God a man of war?”
+
+There was then a long silence in the summer chamber.
+
+“You have my permission,” she said, finally; “if only you serve the
+Lord instead of Cæsar.”
+
+He was content with the condition, and by-and-by fell asleep. She arose
+then, and put the cushion under his head, and, throwing a shawl over
+him and kissing him tenderly, went away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The good man, like the bad, must die; but, remembering the lesson of
+our faith, we say of him and the event, “No matter, he will open his
+eyes in heaven.” Nearest this in life is the waking from healthful
+sleep to a quick consciousness of happy sights and sounds.
+
+When Judah awoke, the sun was up over the mountains; the pigeons were
+abroad in flocks, filling the air with the gleams of their white wings;
+and off southeast he beheld the Temple, an apparition of gold in the
+blue of the sky. These, however, were familiar objects, and they
+received but a glance; upon the edge of the divan, close by him, a girl
+scarcely fifteen sat singing to the accompaniment of a nebel, which she
+rested upon her knee, and touched gracefully. To her he turned
+listening; and this was what she sang:
+
+THE SONG.
+
+
+“Wake not, but hear me, love!
+     Adrift, adrift on slumber’s sea,
+     Thy spirit call to list to me.
+Wake not, but hear me, love!
+     A gift from Sleep, the restful king,
+     All happy, happy dreams I bring.
+
+
+“Wake not, but hear me, love!
+     Of all the world of dreams ’tis thine
+     This once to choose the most divine.
+So choose, and sleep, my love!
+     But ne’er again in choice be free,
+     Unless, unless—thou dream’st of me.”
+
+
+She put the instrument down, and, resting her hands in her lap, waited
+for him to speak. And as it has become necessary to tell somewhat of
+her, we will avail ourselves of the chance, and add such particulars of
+the family into whose privacy we are brought as the reader may wish to
+know.
+
+The favors of Herod had left surviving him many persons of vast estate.
+Where this fortune was joined to undoubted lineal descent from some
+famous son of one of the tribes, especially Judah, the happy individual
+was accounted a Prince of Jerusalem—a distinction which sufficed to
+bring him the homage of his less favored countrymen, and the respect,
+if nothing more, of the Gentiles with whom business and social
+circumstance brought him into dealing. Of this class none had won in
+private or public life a higher regard than the father of the lad whom
+we have been following. With a remembrance of his nationality which
+never failed him, he had yet been true to the king, and served him
+faithfully at home and abroad. Some offices had taken him to Rome,
+where his conduct attracted the notice of Augustus, who strove without
+reserve to engage his friendship. In his house, accordingly, were many
+presents, such as had gratified the vanity of kings—purple togas, ivory
+chairs, golden pateroe—chiefly valuable on account of the imperial hand
+which had honorably conferred them. Such a man could not fail to be
+rich; yet his wealth was not altogether the largess of royal patrons.
+He had welcomed the law that bound him to some pursuit; and, instead of
+one, he entered into many. Of the herdsmen watching flocks on the
+plains and hill-sides, far as old Lebanon, numbers reported to him as
+their employer; in the cities by the sea, and in those inland, he
+founded houses of traffic; his ships brought him silver from Spain,
+whose mines were then the richest known; while his caravans came twice
+a year from the East, laden with silks and spices. In faith he was a
+Hebrew, observant of the law and every essential rite; his place in the
+synagogue and Temple knew him well; he was thoroughly learned in the
+Scriptures; he delighted in the society of the college-masters, and
+carried his reverence for Hillel almost to the point of worship. Yet he
+was in no sense a Separatist; his hospitality took in strangers from
+every land; the carping Pharisees even accused him of having more than
+once entertained Samaritans at his table. Had he been a Gentile, and
+lived, the world might have heard of him as the rival of Herodes
+Atticus: as it was, he perished at sea some ten years before this
+second period of our story, in the prime of life, and lamented
+everywhere in Judea. We are already acquainted with two members of his
+family—his widow and son; the only other was a daughter—she whom we
+have seen singing to her brother.
+
+Tirzah was her name, and as the two looked at each other, their
+resemblance was plain. Her features had the regularity of his, and were
+of the same Jewish type; they had also the charm of childish innocency
+of expression. Home-life and its trustful love permitted the negligent
+attire in which she appeared. A chemise buttoned upon the right
+shoulder, and passing loosely over the breast and back and under the
+left arm, but half concealed her person above the waist, while it left
+the arms entirely nude. A girdle caught the folds of the garment,
+marking the commencement of the skirt. The coiffure was very simple and
+becoming—a silken cap, Tyrian-dyed; and over that a striped scarf of
+the same material, beautifully embroidered, and wound about in thin
+folds so as to show the shape of the head without enlarging it; the
+whole finished by a tassel dropping from the crown point of the cap.
+She had rings, ear and finger; anklets and bracelets, all of gold; and
+around her neck there was a collar of gold, curiously garnished with a
+network of delicate chains, to which were pendants of pearl. The edges
+of her eyelids were painted, and the tips of her fingers stained. Her
+hair fell in two long plaits down her back. A curled lock rested upon
+each cheek in front of the ear. Altogether it would have been
+impossible to deny her grace, refinement, and beauty.
+
+“Very pretty, my Tirzah, very pretty!” he said, with animation.
+
+“The song?” she asked.
+
+“Yes—and the singer, too. It has the conceit of a Greek. Where did you
+get it?”
+
+“You remember the Greek who sang in the theatre last month? They said
+he used to be a singer at the court for Herod and his sister Salome. He
+came out just after an exhibition of wrestlers, when the house was full
+of noise. At his first note everything became so quiet that I heard
+every word. I got the song from him.”
+
+“But he sang in Greek.”
+
+“And I in Hebrew.”
+
+“Ah, yes. I am proud of my little sister. Have you another as good?”
+
+“Very many. But let them go now. Amrah sent me to tell you she will
+bring you your breakfast, and that you need not come down. She should
+be here by this time. She thinks you sick—that a dreadful accident
+happened you yesterday. What was it? Tell me, and I will help Amrah
+doctor you. She knows the cures of the Egyptians, who were always a
+stupid set; but I have a great many recipes of the Arabs who—”
+
+“Are even more stupid than the Egyptians,” he said, shaking his head.
+
+“Do you think so? Very well, then,” she replied, almost without pause,
+and putting her hands to her left ear. “We will have nothing to do with
+any of them. I have here what is much surer and better—the amulet which
+was given to some of our people—I cannot tell when, it was so far
+back—by a Persian magician. See, the inscription is almost worn out.”
+
+She offered him the earring, which he took, looked at, and handed back,
+laughing.
+
+“If I were dying, Tirzah, I could not use the charm. It is a relic of
+idolatry, forbidden every believing son and daughter of Abraham. Take
+it, but do not wear it any more.”
+
+“Forbidden! Not so,” she said. “Our father’s mother wore it I do not
+know how many Sabbaths in her life. It has cured I do not know how many
+people—more than three anyhow. It is approved—look, here is the mark of
+the rabbis.”
+
+“I have no faith in amulets.”
+
+She raised her eyes to his in astonishment.
+
+“What would Amrah say?”
+
+“Amrah’s father and mother tended sakiyeh for a garden on the Nile.”
+
+“But Gamaliel!”
+
+“He says they are godless inventions of unbelievers and Shechemites.”
+
+Tirzah looked at the ring doubtfully.
+
+“What shall I do with it?”
+
+“Wear it, my little sister. It becomes you—it helps make you beautiful,
+though I think you that without help.”
+
+Satisfied, she returned the amulet to her ear just as Amrah entered the
+summer chamber, bearing a platter, with wash-bowl, water, and napkins.
+
+Not being a Pharisee, the ablution was short and simple with Judah. The
+servant then went out, leaving Tirzah to dress his hair. When a lock
+was disposed to her satisfaction, she would unloose the small metallic
+mirror which, as was the fashion among her fair countrywomen, she wore
+at her girdle, and gave it to him, that he might see the triumph, and
+how handsome it made him. Meanwhile they kept up their conversation.
+
+“What do you think, Tirzah?—I am going away.”
+
+She dropped her hands with amazement.
+
+“Going away! When? Where? For what?”
+
+He laughed.
+
+“Three questions, all in a breath! What a body you are!” Next instant
+he became serious. “You know the law requires me to follow some
+occupation. Our good father set me an example. Even you would despise
+me if I spent in idleness the results of his industry and knowledge. I
+am going to Rome.”
+
+“Oh, I will go with you.”
+
+“You must stay with mother. If both of us leave her she will die.”
+
+The brightness faded from her face.
+
+“Ah, yes, yes! But—must you go? Here in Jerusalem you can learn all
+that is needed to be a merchant—if that is what you are thinking of.”
+
+“But that is not what I am thinking of. The law does not require the
+son to be what the father was.”
+
+“What else can you be?”
+
+“A soldier,” he replied, with a certain pride of voice.
+
+Tears came into her eyes.
+
+“You will be killed.”
+
+“If God’s will, be it so. But, Tirzah, the soldiers are not all
+killed.”
+
+She threw her arms around his neck, as if to hold him back.
+
+“We are so happy! Stay at home, my brother.”
+
+“Home cannot always be what it is. You yourself will be going away
+before long.”
+
+“Never!”
+
+He smiled at her earnestness.
+
+“A prince of Judah, or some other of one of the tribes, will come soon
+and claim my Tirzah, and ride away with her, to be the light of another
+house. What will then become of me?”
+
+She answered with sobs.
+
+“War is a trade,” he continued, more soberly. “To learn it thoroughly,
+one must go to school, and there is no school like a Roman camp.”
+
+“You would not fight for Rome?” she asked, holding her breath.
+
+“And you—even you hate her. The whole world hates her. In that, O
+Tirzah, find the reason of the answer I give you— Yes, I will fight for
+her, if, in return, she will teach me how one day to fight against
+her.”
+
+“When will you go?”
+
+Amrah’s steps were then heard returning.
+
+“Hist!” he said. “Do not let her know of what I am thinking.”
+
+The faithful slave came in with breakfast, and placed the waiter
+holding it upon a stool before them; then, with white napkins upon her
+arm, she remained to serve them. They dipped their fingers in a bowl of
+water, and were rinsing them, when a noise arrested their attention.
+They listened, and distinguished martial music in the street on the
+north side of the house.
+
+“Soldiers from the Praetorium! I must see them,” he cried, springing
+from the divan, and running out.
+
+In a moment more he was leaning over the parapet of tiles which guarded
+the roof at the extreme northeast corner, so absorbed that he did not
+notice Tirzah by his side, resting one hand upon his shoulder.
+
+Their position—the roof being the highest one in the locality—commanded
+the house-tops eastward as far as the huge irregular Tower of Antonia,
+which has been already mentioned as a citadel for the garrison and
+military headquarters for the governor. The street, not more than ten
+feet wide, was spanned here and there by bridges, open and covered,
+which, like the roofs along the way, were beginning to be occupied by
+men, women, and children, called out by the music. The word is used,
+though it is hardly fitting; what the people heard when they came forth
+was rather an uproar of trumpets and the shriller _litui_ so delightful
+to the soldiers.
+
+The array after a while came into view of the two upon the house of the
+Hurs. First, a vanguard of the light-armed—mostly slingers and
+bowmen—marching with wide intervals between their ranks and files; next
+a body of heavy-armed infantry, bearing large shields, and hastoe
+longoe, or spears identical with those used in the duels before Ilium;
+then the musicians; and then an officer riding alone, but followed
+closely by a guard of cavalry; after them again, a column of infantry
+also heavy-armed, which, moving in close order, crowded the streets
+from wall to wall, and appeared to be without end.
+
+The brawny limbs of the men; the cadenced motion from right to left of
+the shields; the sparkle of scales, buckles, and breastplates and
+helms, all perfectly burnished; the plumes nodding above the tall
+crests; the sway of ensigns and iron-shod spears; the bold, confident
+step, exactly timed and measured; the demeanor, so grave, yet so
+watchful; the machine-like unity of the whole moving mass—made an
+impression upon Judah, but as something felt rather than seen. Two
+objects fixed his attention—the eagle of the legion first—a gilded
+effigy perched on a tall shaft, with wings outspread until they met
+above its head. He knew that, when brought from its chamber in the
+Tower, it had been received with divine honors.
+
+The officer riding alone in the midst of the column was the other
+attraction. His head was bare; otherwise he was in full armor. At his
+left hip he wore a short sword; in his hand, however, he carried a
+truncheon, which looked like a roll of white paper. He sat upon a
+purple cloth instead of a saddle, and that, and a bridle with a
+forestall of gold and reins of yellow silk broadly fringed at the lower
+edge, completed the housings of the horse.
+
+While the man was yet in the distance, Judah observed that his presence
+was sufficient to throw the people looking at him into angry
+excitement. They would lean over the parapets or stand boldly out, and
+shake their fists at him; they followed him with loud cries, and spit
+at him as he passed under the bridges; the women even flung their
+sandals, sometimes with such good effect as to hit him. When he was
+nearer, the yells became distinguishable—“Robber, tyrant, dog of a
+Roman! Away with Ishmael! Give us back our Hannas!”
+
+When quite near, Judah could see that, as was but natural, the man did
+not share the indifference so superbly shown by the soldiers; his face
+was dark and sullen, and the glances he occasionally cast at his
+persecutors were full of menace; the very timid shrank from them.
+
+Now the lad had heard of the custom, borrowed from a habit of the first
+Cæsar, by which chief commanders, to indicate their rank, appeared in
+public with only a laurel vine upon their heads. By that sign he knew
+this officer—VALERIUS GRATUS, THE NEW PROCURATOR OF JUDEA!
+
+To say truth now, the Roman under the unprovoked storm had the young
+Jew’s sympathy; so that when he reached the corner of the house, the
+latter leaned yet farther over the parapet to see him go by, and in the
+act rested a hand upon a tile which had been a long time cracked and
+allowed to go unnoticed. The pressure was strong enough to displace the
+outer piece, which started to fall. A thrill of horror shot through the
+youth. He reached out to catch the missile. In appearance the motion
+was exactly that of one pitching something from him. The effort
+failed—nay, it served to push the descending fragment farther out over
+the wall. He shouted with all his might. The soldiers of the guard
+looked up; so did the great man, and that moment the missile struck
+him, and he fell from his seat as dead.
+
+The cohort halted; the guards leaped from their horses, and hastened to
+cover the chief with their shields. On the other hand, the people who
+witnessed the affair, never doubting that the blow had been purposely
+dealt, cheered the lad as he yet stooped in full view over the parapet,
+transfixed by what he beheld, and by anticipation of the consequences
+flashed all too plainly upon him.
+
+A mischievous spirit flew with incredible speed from roof to roof along
+the line of march, seizing the people, and urging them all alike. They
+laid hands upon the parapets and tore up the tiling and the sunburnt
+mud of which the house-tops were for the most part made, and with blind
+fury began to fling them upon the legionaries halted below. A battle
+then ensued. Discipline, of course, prevailed. The struggle, the
+slaughter, the skill of one side, the desperation of the other, are
+alike unnecessary to our story. Let us look rather to the wretched
+author of it all.
+
+He arose from the parapet, his face very pale.
+
+“O Tirzah, Tirzah! What will become of us?”
+
+She had not seen the occurrence below, but was listening to the
+shouting and watching the mad activity of the people in view on the
+houses. Something terrible was going on, she knew; but what it was, or
+the cause, or that she or any of those dear to her were in danger, she
+did not know.
+
+“What has happened? What does it all mean?” she asked, in sudden alarm.
+
+“I have killed the Roman governor. The tile fell upon him.”
+
+An unseen hand appeared to sprinkle her face with the dust of ashes—it
+grew white so instantly. She put her arm around him, and looked
+wistfully, but without a word, into his eyes. His fears had passed to
+her, and the sight of them gave him strength.
+
+“I did not do it purposely, Tirzah—it was an accident,” he said, more
+calmly.
+
+“What will they do?” she asked.
+
+He looked off over the tumult momentarily deepening in the street and
+on the roofs, and thought of the sullen countenance of Gratus. If he
+were not dead, where would his vengeance stop? And if he were dead, to
+what height of fury would not the violence of the people lash the
+legionaries? To evade an answer, he peered over the parapet again, just
+as the guard were assisting the Roman to remount his horse.
+
+“He lives, he lives, Tirzah! Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers!”
+
+With that outcry, and a brightened countenance, he drew back and
+replied to her question.
+
+“Be not afraid, Tirzah. I will explain how it happened, and they will
+remember our father and his services, and not hurt us.”
+
+He was leading her to the summer-house, when the roof jarred under
+their feet, and a crash of strong timbers being burst away, followed by
+a cry of surprise and agony, arose apparently from the court-yard
+below. He stopped and listened. The cry was repeated; then came a rush
+of many feet, and voices lifted in rage blent with voices in prayer;
+and then the screams of women in mortal terror. The soldiers had beaten
+in the north gate, and were in possession of the house. The terrible
+sense of being hunted smote him. His first impulse was to fly; but
+where? Nothing but wings would serve him. Tirzah, her eyes wild with
+fear, caught his arm.
+
+“O Judah, what does it mean?”
+
+The servants were being butchered—and his mother! Was not one of the
+voices he heard hers? With all the will left him, he said, “Stay here,
+and wait for me, Tirzah. I will go down and see what is the matter, and
+come back to you.”
+
+His voice was not steady as he wished. She clung closer to him.
+
+Clearer, shriller, no longer a fancy, his mother’s cry arose. He
+hesitated no longer.
+
+“Come, then, let us go.”
+
+The terrace or gallery at the foot of the steps was crowded with
+soldiers. Other soldiers with drawn swords ran in and out of the
+chambers. At one place a number of women on their knees clung to each
+other or prayed for mercy. Apart from them, one with torn garments, and
+long hair streaming over her face, struggled to tear loose from a man
+all whose strength was tasked to keep his hold. Her cries were
+shrillest of all; cutting through the clamor, they had risen
+distinguishably to the roof. To her Judah sprang—his steps were long
+and swift, almost a winged flight—“Mother, mother!” he shouted. She
+stretched her hands towards him; but when almost touching them he was
+seized and forced aside. Then he heard some one say, speaking loudly,
+
+“That is he!”
+
+Judah looked, and saw—Messala.
+
+“What, the assassin—that?” said a tall man, in legionary armor of
+beautiful finish. “Why, he is but a boy.”
+
+“Gods!” replied Messala, not forgetting his drawl. “A new philosophy!
+What would Seneca say to the proposition that a man must be old before
+he can hate enough to kill? You have him; and that is his mother;
+yonder his sister. You have the whole family.”
+
+For love of them, Judah forgot his quarrel.
+
+“Help them, O my Messala! Remember our childhood and help them.
+I—Judah—pray you.”
+
+Messala affected not to hear.
+
+“I cannot be of further use to you,” he said to the officer. “There is
+richer entertainment in the street. Down Eros, up Mars!”
+
+With the last words he disappeared. Judah understood him, and, in the
+bitterness of his soul, prayed to Heaven.
+
+“In the hour of thy vengeance, O Lord,” he said, “be mine the hand to
+put it upon him!”
+
+By great exertion, he drew nearer the officer.
+
+“O sir, the woman you hear is my mother. Spare her, spare my sister
+yonder. God is just, he will give you mercy for mercy.”
+
+The man appeared to be moved.
+
+“To the Tower with the women!” he shouted, “but do them no harm. I will
+demand them of you.” Then to those holding Judah, he said, “Get cords,
+and bind his hands, and take him to the street. His punishment is
+reserved.”
+
+The mother was carried away. The little Tirzah, in her home attire,
+stupefied with fear, went passively with her keepers. Judah gave each
+of them a last look, and covered his face with his hands, as if to
+possess himself of the scene fadelessly. He may have shed tears, though
+no one saw them.
+
+There took place in him then what may be justly called the wonder of
+life. The thoughtful reader of these pages has ere this discerned
+enough to know that the young Jew in disposition was gentle even to
+womanliness—a result that seldom fails the habit of loving and being
+loved. The circumstances through which he had come had made no call
+upon the harsher elements of his nature, if such he had. At times he
+had felt the stir and impulses of ambition, but they had been like the
+formless dreams of a child walking by the sea and gazing at the coming
+and going of stately ships. But now, if we can imagine an idol,
+sensible of the worship it was accustomed to, dashed suddenly from its
+altar, and lying amidst the wreck of its little world of love, an idea
+may be had of what had befallen the young Ben-Hur, and of its effect
+upon his being. Yet there was no sign, nothing to indicate that he had
+undergone a change, except that when he raised his head, and held his
+arms out to be bound, the bend of the Cupid’s bow had vanished from his
+lips. In that instant he had put off childhood and become a man.
+
+A trumpet sounded in the court-yard. With the cessation of the call,
+the gallery was cleared of the soldiery; many of whom, as they dared
+not appear in the ranks with visible plunder in their hands, flung what
+they had upon the floor, until it was strewn with articles of richest
+virtu. When Judah descended, the formation was complete, and the
+officer waiting to see his last order executed.
+
+The mother, daughter, and entire household were led out of the north
+gate, the ruins of which choked the passageway. The cries of the
+domestics, some of whom had been born in the house, were most pitiable.
+When, finally, the horses and all the dumb tenantry of the place were
+driven past him, Judah began to comprehend the scope of the
+procurator’s vengeance. The very structure was devoted. Far as the
+order was possible of execution, nothing living was to be left within
+its walls. If in Judea there were others desperate enough to think of
+assassinating a Roman governor, the story of what befell the princely
+family of Hur would be a warning to them, while the ruin of the
+habitation would keep the story alive.
+
+The officer waited outside while a detail of men temporarily restored
+the gate.
+
+In the street the fighting had almost ceased. Upon the houses here and
+there clouds of dust told where the struggle was yet prolonged. The
+cohort was, for the most part, standing at rest, its splendor, like its
+ranks, in nowise diminished. Borne past the point of care for himself,
+Judah had heart for nothing in view but the prisoners, among whom he
+looked in vain for his mother and Tirzah.
+
+Suddenly, from the earth where she had been lying, a woman arose and
+started swiftly back to the gate. Some of the guards reached out to
+seize her, and a great shout followed their failure. She ran to Judah,
+and, dropping down, clasped his knees, the coarse black hair powdered
+with dust veiling her eyes.
+
+“O Amrah, good Amrah,” he said to her, “God help you; I cannot.”
+
+She could not speak.
+
+He bent down, and whispered, “Live, Amrah, for Tirzah and my mother.
+They will come back, and—”
+
+A soldier drew her away; whereupon she sprang up and rushed through the
+gateway and passage into the vacant court-yard.
+
+“Let her go,” the officer shouted. “We will seal the house, and she
+will starve.”
+
+The men resumed their work, and, when it was finished there, passed
+round to the west side. That gate was also secured, after which the
+palace of the Hurs was lost to use.
+
+The cohort at length marched back to the Tower, where the procurator
+stayed to recover from his hurts and dispose of his prisoners. On the
+tenth day following, he visited the Market-place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Next day a detachment of legionaries went to the desolated palace, and,
+closing the gates permanently, plastered the corners with wax, and at
+the sides nailed a notice in Latin:
+
+“THIS IS THE PROPERTY OF THE EMPEROR.”
+
+In the haughty Roman idea, the sententious announcement was thought
+sufficient for the purpose—and it was.
+
+The day after that again, about noon, a decurion with his command of
+ten horsemen approached Nazareth from the south—that is, from the
+direction of Jerusalem. The place was then a straggling village,
+perched on a hill-side, and so insignificant that its one street was
+little more than a path well beaten by the coming and going of flocks
+and herds. The great plain of Esdraelon crept close to it on the south,
+and from the height on the west a view could be had of the shores of
+the Mediterranean, the region beyond the Jordan, and Hermon. The valley
+below, and the country on every side, were given to gardens, vineyards,
+orchards, and pasturage. Groves of palm-trees Orientalized the
+landscape. The houses, in irregular assemblage, were of the humbler
+class—square, one-story, flat-roofed, and covered with bright-green
+vines. The drought that had burned the hills of Judea to a crisp, brown
+and lifeless, stopped at the boundary-line of Galilee.
+
+A trumpet, sounded when the cavalcade drew near the village, had a
+magical effect upon the inhabitants. The gates and front doors cast
+forth groups eager to be the first to catch the meaning of a visitation
+so unusual.
+
+Nazareth, it must be remembered, was not only aside from any great
+highway, but within the sway of Judas of Gamala; wherefore it should
+not be hard to imagine the feelings with which the legionaries were
+received. But when they were up and traversing the street, the duty
+that occupied them became apparent, and then fear and hatred were lost
+in curiosity, under the impulse of which the people, knowing there must
+be a halt at the well in the northeastern part of the town, quit their
+gates and doors, and closed in after the procession.
+
+A prisoner whom the horsemen were guarding was the object of curiosity.
+He was afoot, bareheaded, half naked, his hands bound behind him. A
+thong fixed to his wrists was looped over the neck of a horse. The dust
+went with the party when in movement, wrapping him in yellow fog,
+sometimes in a dense cloud. He drooped forward, footsore and faint. The
+villagers could see he was young.
+
+At the well the decurion halted, and, with most of the men, dismounted.
+The prisoner sank down in the dust of the road, stupefied, and asking
+nothing: apparently he was in the last stage of exhaustion. Seeing,
+when they came near, that he was but a boy, the villagers would have
+helped him had they dared.
+
+In the midst of their perplexity, and while the pitchers were passing
+among the soldiers, a man was descried coming down the road from
+Sepphoris. At sight of him a woman cried out, “Look! Yonder comes the
+carpenter. Now we will hear something.”
+
+The person spoken of was quite venerable in appearance. Thin white
+locks fell below the edge of his full turban, and a mass of still
+whiter beard flowed down the front of his coarse gray gown. He came
+slowly, for, in addition to his age, he carried some tools—an axe, a
+saw, and a drawing-knife, all very rude and heavy—and had evidently
+travelled some distance without rest.
+
+He stopped close by to survey the assemblage.
+
+“O Rabbi, good Rabbi Joseph!” cried a woman, running to him. “Here is a
+prisoner; come ask the soldiers about him, that we may know who he is,
+and what he has done, and what they are going to do with him.”
+
+The rabbi’s face remained stolid; he glanced at the prisoner, however,
+and presently went to the officer.
+
+“The peace of the Lord be with you!” he said, with unbending gravity.
+
+“And that of the gods with you,” the decurion replied.
+
+“Are you from Jerusalem?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Your prisoner is young.”
+
+“In years, yes.”
+
+“May I ask what he has done?”
+
+“He is an assassin.”
+
+The people repeated the word in astonishment, but Rabbi Joseph pursued
+his inquest.
+
+“Is he a son of Israel?”
+
+“He is a Jew,” said the Roman, dryly.
+
+The wavering pity of the bystanders came back.
+
+“I know nothing of your tribes, but can speak of his family,” the
+speaker continued. “You may have heard of a prince of Jerusalem named
+Hur—Ben-Hur, they called him. He lived in Herod’s day.”
+
+“I have seen him,” Joseph said.
+
+“Well, this is his son.”
+
+Exclamations became general, and the decurion hastened to stop them.
+
+“In the streets of Jerusalem, day before yesterday, he nearly killed
+the noble Gratus by flinging a tile upon his head from the roof of a
+palace—his father’s, I believe.”
+
+There was a pause in the conversation during which the Nazarenes gazed
+at the young Ben-Hur as at a wild beast.
+
+“Did he kill him?” asked the rabbi.
+
+“No.”
+
+“He is under sentence.”
+
+“Yes—the galleys for life.”
+
+“The Lord help him!” said Joseph, for once moved out of his stolidity.
+
+Thereupon a youth who came up with Joseph, but had stood behind him
+unobserved, laid down an axe he had been carrying, and, going to the
+great stone standing by the well, took from it a pitcher of water. The
+action was so quiet that before the guard could interfere, had they
+been disposed to do so, he was stooping over the prisoner, and offering
+him drink.
+
+The hand laid kindly upon his shoulder awoke the unfortunate Judah,
+and, looking up, he saw a face he never forgot—the face of a boy about
+his own age, shaded by locks of yellowish bright chestnut hair; a face
+lighted by dark-blue eyes, at the time so soft, so appealing, so full
+of love and holy purpose, that they had all the power of command and
+will. The spirit of the Jew, hardened though it was by days and nights
+of suffering, and so embittered by wrong that its dreams of revenge
+took in all the world, melted under the stranger’s look, and became as
+a child’s. He put his lips to the pitcher, and drank long and deep. Not
+a word was said to him, nor did he say a word.
+
+When the draught was finished, the hand that had been resting upon the
+sufferer’s shoulder was placed upon his head, and stayed there in the
+dusty locks time enough to say a blessing; the stranger then returned
+the pitcher to its place on the stone, and, taking his axe again, went
+back to Rabbi Joseph. All eyes went with him, the decurion’s as well as
+those of the villagers.
+
+This was the end of the scene at the well. When the men had drunk, and
+the horses, the march was resumed. But the temper of the decurion was
+not as it had been; he himself raised the prisoner from the dust, and
+helped him on a horse behind a soldier. The Nazarenes went to their
+houses—among them Rabbi Joseph and his apprentice.
+
+And so, for the first time, Judah and the son of Mary met and parted.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THIRD
+
+
+“Cleopatra.... Our size of sorrow,
+Proportion’d to our cause, must be as great
+As that which makes it.—
+          Enter, below, DIOMEDES.
+                    How now? is he dead?
+
+Diomedes. His death’s upon him, but not dead.”
+          Antony and Cleopatra (act iv., sc. xiii.).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The city of Misenum gave name to the promontory which it crowned, a few
+miles southwest of Naples. An account of ruins is all that remains of
+it now; yet in the year of our Lord 24—to which it is desirable to
+advance the reader—the place was one of the most important on the
+western coast of Italy.[1]
+
+[1] The Roman government, it will be remembered, had two harbors in
+which great fleets were constantly kept—Ravenna and Misenum.
+
+
+In the year mentioned, a traveller coming to the promontory to regale
+himself with the view there offered, would have mounted a wall, and,
+with the city at his back, looked over the bay of Neapolis, as charming
+then as now; and then, as now, he would have seen the matchless shore,
+the smoking cone, the sky and waves so softly, deeply blue, Ischia here
+and Capri yonder; from one to the other and back again, through the
+purpled air, his gaze would have sported; at last—for the eyes do weary
+of the beautiful as the palate with sweets—at last it would have
+dropped upon a spectacle which the modern tourist cannot see—half the
+reserve navy of Rome astir or at anchor below him. Thus regarded,
+Misenum was a very proper place for three masters to meet, and at
+leisure parcel the world among them.
+
+In the old time, moreover, there was a gateway in the wall at a certain
+point fronting the sea—an empty gateway forming the outlet of a street
+which, after the exit, stretched itself, in the form of a broad mole,
+out many stadia into the waves.
+
+The watchman on the wall above the gateway was disturbed, one cool
+September morning, by a party coming down the street in noisy
+conversation. He gave one look, then settled into his drowse again.
+
+There were twenty or thirty persons in the party, of whom the greater
+number were slaves with torches, which flamed little and smoked much,
+leaving on the air the perfume of the Indian nard. The masters walked
+in advance arm-in-arm. One of them, apparently fifty years old,
+slightly bald, and wearing over his scant locks a crown of laurel,
+seemed, from the attentions paid him, the central object of some
+affectionate ceremony. They all sported ample togas of white wool
+broadly bordered with purple. A glance had sufficed the watchman. He
+knew, without question, they were of high rank, and escorting a friend
+to ship after a night of festivity. Further explanation will be found
+in the conversation they carried on.
+
+“No, my Quintus,” said one, speaking to him with the crown, “it is ill
+of Fortune to take thee from us so soon. Only yesterday thou didst
+return from the seas beyond the Pillars. Why, thou hast not even got
+back thy land legs.”
+
+“By Castor! if a man may swear a woman’s oath,” said another, somewhat
+worse of wine, “let us not lament. Our Quintus is but going to find
+what he lost last night. Dice on a rolling ship is not dice on
+shore—eh, Quintus?”
+
+“Abuse not Fortune!” exclaimed a third. “She is not blind or fickle. At
+Antium, where our Arrius questions her, she answers him with nods, and
+at sea she abides with him holding the rudder. She takes him from us,
+but does she not always give him back with a new victory?”
+
+“The Greeks are taking him away,” another broke in. “Let us abuse them,
+not the gods. In learning to trade they forgot how to fight.”
+
+With these words, the party passed the gateway, and came upon the mole,
+with the bay before them beautiful in the morning light. To the veteran
+sailor the plash of the waves was like a greeting. He drew a long
+breath, as if the perfume of the water were sweeter than that of the
+nard, and held his hand aloft.
+
+“My gifts were at Praeneste, not Antium—and see! Wind from the west.
+Thanks, O Fortune, my mother!” he said, earnestly.
+
+The friends all repeated the exclamation, and the slaves waved their
+torches.
+
+“She comes—yonder!” he continued, pointing to a galley outside the
+mole. “What need has a sailor for other mistress? Is your Lucrece more
+graceful, my Caius?”
+
+He gazed at the coming ship, and justified his pride. A white sail was
+bent to the low mast, and the oars dipped, arose, poised a moment, then
+dipped again, with wing-like action, and in perfect time.
+
+“Yes, spare the gods,” he said, soberly, his eyes fixed upon the
+vessel. “They send us opportunities. Ours the fault if we fail. And as
+for the Greeks, you forget, O my Lentulus, the pirates I am going to
+punish are Greeks. One victory over them is of more account than a
+hundred over the Africans.”
+
+“Then thy way is to the Aegean?”
+
+The sailor’s eyes were full of his ship.
+
+“What grace, what freedom! A bird hath not less care for the fretting
+of the waves. See!” he said, but almost immediately added, “Thy pardon,
+my Lentulus. I am going to the Aegean; and as my departure is so near,
+I will tell the occasion—only keep it under the rose. I would not that
+you abuse the duumvir when next you meet him. He is my friend. The
+trade between Greece and Alexandria, as ye may have heard, is hardly
+inferior to that between Alexandria and Rome. The people in that part
+of the world forgot to celebrate the Cerealia, and Triptolemus paid
+them with a harvest not worth the gathering. At all events, the trade
+is so grown that it will not brook interruption a day. Ye may also have
+heard of the Chersonesan pirates, nested up in the Euxine; none bolder,
+by the Bacchae! Yesterday word came to Rome that, with a fleet, they
+had rowed down the Bosphorus, sunk the galleys off Byzantium and
+Chalcedon, swept the Propontis, and, still unsated, burst through into
+the Aegean. The corn-merchants who have ships in the East Mediterranean
+are frightened. They had audience with the Emperor himself, and from
+Ravenna there go to-day a hundred galleys, and from Misenum”—he paused
+as if to pique the curiosity of his friends, and ended with an
+emphatic—“one.”
+
+“Happy Quintus! We congratulate thee!”
+
+“The preferment forerunneth promotion. We salute thee duumvir; nothing
+less.”
+
+“Quintus Arrius, the duumvir, hath a better sound than Quintus Arrius,
+the tribune.”
+
+In such manner they showered him with congratulations.
+
+“I am glad with the rest,” said the bibulous friend, “very glad; but I
+must be practical, O my duumvir; and not until I know if promotion will
+help thee to knowledge of the tesserae will I have an opinion as to
+whether the gods mean thee ill or good in this—this business.”
+
+“Thanks, many thanks!” Arrius replied, speaking to them collectively.
+“Had ye but lanterns, I would say ye were augurs. Perpol! I will go
+further, and show what master diviners ye are! See—and read.”
+
+From the folds of his toga he drew a roll of paper, and passed it to
+them, saying, “Received while at table last night from—Sejanus.”
+
+The name was already a great one in the Roman world; great, and not so
+infamous as it afterwards became.
+
+“Sejanus!” they exclaimed, with one voice, closing in to read what the
+minister had written.
+
+“Sejanus to C. Caecilius Rufus, Duumvir.
+
+“ROME, XIX. Kal. Sept.
+
+“Cæsar hath good report of Quintus Arrius, the tribune. In particular
+he hath heard of his valor, manifested in the western seas, insomuch
+that it is his will that the said Quintus be transferred instantly to
+the East.
+
+“It is our Cæsar’s will, further, that you cause a hundred triremes,
+of the first class, and full appointment, to be despatched without
+delay against the pirates who have appeared in the Aegean, and that
+Quintus be sent to command the fleet so despatched.
+
+“Details are thine, my Caecilius.
+
+“The necessity is urgent, as thou will be advised by the reports
+enclosed for thy perusal and the information of the said Quintus.
+
+“SEJANUS.”
+
+Arrius gave little heed to the reading. As the ship drew more plainly
+out of the perspective, she became more and more an attraction to him.
+The look with which he watched her was that of an enthusiast. At length
+he tossed the loosened folds of his toga in the air; in reply to the
+signal, over the aplustre, or fan-like fixture at the stern of the
+vessel, a scarlet flag was displayed; while several sailors appeared
+upon the bulwarks, and swung themselves hand over hand up the ropes to
+the antenna, or yard, and furled the sail. The bow was put round, and
+the time of the oars increased one half; so that at racing speed she
+bore down directly towards him and his friends. He observed the
+manoeuvring with a perceptible brightening of the eyes. Her instant
+answer to the rudder, and the steadiness with which she kept her
+course, were especially noticeable as virtues to be relied upon in
+action.
+
+“By the Nymphae!” said one of the friends, giving back the roll, “we
+may not longer say our friend will be great; he is already great. Our
+love will now have famous things to feed upon. What more hast thou for
+us?”
+
+“Nothing more,” Arrius replied. “What ye have of the affair is by this
+time old news in Rome, especially between the palace and the Forum. The
+duumvir is discreet; what I am to do, where go to find my fleet, he
+will tell on the ship, where a sealed package is waiting me. If,
+however, ye have offerings for any of the altars to-day, pray the gods
+for a friend plying oar and sail somewhere in the direction of Sicily.
+But she is here, and will come to,” he said, reverting to the vessel.
+“I have interest in her masters; they will sail and fight with me. It
+is not an easy thing to lay ship side on a shore like this; so let us
+judge their training and skill.”
+
+“What, is she new to thee?”
+
+“I never saw her before; and, as yet, I know not if she will bring me
+one acquaintance.”
+
+“Is that well?”
+
+“It matters but little. We of the sea come to know each other quickly;
+our loves, like our hates, are born of sudden dangers.”
+
+The vessel was of the class called naves liburnicae—long, narrow, low
+in the water, and modelled for speed and quick manoeuvre. The bow was
+beautiful. A jet of water spun from its foot as she came on, sprinkling
+all the prow, which rose in graceful curvature twice a man’s stature
+above the plane of the deck. Upon the bending of the sides were figures
+of Triton blowing shells. Below the bow, fixed to the keel, and
+projecting forward under the water-line, was the rostrum, or beak, a
+device of solid wood, reinforced and armed with iron, in action used as
+a ram. A stout molding extended from the bow the full length of the
+ship’s sides, defining the bulwarks, which were tastefully crenelated;
+below the molding, in three rows, each covered with a cap or shield of
+bull-hide, were the holes in which the oars were worked—sixty on the
+right, sixty on the left. In further ornamentation, caducei leaned
+against the lofty prow. Two immense ropes passing across the bow marked
+the number of anchors stowed on the foredeck.
+
+The simplicity of the upper works declared the oars the chief
+dependence of the crew. A mast, set a little forward of midship, was
+held by fore and back stays and shrouds fixed to rings on the inner
+side of the bulwarks. The tackle was that required for the management
+of one great square sail and the yard to which it was hung. Above the
+bulwarks the deck was visible.
+
+Save the sailors who had reefed the sail, and yet lingered on the yard,
+but one man was to be seen by the party on the mole, and he stood by
+the prow helmeted and with a shield.
+
+The hundred and twenty oaken blades, kept white and shining by pumice
+and the constant wash of the waves, rose and fell as if operated by the
+same hand, and drove the galley forward with a speed rivalling that of
+a modern steamer.
+
+So rapidly, and apparently, so rashly, did she come that the landsmen
+of the tribune’s party were alarmed. Suddenly the man by the prow
+raised his hand with a peculiar gesture; whereupon all the oars flew
+up, poised a moment in air, then fell straight down. The water boiled
+and bubbled about them; the galley shook in every timber, and stopped
+as if scared. Another gesture of the hand, and again the oars arose,
+feathered, and fell; but this time those on the right, dropping towards
+the stern, pushed forward; while those on the left, dropping towards
+the bow, pulled backwards. Three times the oars thus pushed and pulled
+against each other. Round to the right the ship swung as upon a pivot;
+then, caught by the wind, she settled gently broadside to the mole.
+
+The movement brought the stern to view, with all its garniture—Tritons
+like those at the bow; name in large raised letters; the rudder at the
+side; the elevated platform upon which the helmsman sat, a stately
+figure in full armor, his hand upon the rudder-rope; and the aplustre,
+high, gilt, carved, and bent over the helmsman like a great runcinate
+leaf.
+
+In the midst of the rounding-to, a trumpet was blown brief and shrill,
+and from the hatchways out poured the marines, all in superb equipment,
+brazen helms, burnished shields and javelins. While the fighting-men
+thus went to quarters as for action, the sailors proper climbed the
+shrouds and perched themselves along the yard. The officers and
+musicians took their posts. There was no shouting or needless noise.
+When the oars touched the mole, a bridge was sent out from the
+helmsman’s deck. Then the tribune turned to his party and said, with a
+gravity he had not before shown:
+
+“Duty now, O my friends.”
+
+He took the chaplet from his head and gave it to the dice-player.
+
+“Take thou the myrtle, O favorite of the tesserae!” he said. “If I
+return, I will seek my sestertii again; if I am not victor, I will not
+return. Hang the crown in thy atrium.”
+
+To the company he opened his arms, and they came one by one and
+received his parting embrace.
+
+“The gods go with thee, O Quintus!” they said.
+
+“Farewell,” he replied.
+
+To the slaves waving their torches he waved his hand; then he turned to
+the waiting ship, beautiful with ordered ranks and crested helms, and
+shields and javelins. As he stepped upon the bridge, the trumpets
+sounded, and over the aplustre rose the vexillum purpureum, or pennant
+of a commander of a fleet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The tribune, standing upon the helmsman’s deck with the order of the
+duumvir open in his hand, spoke to the chief of the rowers.[1]
+
+[1] Called hortator.
+
+
+“What force hast thou?”
+
+“Of oarsmen, two hundred and fifty-two; ten supernumeraries.
+
+“Making reliefs of—”
+
+“Eighty-four.”
+
+“And thy habit?”
+
+“It has been to take off and put on every two hours.”
+
+The tribune mused a moment.
+
+“The division is hard, and I will reform it, but not now. The oars may
+not rest day or night.”
+
+Then to the sailing-master he said,
+
+“The wind is fair. Let the sail help the oars.”
+
+When the two thus addressed were gone, he turned to the chief pilot.[2]
+
+[2] Called rector.
+
+
+“What service hast thou had?”
+
+“Two-and-thirty years.”
+
+“In what seas chiefly?”
+
+“Between our Rome and the East.”
+
+“Thou art the man I would have chosen.”
+
+The tribune looked at his orders again.
+
+“Past the Camponellan cape, the course will be to Messina. Beyond that,
+follow the bend of the Calabrian shore till Melito is on thy left,
+then— Knowest thou the stars that govern in the Ionian Sea?”
+
+“I know them well.”
+
+“Then from Melito course eastward for Cythera. The gods willing, I will
+not anchor until in the Bay of Antemona. The duty is urgent. I rely
+upon thee.”
+
+A prudent man was Arrius—prudent, and of the class which, while
+enriching the altars at Praeneste and Antium, was of opinion,
+nevertheless, that the favor of the blind goddess depended more upon
+the votary’s care and judgment than upon his gifts and vows. All night
+as master of the feast he had sat at table drinking and playing; yet
+the odor of the sea returned him to the mood of the sailor, and he
+would not rest until he knew his ship. Knowledge leaves no room for
+chances. Having begun with the chief of the rowers, the sailing-master,
+and the pilot, in company with the other officers—the commander of the
+marines, the keeper of the stores, the master of the machines, the
+overseer of the kitchen or fires—he passed through the several
+quarters. Nothing escaped his inspection. When he was through, of the
+community crowded within the narrow walls he alone knew perfectly all
+there was of material preparation for the voyage and its possible
+incidents; and, finding the preparation complete, there was left him
+but one thing further—thorough knowledge of the personnel of his
+command. As this was the most delicate and difficult part of his task,
+requiring much time, he set about it his own way.
+
+At noon that day the galley was skimming the sea off Paestum. The wind
+was yet from the west, filling the sail to the master’s content. The
+watches had been established. On the foredeck the altar had been set
+and sprinkled with salt and barley, and before it the tribune had
+offered solemn prayers to Jove and to Neptune and all the Oceanidæ,
+and, with vows, poured the wine and burned the incense. And now, the
+better to study his men, he was seated in the great cabin, a very
+martial figure.
+
+The cabin, it should be stated, was the central compartment of the
+galley, in extent quite sixty-five by thirty feet, and lighted by three
+broad hatchways. A row of stanchions ran from end to end, supporting
+the roof, and near the centre the mast was visible, all bristling with
+axes and spears and javelins. To each hatchway there were double stairs
+descending right and left, with a pivotal arrangement at the top to
+allow the lower ends to be hitched to the ceiling; and, as these were
+now raised, the compartment had the appearance of a skylighted hall.
+
+The reader will understand readily that this was the heart of the ship,
+the home of all aboard—eating-room, sleeping-chamber, field of
+exercise, lounging-place off duty—uses made possible by the laws which
+reduced life there to minute details and a routine relentless as death.
+
+At the after-end of the cabin there was a platform, reached by several
+steps. Upon it the chief of the rowers sat; in front of him a
+sounding-table, upon which, with a gavel, he beat time for the oarsmen;
+at his right a clepsydra, or water-clock, to measure the reliefs and
+watches. Above him, on a higher platform, well guarded by gilded
+railing, the tribune had his quarters, overlooking everything, and
+furnished with a couch, a table, and a cathedra, or chair, cushioned,
+and with arms and high back—articles which the imperial dispensation
+permitted of the utmost elegance.
+
+Thus at ease, lounging in the great chair, swaying with the motion of
+the vessel, the military cloak half draping his tunic, sword in belt,
+Arrius kept watchful eye over his command, and was as closely watched
+by them. He saw critically everything in view, but dwelt longest upon
+the rowers. The reader would doubtless have done the same: only he
+would have looked with much sympathy, while, as is the habit with
+masters, the tribune’s mind ran forward of what he saw, inquiring for
+results.
+
+The spectacle was simple enough of itself. Along the sides of the
+cabin, fixed to the ship’s timbers, were what at first appeared to be
+three rows of benches; a closer view, however, showed them a succession
+of rising banks, in each of which the second bench was behind and above
+the first one, and the third above and behind the second. To
+accommodate the sixty rowers on a side, the space devoted to them
+permitted nineteen banks separated by intervals of one yard, with a
+twentieth bank divided so that what would have been its upper seat or
+bench was directly above the lower seat of the first bank. The
+arrangement gave each rower when at work ample room, if he timed his
+movements with those of his associates, the principle being that of
+soldiers marching with cadenced step in close order. The arrangement
+also allowed a multiplication of banks, limited only by the length of
+the galley.
+
+As to the rowers, those upon the first and second benches sat, while
+those upon the third, having longer oars to work, were suffered to
+stand. The oars were loaded with lead in the handles, and near the
+point of balance hung to pliable thongs, making possible the delicate
+touch called feathering, but, at the same time, increasing the need of
+skill, since an eccentric wave might at any moment catch a heedless
+fellow and hurl him from his seat. Each oar-hole was a vent through
+which the laborer opposite it had his plenty of sweet air. Light
+streamed down upon him from the grating which formed the floor of the
+passage between the deck and the bulwark over his head. In some
+respects, therefore, the condition of the men might have been much
+worse. Still, it must not be imagined that there was any pleasantness
+in their lives. Communication between them was not allowed. Day after
+day they filled their places without speech; in hours of labor they
+could not see each other’s faces; their short respites were given to
+sleep and the snatching of food. They never laughed; no one ever heard
+one of them sing. What is the use of tongues when a sigh or a groan
+will tell all men feel while, perforce, they think in silence?
+Existence with the poor wretches was like a stream under ground
+sweeping slowly, laboriously on to its outlet, wherever that might
+chance to be.
+
+O Son of Mary! The sword has now a heart—and thine the glory! So now;
+but, in the days of which we are writing, for captivity there was
+drudgery on walls, and in the streets and mines, and the galleys both
+of war and commerce were insatiable. When Druilius won the first
+sea-fight for his country, Romans plied the oars, and the glory was to
+the rower not less than the marine. These benches which now we are
+trying to see as they were testified to the change come with conquest,
+and illustrated both the policy and the prowess of Rome. Nearly all the
+nations had sons there, mostly prisoners of war, chosen for their brawn
+and endurance. In one place a Briton; before him a Libyan; behind him a
+Crimean. Elsewhere a Scythian, a Gaul, and a Thebasite. Roman convicts
+cast down to consort with Goths and Longobardi, Jews, Ethiopians, and
+barbarians from the shores of Maeotis. Here an Athenian, there a
+red-haired savage from Hibernia, yonder blue-eyed giants of the Cimbri.
+
+In the labor of the rowers there was not enough art to give occupation
+to their minds, rude and simple as they were. The reach forward, the
+pull, the feathering the blade, the dip, were all there was of it;
+motions most perfect when most automatic. Even the care forced upon
+them by the sea outside grew in time to be a thing instinctive rather
+than of thought. So, as the result of long service, the poor wretches
+became imbruted—patient, spiritless, obedient—creatures of vast muscle
+and exhausted intellects, who lived upon recollections generally few
+but dear, and at last lowered into the semi-conscious alchemic state
+wherein misery turns to habit, and the soul takes on incredible
+endurance.
+
+From right to left, hour after hour, the tribune, swaying in his
+easy-chair, turned with thought of everything rather than the
+wretchedness of the slaves upon the benches. Their motions, precise,
+and exactly the same on both sides of the vessel, after a while became
+monotonous; and then he amused himself singling out individuals. With
+his stylus he made note of objections, thinking, if all went well, he
+would find among the pirates of whom he was in search better men for
+the places.
+
+There was no need of keeping the proper names of the slaves brought to
+the galleys as to their graves; so, for convenience, they were usually
+identified by the numerals painted upon the benches to which they were
+assigned. As the sharp eyes of the great man moved from seat to seat on
+either hand, they came at last to number sixty, which, as has been
+said, belonged properly to the last bank on the left-hand side, but,
+wanting room aft, had been fixed above the first bench of the first
+bank. There they rested.
+
+The bench of number sixty was slightly above the level of the platform,
+and but a few feet away. The light glinting through the grating over
+his head gave the rower fairly to the tribune’s view—erect, and, like
+all his fellows, naked, except a cincture about the loins. There were,
+however, some points in his favor. He was very young, not more than
+twenty. Furthermore, Arrius was not merely given to dice; he was a
+connoisseur of men physically, and when ashore indulged a habit of
+visiting the gymnasia to see and admire the most famous athletae. From
+some professor, doubtless, he had caught the idea that strength was as
+much of the quality as the quantity of the muscle, while superiority in
+performance required a certain mind as well as strength. Having adopted
+the doctrine, like most men with a hobby, he was always looking for
+illustrations to support it.
+
+The reader may well believe that while the tribune, in the search for
+the perfect, was often called upon to stop and study, he was seldom
+perfectly satisfied—in fact, very seldom held as long as on this
+occasion.
+
+In the beginning of each movement of the oar, the rower’s body and face
+were brought into profile view from the platform; the movement ended
+with the body reversed, and in a pushing posture. The grace and ease of
+the action at first suggested a doubt of the honesty of the effort put
+forth; but it was speedily dismissed; the firmness with which the oar
+was held while in the reach forward, its bending under the push, were
+proofs of the force applied; not that only, they as certainly proved
+the rower’s art, and put the critic in the great arm-chair in search of
+the combination of strength and cleverness which was the central idea
+of his theory.
+
+In course of the study, Arrius observed the subject’s youth; wholly
+unconscious of tenderness on that account, he also observed that he
+seemed of good height, and that his limbs, upper and nether, were
+singularly perfect. The arms, perhaps, were too long, but the objection
+was well hidden under a mass of muscle, which, in some movements,
+swelled and knotted like kinking cords. Every rib in the round body was
+discernible; yet the leanness was the healthful reduction so strained
+after in the palaestrae. And altogether there was in the rower’s action
+a certain harmony which, besides addressing itself to the tribune’s
+theory, stimulated both his curiosity and general interest.
+
+Very soon he found himself waiting to catch a view of the man’s face in
+full. The head was shapely, and balanced upon a neck broad at the base,
+but of exceeding pliancy and grace. The features in profile were of
+Oriental outline, and of that delicacy of expression which has always
+been thought a sign of blood and sensitive spirit. With these
+observations, the tribune’s interest in the subject deepened.
+
+“By the gods,” he said to himself, “the fellow impresses me! He
+promises well. I will know more of him.”
+
+Directly the tribune caught the view he wished—the rower turned and
+looked at him.
+
+“A Jew! and a boy!”
+
+Under the gaze then fixed steadily upon him, the large eyes of the
+slave grew larger—the blood surged to his very brows—the blade lingered
+in his hands. But instantly, with an angry crash, down fell the gavel
+of the hortator. The rower started, withdrew his face from the
+inquisitor, and, as if personally chidden, dropped the oar half
+feathered. When he glanced again at the tribune, he was vastly more
+astonished—he was met with a kindly smile.
+
+Meantime the galley entered the Straits of Messina, and, skimming past
+the city of that name, was after a while turned eastward, leaving the
+cloud over Ætna in the sky astern.
+
+Often as Arrius resumed to his platform in the cabin he returned to
+study the rower, and he kept saying to himself, “The fellow hath a
+spirit. A Jew is not a barbarian. I will know more of him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The fourth day out, and the Astroea—so the galley was named—speeding
+through the Ionian Sea. The sky was clear, and the wind blew as if
+bearing the good-will of all the gods.
+
+As it was possible to overtake the fleet before reaching the bay east
+of the island of Cythera, designated for assemblage, Arrius, somewhat
+impatient, spent much time on deck. He took note diligently of matters
+pertaining to his ship, and as a rule was well pleased. In the cabin,
+swinging in the great chair, his thought continually reverted to the
+rower on number sixty.
+
+“Knowest thou the man just come from yon bench?” he at length asked of
+the hortator.
+
+A relief was going on at the moment.
+
+“From number sixty?” returned the chief.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+The chief looked sharply at the rower then going forward.
+
+“As thou knowest,” he replied “the ship is but a month from the maker’s
+hand, and the men are as new to me as the ship.”
+
+“He is a Jew,” Arrius remarked, thoughtfully.
+
+“The noble Quintus is shrewd.”
+
+“He is very young,” Arrius continued.
+
+“But our best rower,” said the other. “I have seen his oar bend almost
+to breaking.”
+
+“Of what disposition is he?”
+
+“He is obedient; further I know not. Once he made request of me.”
+
+“For what?”
+
+“He wished me to change him alternately from the right to the left.”
+
+“Did he give a reason?”
+
+“He had observed that the men who are confined to one side become
+misshapen. He also said that some day of storm or battle there might be
+sudden need to change him, and he might then be unserviceable.”
+
+“Perpol! The idea is new. What else hast thou observed of him?”
+
+“He is cleanly above his companions.”
+
+“In that he is Roman,” said Arrius, approvingly. “Have you nothing of
+his history?”
+
+“Not a word.”
+
+The tribune reflected awhile, and turned to go to his own seat.
+
+“If I should be on deck when his time is up,” he paused to say, “send
+him to me. Let him come alone.”
+
+About two hours later Arrius stood under the aplustre of the galley; in
+the mood of one who, seeing himself carried swiftly towards an event of
+mighty import, has nothing to do but wait—the mood in which philosophy
+vests an even-minded man with the utmost calm, and is ever so
+serviceable. The pilot sat with a hand upon the rope by which the
+rudder paddles, one on each side of the vessel, were managed. In the
+shade of the sail some sailors lay asleep, and up on the yard there was
+a lookout. Lifting his eyes from the solarium set under the aplustre
+for reference in keeping the course, Arrius beheld the rower
+approaching.
+
+“The chief called thee the noble Arrius, and said it was thy will that
+I should seek thee here. I have come.”
+
+Arrius surveyed the figure, tall, sinewy, glistening in the sun, and
+tinted by the rich red blood within—surveyed it admiringly, and with a
+thought of the arena; yet the manner was not without effect upon him:
+there was in the voice a suggestion of life at least partly spent under
+refining influences; the eyes were clear and open, and more curious
+than defiant. To the shrewd, demanding, masterful glance bent upon it,
+the face gave back nothing to mar its youthful comeliness—nothing of
+accusation or sullenness or menace, only the signs which a great sorrow
+long borne imprints, as time mellows the surface of pictures. In tacit
+acknowledgment of the effect, the Roman spoke as an older man to a
+younger, not as a master to a slave.
+
+“The hortator tells me thou art his best rower.”
+
+“The hortator is very kind,” the rower answered.
+
+“Hast thou seen much service?”
+
+“About three years.”
+
+“At the oars?”
+
+“I cannot recall a day of rest from them.”
+
+“The labor is hard; few men bear it a year without breaking, and
+thou—thou art but a boy.”
+
+“The noble Arrius forgets that the spirit hath much to do with
+endurance. By its help the weak sometimes thrive, when the strong
+perish.”
+
+“From thy speech, thou art a Jew.”
+
+“My ancestors further back than the first Roman were Hebrews.”
+
+“The stubborn pride of thy race is not lost in thee,” said Arrius,
+observing a flush upon the rower’s face.
+
+“Pride is never so loud as when in chains.”
+
+“What cause hast thou for pride?”
+
+“That I am a Jew.”
+
+Arrius smiled.
+
+“I have not been to Jerusalem,” he said; “but I have heard of its
+princes. I knew one of them. He was a merchant, and sailed the seas. He
+was fit to have been a king. Of what degree art thou?”
+
+“I must answer thee from the bench of a galley. I am of the degree of
+slaves. My father was a prince of Jerusalem, and, as a merchant, he
+sailed the seas. He was known and honored in the guest-chamber of the
+great Augustus.”
+
+“His name?”
+
+“Ithamar, of the house of Hur.”
+
+The tribune raised his hand in astonishment.
+
+“A son of Hur—thou?”
+
+After a silence, he asked,
+
+“What brought thee here?”
+
+Judah lowered his head, and his breast labored hard. When his feelings
+were sufficiently mastered, he looked the tribune in the face, and
+answered,
+
+“I was accused of attempting to assassinate Valerius Gratus, the
+procurator.”
+
+“Thou!” cried Arrius, yet more amazed, and retreating a step. “Thou
+that assassin! All Rome rang with the story. It came to my ship in the
+river by Lodinum.”
+
+The two regarded each other silently.
+
+“I thought the family of Hur blotted from the earth,” said Arrius,
+speaking first.
+
+A flood of tender recollections carried the young man’s pride away;
+tears shone upon his cheeks.
+
+“Mother—mother! And my little Tirzah! Where are they? O tribune, noble
+tribune, if thou knowest anything of them”—he clasped his hands in
+appeal—“tell me all thou knowest. Tell me if they are living—if living,
+where are they? and in what condition? Oh, I pray thee, tell me!”
+
+He drew nearer Arrius, so near that his hands touched the cloak where
+it dropped from the latter’s folded arms.
+
+“The horrible day is three years gone,” he continued—“three years, O
+tribune, and every hour a whole lifetime of misery—a lifetime in a
+bottomless pit with death, and no relief but in labor—and in all that
+time not a word from any one, not a whisper. Oh, if, in being
+forgotten, we could only forget! If only I could hide from that
+scene—my sister torn from me, my mother’s last look! I have felt the
+plague’s breath, and the shock of ships in battle; I have heard the
+tempest lashing the sea, and laughed, though others prayed: death would
+have been a riddance. Bend the oar—yes, in the strain of mighty effort
+trying to escape the haunting of what that day occurred. Think what
+little will help me. Tell me they are dead, if no more, for happy they
+cannot be while I am lost. I have heard them call me in the night; I
+have seen them on the water walking. Oh, never anything so true as my
+mother’s love! And Tirzah—her breath was as the breath of white lilies.
+She was the youngest branch of the palm—so fresh, so tender, so
+graceful, so beautiful! She made my day all morning. She came and went
+in music. And mine was the hand that laid them low! I—”
+
+“Dost thou admit thy guilt?” asked Arrius, sternly.
+
+The change that came upon Ben-Hur was wonderful to see, it was so
+instant and extreme. The voice sharpened; the hands arose
+tight-clenched; every fibre thrilled; his eyes inflamed.
+
+“Thou hast heard of the God of my fathers,” he said; “of the infinite
+Jehovah. By his truth and almightiness, and by the love with which he
+hath followed Israel from the beginning, I swear I am innocent!”
+
+The tribune was much moved.
+
+“O noble Roman!” continued Ben-Hur, “give me a little faith, and, into
+my darkness, deeper darkening every day, send a light!”
+
+Arrius turned away, and walked the deck.
+
+“Didst thou not have a trial?” he asked, stopping suddenly.
+
+“No!”
+
+The Roman raised his head, surprised.
+
+“No trial—no witnesses! Who passed judgment upon thee?”
+
+Romans, it should be remembered, were at no time such lovers of the law
+and its forms as in the ages of their decay.
+
+“They bound me with cords, and dragged me to a vault in the Tower. I
+saw no one. No one spoke to me. Next day soldiers took me to the
+seaside. I have been a galley-slave ever since.”
+
+“What couldst thou have proven?”
+
+“I was a boy, too young to be a conspirator. Gratus was a stranger to
+me. If I had meant to kill him, that was not the time or the place. He
+was riding in the midst of a legion, and it was broad day. I could not
+have escaped. I was of a class most friendly to Rome. My father had
+been distinguished for his services to the emperor. We had a great
+estate to lose. Ruin was certain to myself, my mother, my sister. I had
+no cause for malice, while every consideration—property, family, life,
+conscience, the Law—to a son of Israel as the breath of his
+nostrils—would have stayed my hand, though the foul intent had been
+ever so strong. I was not mad. Death was preferable to shame; and,
+believe me, I pray, it is so yet.”
+
+“Who was with thee when the blow was struck?”
+
+“I was on the house-top—my father’s house. Tirzah was with me—at my
+side—the soul of gentleness. Together we leaned over the parapet to see
+the legion pass. A tile gave way under my hand, and fell upon Gratus. I
+thought I had killed him. Ah, what horror I felt!”
+
+“Where was thy mother?”
+
+“In her chamber below.”
+
+“What became of her?”
+
+Ben-Hur clenched his hands, and drew a breath like a gasp.
+
+“I do not know. I saw them drag her away—that is all I know. Out of the
+house they drove every living thing, even the dumb cattle, and they
+sealed the gates. The purpose was that she should not return. I, too,
+ask for her. Oh for one word! She, at least, was innocent. I can
+forgive—but I pray thy pardon, noble tribune! A slave like me should
+not talk of forgiveness or of revenge. I am bound to an oar for life.”
+
+Arrius listened intently. He brought all his experience with slaves to
+his aid. If the feeling shown in this instance were assumed, the acting
+was perfect; on the other hand, if it were real, the Jew’s innocence
+might not be doubted; and if he were innocent, with what blind fury the
+power had been exercised! A whole family blotted out to atone an
+accident! The thought shocked him.
+
+There is no wiser providence than that our occupations, however rude or
+bloody, cannot wear us out morally; that such qualities as justice and
+mercy, if they really possess us, continue to live on under them, like
+flowers under the snow. The tribune could be inexorable, else he had
+not been fit for the usages of his calling; he could also be just; and
+to excite his sense of wrong was to put him in the way to right the
+wrong. The crews of the ships in which he served came after a time to
+speak of him as the good tribune. Shrewd readers will not want a better
+definition of his character.
+
+In this instance there were many circumstances certainly in the young
+man’s favor, and some to be supposed. Possibly Arrius knew Valerius
+Gratus without loving him. Possibly he had known the elder Hur. In the
+course of his appeal, Judah had asked him of that; and, as will be
+noticed, he had made no reply.
+
+For once the tribune was at loss, and hesitated. His power was ample.
+He was monarch of the ship. His prepossessions all moved him to mercy.
+His faith was won. Yet, he said to himself, there was no haste—or,
+rather, there was haste to Cythera; the best rower could not then be
+spared; he would wait; he would learn more; he would at least be sure
+this was the prince Ben-Hur, and that he was of a right disposition.
+Ordinarily, slaves were liars.
+
+“It is enough,” he said aloud. “Go back to thy place.”
+
+Ben-Hur bowed; looked once more into the master’s face, but saw nothing
+for hope. He turned away slowly, looked back, and said,
+
+“If thou dost think of me again, O tribune, let it not be lost in thy
+mind that I prayed thee only for word of my people—mother, sister.”
+
+He moved on.
+
+Arrius followed him with admiring eyes.
+
+“Perpol!” he thought. “With teaching, what a man for the arena! What a
+runner! Ye gods! what an arm for the sword or the cestus!—Stay!” he
+said aloud.
+
+Ben-Hur stopped, and the tribune went to him.
+
+“If thou wert free, what wouldst thou do?”
+
+“The noble Arrius mocks me!” Judah said, with trembling lips.
+
+“No; by the gods, no!”
+
+“Then I will answer gladly. I would give myself to duty the first of
+life. I would know no other. I would know no rest until my mother and
+Tirzah were restored to home. I would give every day and hour to their
+happiness. I would wait upon them; never a slave more faithful. They
+have lost much, but, by the God of my fathers, I would find them more!”
+
+The answer was unexpected by the Roman. For a moment he lost his
+purpose.
+
+“I spoke to thy ambition,” he said, recovering. “If thy mother and
+sister were dead, or not to be found, what wouldst thou do?”
+
+A distinct pallor overspread Ben-Hur’s face, and he looked over the
+sea. There was a struggle with some strong feeling; when it was
+conquered, he turned to the tribune.
+
+“What pursuit would I follow?” he asked.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Tribune, I will tell thee truly. Only the night before the dreadful
+day of which I have spoken, I obtained permission to be a soldier. I am
+of the same mind yet; and, as in all the earth there is but one school
+of war, thither I would go.”
+
+“The palaestra!” exclaimed Arrius.
+
+“No; a Roman camp.”
+
+“But thou must first acquaint thyself with the use of arms.”
+
+Now a master may never safely advise a slave. Arrius saw his
+indiscretion, and, in a breath, chilled his voice and manner.
+
+“Go now,” he said, “and do not build upon what has passed between us.
+Perhaps I do but play with thee. Or”—he looked away musingly—“or, if
+thou dost think of it with any hope, choose between the renown of a
+gladiator and the service of a soldier. The former may come of the
+favor of the emperor; there is no reward for thee in the latter. Thou
+art not a Roman. Go!”
+
+A short while after Ben-Hur was upon his bench again.
+
+A man’s task is always light if his heart is light. Handling the oar
+did not seem so toilsome to Judah. A hope had come to him, like a
+singing bird. He could hardly see the visitor or hear its song; that it
+was there, though, he knew; his feelings told him so. The caution of
+the tribune—“Perhaps I do but play with thee”—was dismissed often as it
+recurred to his mind. That he had been called by the great man and
+asked his story was the bread upon which he fed his hungry spirit.
+Surely something good would come of it. The light about his bench was
+clear and bright with promises, and he prayed.
+
+“O God! I am a true son of the Israel thou hast so loved! Help me, I
+pray thee!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+In the Bay of Antemona, east of Cythera the island, the hundred galleys
+assembled. There the tribune gave one day to inspection. He sailed then
+to Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades, midway the coasts of Greece and
+Asia, like a great stone planted in the centre of a highway, from which
+he could challenge everything that passed; at the same time, he would
+be in position to go after the pirates instantly, whether they were in
+the Ægean or out on the Mediterranean.
+
+As the fleet, in order, rowed in towards the mountain shores of the
+island, a galley was descried coming from the north. Arrius went to
+meet it. She proved to be a transport just from Byzantium, and from her
+commander he learned the particulars of which he stood in most need.
+
+The pirates were from all the farther shores of the Euxine. Even
+Tanais, at the mouth of the river which was supposed to feed Palus
+Maeotis, was represented among them. Their preparations had been with
+the greatest secrecy. The first known of them was their appearance off
+the entrance to the Thracian Bosphorus, followed by the destruction of
+the fleet in station there. Thence to the outlet of the Hellespont
+everything afloat had fallen their prey. There were quite sixty galleys
+in the squadron, all well manned and supplied. A few were biremes, the
+rest stout triremes. A Greek was in command, and the pilots, said to be
+familiar with all the Eastern seas, were Greek. The plunder had been
+incalculable. The panic, consequently, was not on the sea alone;
+cities, with closed gates, sent their people nightly to the walls.
+Traffic had almost ceased.
+
+Where were the pirates now?
+
+To this question, of most interest to Arrius, he received answer.
+
+After sacking Hephaestia, on the island of Lemnos, the enemy had
+coursed across to the Thessalian group, and, by last account,
+disappeared in the gulfs between Euboea and Hellas.
+
+Such were the tidings.
+
+Then the people of the island, drawn to the hill-tops by the rare
+spectacle of a hundred ships careering in united squadron, beheld the
+advance division suddenly turn to the north, and the others follow,
+wheeling upon the same point like cavalry in a column. News of the
+piratical descent had reached them, and now, watching the white sails
+until they faded from sight up between Rhene and Syros, the thoughtful
+among them took comfort, and were grateful. What Rome seized with
+strong hand she always defended: in return for their taxes, she gave
+them safety.
+
+The tribune was more than pleased with the enemy’s movements; he was
+doubly thankful to Fortune. She had brought swift and sure
+intelligence, and had lured his foes into the waters where, of all
+others, destruction was most assured. He knew the havoc one galley
+could play in a broad sea like the Mediterranean, and the difficulty of
+finding and overhauling her; he knew, also, how those very
+circumstances would enhance the service and glory if, at one blow, he
+could put a finish to the whole piratical array.
+
+If the reader will take a map of Greece and the Ægean, he will notice
+the island of Euboea lying along the classic coast like a rampart
+against Asia, leaving a channel between it and the continent quite a
+hundred and twenty miles in length, and scarcely an average of eight in
+width. The inlet on the north had admitted the fleet of Xerxes, and now
+it received the bold raiders from the Euxine. The towns along the
+Pelasgic and Meliac gulfs were rich and their plunder seductive. All
+things considered, therefore, Arrius judged that the robbers might be
+found somewhere below Thermopylae. Welcoming the chance, he resolved to
+enclose them north and south, to do which not an hour could be lost;
+even the fruits and wines and women of Naxos must be left behind. So he
+sailed away without stop or tack until, a little before nightfall,
+Mount Ocha was seen upreared against the sky, and the pilot reported
+the Euboean coast.
+
+At a signal the fleet rested upon its oars. When the movement was
+resumed, Arrius led a division of fifty of the galleys, intending to
+take them up the channel, while another division, equally strong,
+turned their prows to the outer or seaward side of the island, with
+orders to make all haste to the upper inlet, and descend sweeping the
+waters.
+
+To be sure, neither division was equal in number to the pirates; but
+each had advantages in compensation, among them, by no means least, a
+discipline impossible to a lawless horde, however brave. Besides, it
+was a shrewd count on the tribune’s side, if, peradventure, one should
+be defeated, the other would find the enemy shattered by his victory,
+and in condition to be easily overwhelmed.
+
+Meantime Ben-Hur kept his bench, relieved every six hours. The rest in
+the Bay of Antemona had freshened him, so that the oar was not
+troublesome, and the chief on the platform found no fault.
+
+People, generally, are not aware of the ease of mind there is in
+knowing where they are, and where they are going. The sensation of
+being lost is a keen distress; still worse is the feeling one has in
+driving blindly into unknown places. Custom had dulled the feeling with
+Ben-Hur, but only measurably. Pulling away hour after hour, sometimes
+days and nights together, sensible all the time that the galley was
+gliding swiftly along some of the many tracks of the broad sea, the
+longing to know where he was, and whither going, was always present
+with him; but now it seemed quickened by the hope which had come to new
+life in his breast since the interview with the tribune. The narrower
+the abiding-place happens to be, the more intense is the longing; and
+so he found. He seemed to hear every sound of the ship in labor, and
+listened to each one as if it were a voice come to tell him something;
+he looked to the grating overhead, and through it into the light of
+which so small a portion was his, expecting, he knew not what; and many
+times he caught himself on the point of yielding to the impulse to
+speak to the chief on the platform, than which no circumstance of
+battle would have astonished that dignitary more.
+
+In his long service, by watching the shifting of the meager sunbeams
+upon the cabin floor when the ship was under way, he had come to know,
+generally, the quarter into which she was sailing. This, of course, was
+only of clear days like those good-fortune was sending the tribune. The
+experience had not failed him in the period succeeding the departure
+from Cythera. Thinking they were tending towards the old Judean
+country, he was sensitive to every variation from the course. With a
+pang, he had observed the sudden change northward which, as has been
+noticed, took place near Naxos: the cause, however, he could not even
+conjecture; for it must be remembered that, in common with his
+fellow-slaves, he knew nothing of the situation, and had no interest in
+the voyage. His place was at the oar, and he was held there inexorably,
+whether at anchor or under sail. Once only in three years had he been
+permitted an outlook from the deck. The occasion we have seen. He had
+no idea that, following the vessel he was helping drive, there was a
+great squadron close at hand and in beautiful order; no more did he
+know the object of which it was in pursuit.
+
+When the sun, going down, withdrew his last ray from the cabin, the
+galley still held northward. Night fell, yet Ben-Hur could discern no
+change. About that time the smell of incense floated down the gangways
+from the deck.
+
+“The tribune is at the altar,” he thought. “Can it be we are going into
+battle?”
+
+He became observant.
+
+Now he had been in many battles without having seen one. From his bench
+he had heard them above and about him, until he was familiar with all
+their notes, almost as a singer with a song. So, too, he had become
+acquainted with many of the preliminaries of an engagement, of which,
+with a Roman as well as a Greek, the most invariable was the sacrifice
+to the gods. The rites were the same as those performed at the
+beginning of a voyage, and to him, when noticed, they were always an
+admonition.
+
+A battle, it should be observed, possessed for him and his
+fellow-slaves of the oar an interest unlike that of the sailor and
+marine; it came, not of the danger encountered but of the fact that
+defeat, if survived, might bring an alteration of condition—possibly
+freedom—at least a change of masters, which might be for the better.
+
+In good time the lanterns were lighted and hung by the stairs, and the
+tribune came down from the deck. At his word the marines put on their
+armor. At his word again, the machines were looked to, and spears,
+javelins, and arrows, in great sheaves, brought and laid upon the
+floor, together with jars of inflammable oil, and baskets of cotton
+balls wound loose like the wicking of candles. And when, finally,
+Ben-Hur saw the tribune mount his platform and don his armor, and get
+his helmet and shield out, the meaning of the preparations might not be
+any longer doubted, and he made ready for the last ignominy of his
+service.
+
+To every bench, as a fixture, there was a chain with heavy anklets.
+These the hortator proceeded to lock upon the oarsmen, going from
+number to number, leaving no choice but to obey, and, in event of
+disaster, no possibility of escape.
+
+In the cabin, then, a silence fell, broken, at first, only by the sough
+of the oars turning in the leathern cases. Every man upon the benches
+felt the shame, Ben-Hur more keenly than his companions. He would have
+put it away at any price. Soon the clanking of the fetters notified him
+of the progress the chief was making in his round. He would come to him
+in turn; but would not the tribune interpose for him?
+
+The thought may be set down to vanity or selfishness, as the reader
+pleases; it certainly, at that moment, took possession of Ben-Hur. He
+believed the Roman would interpose; anyhow, the circumstance would test
+the man’s feelings. If, intent upon the battle, he would but think of
+him, it would be proof of his opinion formed—proof that he had been
+tacitly promoted above his associates in misery—such proof as would
+justify hope.
+
+Ben-Hur waited anxiously. The interval seemed like an age. At every
+turn of the oar he looked towards the tribune, who, his simple
+preparations made, lay down upon the couch and composed himself to
+rest; whereupon number sixty chid himself, and laughed grimly, and
+resolved not to look that way again.
+
+The hortator approached. Now he was at number one—the rattle of the
+iron links sounded horribly. At last number sixty! Calm from despair,
+Ben-Hur held his oar at poise, and gave his foot to the officer. Then
+the tribune stirred—sat up—beckoned to the chief.
+
+A strong revulsion seized the Jew. From the hortator, the great man
+glanced at him; and when he dropped his oar all the section of the ship
+on his side seemed aglow. He heard nothing of what was said; enough
+that the chain hung idly from its staple in the bench, and that the
+chief, going to his seat, began to beat the sounding-board. The notes
+of the gavel were never so like music. With his breast against the
+leaded handle, he pushed with all his might—pushed until the shaft bent
+as if about to break.
+
+The chief went to the tribune, and, smiling, pointed to number sixty.
+
+“What strength!” he said.
+
+“And what spirit!” the tribune answered. “Perpol! He is better without
+the irons. Put them on him no more.”
+
+So saying, he stretched himself upon the couch again.
+
+The ship sailed on hour after hour under the oars in water scarcely
+rippled by the wind. And the people not on duty slept, Arrius in his
+place, the marines on the floor.
+
+Once—twice—Ben-Hur was relieved; but he could not sleep. Three years of
+night, and through the darkness a sunbeam at last! At sea adrift and
+lost, and now land! Dead so long, and, lo! the thrill and stir of
+resurrection. Sleep was not for such an hour. Hope deals with the
+future; now and the past are but servants that wait on her with impulse
+and suggestive circumstance. Starting from the favor of the tribune,
+she carried him forward indefinitely. The wonder is, not that things so
+purely imaginative as the results she points us to can make us so
+happy, but that we can receive them as so real. They must be as
+gorgeous poppies under the influence of which, under the crimson and
+purple and gold, reason lies down the while, and is not. Sorrows
+assuaged, home and the fortunes of his house restored; mother and
+sister in his arms once more—such were the central ideas which made him
+happier that moment than he had ever been. That he was rushing, as on
+wings, into horrible battle had, for the time, nothing to do with his
+thoughts. The things thus in hope were unmixed with doubts—they WERE.
+Hence his joy so full, so perfect, there was no room in his heart for
+revenge. Messala, Gratus, Rome, and all the bitter, passionate memories
+connected with them, were as dead plagues—miasms of the earth above
+which he floated, far and safe, listening to singing stars.
+
+The deeper darkness before the dawn was upon the waters, and all things
+going well with the Astroea, when a man, descending from the deck,
+walked swiftly to the platform where the tribune slept, and awoke him.
+Arrius arose, put on his helmet, sword, and shield, and went to the
+commander of the marines.
+
+“The pirates are close by. Up and ready!” he said, and passed to the
+stairs, calm, confident, insomuch that one might have thought, “Happy
+fellow! Apicius has set a feast for him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Every soul aboard, even the ship, awoke. Officers went to their
+quarters. The marines took arms, and were led out, looking in all
+respects like legionaries. Sheaves of arrows and armfuls of javelins
+were carried on deck. By the central stairs the oil-tanks and
+fire-balls were set ready for use. Additional lanterns were lighted.
+Buckets were filled with water. The rowers in relief assembled under
+guard in front of the chief. As Providence would have it, Ben-Hur was
+one of the latter. Overhead he heard the muffled noises of the final
+preparations—of the sailors furling sail, spreading the nettings,
+unslinging the machines, and hanging the armor of bull-hide over the
+side. Presently quiet settled about the galley again; quiet full of
+vague dread and expectation, which, interpreted, means READY.
+
+At a signal passed down from the deck, and communicated to the hortator
+by a petty officer stationed on the stairs, all at once the oars
+stopped.
+
+What did it mean?
+
+Of the hundred and twenty slaves chained to the benches, not one but
+asked himself the question. They were without incentive. Patriotism,
+love of honor, sense of duty, brought them no inspiration. They felt
+the thrill common to men rushed helpless and blind into danger. It may
+be supposed the dullest of them, poising his oar, thought of all that
+might happen, yet could promise himself nothing; for victory would but
+rivet his chains the firmer, while the chances of the ship were his;
+sinking or on fire, he was doomed to her fate.
+
+Of the situation without they might not ask. And who were the enemy?
+And what if they were friends, brethren, countrymen? The reader,
+carrying the suggestion forward, will see the necessity which governed
+the Roman when, in such emergencies, he locked the hapless wretches to
+their seats.
+
+There was little time, however, for such thought with them. A sound
+like the rowing of galleys astern attracted Ben-Hur, and the Astroea
+rocked as if in the midst of countering waves. The idea of a fleet at
+hand broke upon him—a fleet in manoeuvre—forming probably for attack.
+His blood started with the fancy.
+
+Another signal came down from the deck. The oars dipped, and the galley
+started imperceptibly. No sound from without, none from within, yet
+each man in the cabin instinctively poised himself for a shock; the
+very ship seemed to catch the sense, and hold its breath, and go
+crouched tiger-like.
+
+In such a situation time is inappreciable; so that Ben-Hur could form
+no judgment of distance gone. At last there was a sound of trumpets on
+deck, full, clear, long blown. The chief beat the sounding-board until
+it rang; the rowers reached forward full length, and, deepening the dip
+of their oars, pulled suddenly with all their united force. The galley,
+quivering in every timber, answered with a leap. Other trumpets joined
+in the clamor—all from the rear, none forward—from the latter quarter
+only a rising sound of voices in tumult heard briefly. There was a
+mighty blow; the rowers in front of the chief’s platform reeled, some
+of them fell; the ship bounded back, recovered, and rushed on more
+irresistibly than before. Shrill and high arose the shrieks of men in
+terror; over the blare of trumpets, and the grind and crash of the
+collision, they arose; then under his feet, under the keel, pounding,
+rumbling, breaking to pieces, drowning, Ben-Hur felt something
+overridden. The men about him looked at each other afraid. A shout of
+triumph from the deck—the beak of the Roman had won! But who were they
+whom the sea had drunk? Of what tongue, from what land were they?
+
+No pause, no stay! Forward rushed the Astroea; and, as it went, some
+sailors ran down, and plunging the cotton balls into the oil-tanks,
+tossed them dripping to comrades at the head of the stairs: fire was to
+be added to other horrors of the combat.
+
+Directly the galley heeled over so far that the oarsmen on the
+uppermost side with difficulty kept their benches. Again the hearty
+Roman cheer, and with it despairing shrieks. An opposing vessel, caught
+by the grappling-hooks of the great crane swinging from the prow, was
+being lifted into the air that it might be dropped and sunk.
+
+The shouting increased on the right hand and on the left; before,
+behind, swelled an indescribable clamor. Occasionally there was a
+crash, followed by sudden peals of fright, telling of other ships
+ridden down, and their crews drowned in the vortexes.
+
+Nor was the fight all on one side. Now and then a Roman in armor was
+borne down the hatchway, and laid bleeding, sometimes dying, on the
+floor.
+
+Sometimes, also, puffs of smoke, blended with steam, and foul with the
+scent of roasting human flesh, poured into the cabin, turning the
+dimming light into yellow murk. Gasping for breath the while, Ben-Hur
+knew they were passing through the cloud of a ship on fire, and burning
+up with the rowers chained to the benches.
+
+The Astroea all this time was in motion. Suddenly she stopped. The oars
+forward were dashed from the hands of the rowers, and the rowers from
+their benches. On deck, then, a furious trampling, and on the sides a
+grinding of ships afoul of each other. For the first time the beating
+of the gavel was lost in the uproar. Men sank on the floor in fear or
+looked about seeking a hiding-place. In the midst of the panic a body
+plunged or was pitched headlong down the hatchway, falling near
+Ben-Hur. He beheld the half-naked carcass, a mass of hair blackening
+the face, and under it a shield of bull-hide and wicker-work—a
+barbarian from the white-skinned nations of the North whom death had
+robbed of plunder and revenge. How came he there? An iron hand had
+snatched him from the opposing deck—no, the Astroea had been boarded!
+The Romans were fighting on their own deck? A chill smote the young
+Jew: Arrius was hard pressed—he might be defending his own life. If he
+should be slain! God of Abraham forefend! The hopes and dreams so
+lately come, were they only hopes and dreams? Mother and
+sister—house—home—Holy Land—was he not to see them, after all? The
+tumult thundered above him; he looked around; in the cabin all was
+confusion—the rowers on the benches paralyzed; men running blindly
+hither and thither; only the chief on his seat imperturbable, vainly
+beating the sounding-board, and waiting the orders of the tribune—in
+the red murk illustrating the matchless discipline which had won the
+world.
+
+The example had a good effect upon Ben-Hur. He controlled himself
+enough to think. Honor and duty bound the Roman to the platform; but
+what had he to do with such motives then? The bench was a thing to run
+from; while, if he were to die a slave, who would be the better of the
+sacrifice? With him living was duty, if not honor. His life belonged to
+his people. They arose before him never more real: he saw them, their
+arms outstretched; he heard them imploring him. And he would go to
+them. He started—stopped. Alas! a Roman judgment held him in doom.
+While it endured, escape would be profitless. In the wide, wide earth
+there was no place in which he would be safe from the imperial demand;
+upon the land none, nor upon the sea. Whereas he required freedom
+according to the forms of law, so only could he abide in Judea and
+execute the filial purpose to which he would devote himself: in other
+land he would not live. Dear God! How he had waited and watched and
+prayed for such a release! And how it had been delayed! But at last he
+had seen it in the promise of the tribune. What else the great man’s
+meaning? And if the benefactor so belated should now be slain! The dead
+come not back to redeem the pledges of the living. It should not
+be—Arrius should not die. At least, better perish with him than survive
+a galley-slave.
+
+Once more Ben-Hur looked around. Upon the roof of the cabin the battle
+yet beat; against the sides the hostile vessels yet crushed and grided.
+On the benches, the slaves struggled to tear loose from their chains,
+and, finding their efforts vain, howled like madmen; the guards had
+gone upstairs; discipline was out, panic in. No, the chief kept his
+chair, unchanged, calm as ever—except the gavel, weaponless. Vainly
+with his clangor he filled the lulls in the din. Ben-Hur gave him a
+last look, then broke away—not in flight, but to seek the tribune.
+
+A very short space lay between him and the stairs of the hatchway aft.
+He took it with a leap, and was half-way up the steps—up far enough to
+catch a glimpse of the sky blood-red with fire, of the ships alongside,
+of the sea covered with ships and wrecks, of the fight closed in about
+the pilot’s quarter, the assailants many, the defenders few—when
+suddenly his foothold was knocked away, and he pitched backward. The
+floor, when he reached it, seemed to be lifting itself and breaking to
+pieces; then, in a twinkling, the whole after-part of the hull broke
+asunder, and, as if it had all the time been lying in wait, the sea,
+hissing and foaming, leaped in, and all became darkness and surging
+water to Ben-Hur.
+
+It cannot be said that the young Jew helped himself in this stress.
+Besides his usual strength, he had the indefinite extra force which
+nature keeps in reserve for just such perils to life; yet the darkness,
+and the whirl and roar of water, stupefied him. Even the holding his
+breath was involuntary.
+
+The influx of the flood tossed him like a log forward into the cabin,
+where he would have drowned but for the refluence of the sinking
+motion. As it was, fathoms under the surface the hollow mass vomited
+him forth, and he arose along with the loosed debris. In the act of
+rising, he clutched something, and held to it. The time he was under
+seemed an age longer than it really was; at last he gained the top;
+with a great gasp he filled his lungs afresh, and, tossing the water
+from his hair and eyes, climbed higher upon the plank he held, and
+looked about him.
+
+Death had pursued him closely under the waves; he found it waiting for
+him when he was risen—waiting multiform.
+
+Smoke lay upon the sea like a semitransparent fog, through which here
+and there shone cores of intense brilliance. A quick intelligence told
+him that they were ships on fire. The battle was yet on; nor could he
+say who was victor. Within the radius of his vision now and then ships
+passed, shooting shadows athwart lights. Out of the dun clouds farther
+on he caught the crash of other ships colliding. The danger, however,
+was closer at hand. When the Astroea went down, her deck, it will be
+recollected, held her own crew, and the crews of the two galleys which
+had attacked her at the same time, all of whom were ingulfed. Many of
+them came to the surface together, and on the same plank or support of
+whatever kind continued the combat, begun possibly in the vortex
+fathoms down. Writhing and twisting in deadly embrace, sometimes
+striking with sword or javelin, they kept the sea around them in
+agitation, at one place inky-black, at another aflame with fiery
+reflections. With their struggles he had nothing to do; they were all
+his enemies: not one of them but would kill him for the plank upon
+which he floated. He made haste to get away.
+
+About that time he heard oars in quickest movement, and beheld a galley
+coming down upon him. The tall prow seemed doubly tall, and the red
+light playing upon its gilt and carving gave it an appearance of snaky
+life. Under its foot the water churned to flying foam.
+
+He struck out, pushing the plank, which was very broad and
+unmanageable. Seconds were precious—half a second might save or lose
+him. In the crisis of the effort, up from the sea, within arm’s reach,
+a helmet shot like a gleam of gold. Next came two hands with fingers
+extended—large hands were they, and strong—their hold once fixed, might
+not be loosed. Ben-Hur swerved from them appalled. Up rose the helmet
+and the head it encased—then two arms, which began to beat the water
+wildly—the head turned back, and gave the face to the light. The mouth
+gaping wide; the eyes open, but sightless, and the bloodless pallor of
+a drowning man—never anything more ghastly! Yet he gave a cry of joy at
+the sight, and as the face was going under again, he caught the
+sufferer by the chain which passed from the helmet beneath the chin,
+and drew him to the plank.
+
+The man was Arrius, the tribune.
+
+For a while the water foamed and eddied violently about Ben-Hur, taxing
+all his strength to hold to the support and at the same time keep the
+Roman’s head above the surface. The galley had passed, leaving the two
+barely outside the stroke of its oars. Right through the floating men,
+over heads helmeted as well as heads bare, she drove, in her wake
+nothing but the sea sparkling with fire. A muffled crash, succeeded by
+a great outcry, made the rescuer look again from his charge. A certain
+savage pleasure touched his heart—the Astroea was avenged.
+
+After that the battle moved on. Resistance turned to flight. But who
+were the victors? Ben-Hur was sensible how much his freedom and the
+life of the tribune depended upon that event. He pushed the plank under
+the latter until it floated him, after which all his care was to keep
+him there. The dawn came slowly. He watched its growing hopefully, yet
+sometimes afraid. Would it bring the Romans or the pirates? If the
+pirates, his charge was lost.
+
+At last morning broke in full, the air without a breath. Off to the
+left he saw the land, too far to think of attempting to make it. Here
+and there men were adrift like himself. In spots the sea was blackened
+by charred and sometimes smoking fragments. A galley up a long way was
+lying to with a torn sail hanging from the tilted yard, and the oars
+all idle. Still farther away he could discern moving specks, which he
+thought might be ships in flight or pursuit, or they might be white
+birds a-wing.
+
+An hour passed thus. His anxiety increased. If relief came not
+speedily, Arrius would die. Sometimes he seemed already dead, he lay so
+still. He took the helmet off, and then, with greater difficulty, the
+cuirass; the heart he found fluttering. He took hope at the sign, and
+held on. There was nothing to do but wait, and, after the manner of his
+people, pray.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The throes of recovery from drowning are more painful than the
+drowning. These Arrius passed through, and, at length, to Ben-Hur’s
+delight, reached the point of speech.
+
+Gradually, from incoherent questions as to where he was, and by whom
+and how he had been saved, he reverted to the battle. The doubt of the
+victory stimulated his faculties to full return, a result aided not a
+little by a long rest—such as could be had on their frail support.
+After a while he became talkative.
+
+“Our rescue, I see, depends upon the result of the fight. I see also
+what thou hast done for me. To speak fairly, thou hast saved my life at
+the risk of thy own. I make the acknowledgment broadly; and, whatever
+cometh, thou hast my thanks. More than that, if fortune doth but serve
+me kindly, and we get well out of this peril, I will do thee such favor
+as becometh a Roman who hath power and opportunity to prove his
+gratitude. Yet, yet it is to be seen if, with thy good intent, thou
+hast really done me a kindness; or, rather, speaking to thy
+good-will”—he hesitated—“I would exact of thee a promise to do me, in a
+certain event, the greatest favor one man can do another—and of that
+let me have thy pledge now.”
+
+“If the thing be not forbidden, I will do it,” Ben-Hur replied.
+
+Arrius rested again.
+
+“Art thou, indeed, a son of Hur, the Jew?” he next asked.
+
+“It is as I have said.”
+
+“I knew thy father—”
+
+Judah drew himself nearer, for the tribune’s voice was weak—he drew
+nearer, and listened eagerly—at last he thought to hear of home.
+
+“I knew him, and loved him,” Arrius continued.
+
+There was another pause, during which something diverted the speaker’s
+thought.
+
+“It cannot be,” he proceeded, “that thou, a son of his, hast not heard
+of Cato and Brutus. They were very great men, and never as great as in
+death. In their dying, they left this law—A Roman may not survive his
+good-fortune. Art thou listening?”
+
+“I hear.”
+
+“It is a custom of gentlemen in Rome to wear a ring. There is one on my
+hand. Take it now.”
+
+He held the hand to Judah, who did as he asked.
+
+“Now put it on thine own hand.”
+
+Ben-Hur did so.
+
+“The trinket hath its uses,” said Arrius next. “I have property and
+money. I am accounted rich even in Rome. I have no family. Show the
+ring to my freedman, who hath control in my absence; you will find him
+in a villa near Misenum. Tell him how it came to thee, and ask
+anything, or all he may have; he will not refuse the demand. If I live,
+I will do better by thee. I will make thee free, and restore thee to
+thy home and people; or thou mayst give thyself to the pursuit that
+pleaseth thee most. Dost thou hear?”
+
+“I could not choose but hear.”
+
+“Then pledge me. By the gods—”
+
+“Nay, good tribune, I am a Jew.”
+
+“By thy God, then, or in the form most sacred to those of thy
+faith—pledge me to do what I tell thee now, and as I tell thee; I am
+waiting, let me have thy promise.”
+
+“Noble Arrius, I am warned by thy manner to expect something of gravest
+concern. Tell me thy wish first.”
+
+“Wilt thou promise then?”
+
+“That were to give the pledge, and— Blessed be the God of my fathers!
+yonder cometh a ship!”
+
+“In what direction?”
+
+“From the north.”
+
+“Canst thou tell her nationality by outward signs?”
+
+“No. My service hath been at the oars.”
+
+“Hath she a flag?”
+
+“I cannot see one.”
+
+Arrius remained quiet some time, apparently in deep reflection.
+
+“Does the ship hold this way yet?” he at length asked.
+
+“Still this way.”
+
+“Look for the flag now.”
+
+“She hath none.”
+
+“Nor any other sign?”
+
+“She hath a sail set, and is of three banks, and cometh swiftly—that is
+all I can say of her.”
+
+“A Roman in triumph would have out many flags. She must be an enemy.
+Hear now,” said Arrius, becoming grave again, “hear, while yet I may
+speak. If the galley be a pirate, thy life is safe; they may not give
+thee freedom; they may put thee to the oar again; but they will not
+kill thee. On the other hand, I—”
+
+The tribune faltered.
+
+“Perpol!” he continued, resolutely. “I am too old to submit to
+dishonor. In Rome, let them tell how Quintus Arrius, as became a Roman
+tribune, went down with his ship in the midst of the foe. This is what
+I would have thee do. If the galley prove a pirate, push me from the
+plank and drown me. Dost thou hear? Swear thou wilt do it.”
+
+“I will not swear,” said Ben-Hur, firmly; “neither will I do the deed.
+The Law, which is to me most binding, O tribune, would make me
+answerable for thy life. Take back the ring”—he took the seal from his
+finger—“take it back, and all thy promises of favor in the event of
+delivery from this peril. The judgment which sent me to the oar for
+life made me a slave, yet I am not a slave; no more am I thy freedman.
+I am a son of Israel, and this moment, at least, my own master. Take
+back the ring.”
+
+Arrius remained passive.
+
+“Thou wilt not?” Judah continued. “Not in anger, then, nor in any
+despite, but to free myself from a hateful obligation, I will give thy
+gift to the sea. See, O tribune!”
+
+He tossed the ring away. Arrius heard the splash where it struck and
+sank, though he did not look.
+
+“Thou hast done a foolish thing,” he said; “foolish for one placed as
+thou art. I am not dependent upon thee for death. Life is a thread I
+can break without thy help; and, if I do, what will become of thee? Men
+determined on death prefer it at the hands of others, for the reason
+that the soul which Plato giveth us is rebellious at the thought of
+self-destruction; that is all. If the ship be a pirate, I will escape
+from the world. My mind is fixed. I am a Roman. Success and honor are
+all in all. Yet I would have served thee; thou wouldst not. The ring
+was the only witness of my will available in this situation. We are
+both lost. I will die regretting the victory and glory wrested from me;
+thou wilt live to die a little later, mourning the pious duties undone
+because of this folly. I pity thee.”
+
+Ben-Hur saw the consequences of his act more distinctly than before,
+yet he did not falter.
+
+“In the three years of my servitude, O tribune, thou wert the first to
+look upon me kindly. No, no! There was another.” The voice dropped, the
+eyes became humid, and he saw plainly as if it were then before him the
+face of the boy who helped him to a drink by the old well at Nazareth.
+“At least,” he proceeded, “thou wert the first to ask me who I was; and
+if, when I reached out and caught thee, blind and sinking the last
+time, I, too, had thought of the many ways in which thou couldst be
+useful to me in my wretchedness, still the act was not all selfish;
+this I pray you to believe. Moreover, seeing as God giveth me to know,
+the ends I dream of are to be wrought by fair means alone. As a thing
+of conscience, I would rather die with thee than be thy slayer. My mind
+is firmly set as thine; though thou wert to offer me all Rome, O
+tribune, and it belonged to thee to make the gift good, I would not
+kill thee. Thy Cato and Brutus were as little children compared to the
+Hebrew whose law a Jew must obey.”
+
+“But my request. Hast—”
+
+“Thy command would be of more weight, and that would not move me. I
+have said.”
+
+Both became silent, waiting.
+
+Ben-Hur looked often at the coming ship. Arrius rested with closed
+eyes, indifferent.
+
+“Art thou sure she is an enemy?” Ben-Hur asked.
+
+“I think so,” was the reply.
+
+“She stops, and puts a boat over the side.”
+
+“Dost thou see her flag?”
+
+“Is there no other sign by which she may be known if Roman?”
+
+“If Roman, she hath a helmet over the mast’s top.”
+
+“Then be of cheer. I see the helmet.”
+
+Still Arrius was not assured.
+
+“The men in the small boat are taking in the people afloat. Pirates are
+not humane.”
+
+“They may need rowers,” Arrius replied, recurring, possibly, to times
+when he had made rescues for the purpose.
+
+Ben-Hur was very watchful of the actions of the strangers.
+
+“The ship moves off,” he said.
+
+“Whither?”
+
+“Over on our right there is a galley which I take to be deserted. The
+new-comer heads towards it. Now she is alongside. Now she is sending
+men aboard.”
+
+Then Arrius opened his eyes and threw off his calm.
+
+“Thank thou thy God,” he said to Ben-Hur, after a look at the galleys,
+“thank thou thy God, as I do my many gods. A pirate would sink, not
+save, yon ship. By the act and the helmet on the mast I know a Roman.
+The victory is mine. Fortune hath not deserted me. We are saved. Wave
+thy hand—call to them—bring them quickly. I shall be duumvir, and thou!
+I knew thy father, and loved him. He was a prince indeed. He taught me
+a Jew was not a barbarian. I will take thee with me. I will make thee
+my son. Give thy God thanks, and call the sailors. Haste! The pursuit
+must be kept. Not a robber shall escape. Hasten them!”
+
+Judah raised himself upon the plank, and waved his hand, and called
+with all his might; at last he drew the attention of the sailors in the
+small boat, and they were speedily taken up.
+
+Arrius was received on the galley with all the honors due a hero so the
+favorite of Fortune. Upon a couch on the deck he heard the particulars
+of the conclusion of the fight. When the survivors afloat upon the
+water were all saved and the prize secured, he spread his flag of
+commandant anew, and hurried northward to rejoin the fleet and perfect
+the victory. In due time the fifty vessels coming down the channel
+closed in upon the fugitive pirates, and crushed them utterly; not one
+escaped. To swell the tribune’s glory, twenty galleys of the enemy were
+captured.
+
+Upon his return from the cruise, Arrius had warm welcome on the mole at
+Misenum. The young man attending him very early attracted the attention
+of his friends there; and to their questions as to who he was the
+tribune proceeded in the most affectionate manner to tell the story of
+his rescue and introduce the stranger, omitting carefully all that
+pertained to the latter’s previous history. At the end of the
+narrative, he called Ben-Hur to him, and said, with a hand resting
+affectionately upon his shoulder,
+
+“Good friends, this is my son and heir, who, as he is to take my
+property—if it be the will of the gods that I leave any—shall be known
+to you by my name. I pray you all to love him as you love me.”
+
+Speedily as opportunity permitted, the adoption was formally perfected.
+And in such manner the brave Roman kept his faith with Ben-Hur, giving
+him happy introduction into the imperial world. The month succeeding
+Arrius’s return, the armilustrium was celebrated with the utmost
+magnificence in the theater of Scaurus. One side of the structure was
+taken up with military trophies; among which by far the most
+conspicuous and most admired were twenty prows, complemented by their
+corresponding aplustra, cut bodily from as many galleys; and over them,
+so as to be legible to the eighty thousand spectators in the seats, was
+this inscription:
+
+TAKEN FROM THE PIRATES IN THE GULF OF EURIPUS,
+BY
+QUINTUS ARRIUS,
+DUUMVIR.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOURTH
+
+
+“Alva. Should the monarch prove unjust—
+And, at this time—
+
+Queen. Then I must wait for justice
+Until it come; and they are happiest far
+Whose consciences may calmly wait their right.”
+                    Schiller, Don Carlos (act iv., sc. xv.)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The month to which we now come is July, the year that of our Lord 29,
+and the place Antioch, then Queen of the East, and next to Rome the
+strongest, if not the most populous, city in the world.
+
+There is an opinion that the extravagance and dissoluteness of the age
+had their origin in Rome, and spread thence throughout the empire; that
+the great cities but reflected the manners of their mistress on the
+Tiber. This may be doubted. The reaction of the conquest would seem to
+have been upon the morals of the conqueror. In Greece she found a
+spring of corruption; so also in Egypt; and the student, having
+exhausted the subject, will close the books assured that the flow of
+the demoralizing river was from the East westwardly, and that this very
+city of Antioch, one of the oldest seats of Assyrian power and
+splendor, was a principal source of the deadly stream.
+
+A transport galley entered the mouth of the river Orontes from the blue
+waters of the sea. It was in the forenoon. The heat was great, yet all
+on board who could avail themselves of the privilege were on
+deck—Ben-Hur among others.
+
+The five years had brought the young Jew to perfect manhood. Though the
+robe of white linen in which he was attired somewhat masked his form,
+his appearance was unusually attractive. For an hour and more he had
+occupied a seat in the shade of the sail, and in that time several
+fellow-passengers of his own nationality had tried to engage him in
+conversation, but without avail. His replies to their questions had
+been brief, though gravely courteous, and in the Latin tongue. The
+purity of his speech, his cultivated manners, his reticence, served to
+stimulate their curiosity the more. Such as observed him closely were
+struck by an incongruity between his demeanor, which had the ease and
+grace of a patrician, and certain points of his person. Thus his arms
+were disproportionately long; and when, to steady himself against the
+motion of the vessel, he took hold of anything near by, the size of his
+hands and their evident power compelled remark; so the wonder who and
+what he was mixed continually with a wish to know the particulars of
+his life. In other words, his air cannot be better described than as a
+notice—This man has a story to tell.
+
+The galley, in coming, had stopped at one of the ports of Cyprus, and
+picked up a Hebrew of most respectable appearance, quiet, reserved,
+paternal. Ben-Hur ventured to ask him some questions; the replies won
+his confidence, and resulted finally in an extended conversation.
+
+It chanced also that as the galley from Cyprus entered the receiving
+bay of the Orontes, two other vessels which had been sighted out in the
+sea met it and passed into the river at the same time; and as they did
+so both the strangers threw out small flags of brightest yellow. There
+was much conjecture as to the meaning of the signals. At length a
+passenger addressed himself to the respectable Hebrew for information
+upon the subject.
+
+“Yes, I know the meaning of the flags,” he replied; “they do not
+signify nationality—they are merely marks of ownership.”
+
+“Has the owner many ships?”
+
+“He has.”
+
+“You know him?”
+
+“I have dealt with him.”
+
+The passengers looked at the speaker as if requesting him to go on.
+Ben-Hur listened with interest.
+
+“He lives in Antioch,” the Hebrew continued, in his quiet way. “That he
+is vastly rich has brought him into notice, and the talk about him is
+not always kind. There used to be in Jerusalem a prince of very ancient
+family named Hur.”
+
+Judah strove to be composed, yet his heart beat quicker.
+
+“The prince was a merchant, with a genius for business. He set on foot
+many enterprises, some reaching far East, others West. In the great
+cities he had branch houses. The one in Antioch was in charge of a man
+said by some to have been a family servant called Simonides, Greek in
+name, yet an Israelite. The master was drowned at sea. His business,
+however, went on, and was scarcely less prosperous. After a while
+misfortune overtook the family. The prince’s only son, nearly grown,
+tried to kill the procurator Gratus in one of the streets of Jerusalem.
+He failed by a narrow chance, and has not since been heard of. In fact,
+the Roman’s rage took in the whole house—not one of the name was left
+alive. Their palace was sealed up, and is now a rookery for pigeons;
+the estate was confiscated; everything that could be traced to the
+ownership of the Hurs was confiscated. The procurator cured his hurt
+with a golden salve.”
+
+The passengers laughed.
+
+“You mean he kept the property,” said one of them.
+
+“They say so,” the Hebrew replied; “I am only telling a story as I
+received it. And, to go on, Simonides, who had been the prince’s agent
+here in Antioch, opened trade in a short time on his own account, and
+in a space incredibly brief became the master merchant of the city. In
+imitation of his master, he sent caravans to India; and on the sea at
+present he has galleys enough to make a royal fleet. They say nothing
+goes amiss with him. His camels do not die, except of old age; his
+ships never founder; if he throw a chip into the river, it will come
+back to him gold.”
+
+“How long has he been going on thus?”
+
+“Not ten years.”
+
+“He must have had a good start.”
+
+“Yes, they say the procurator took only the prince’s property ready at
+hand—his horses, cattle, houses, land, vessels, goods. The money could
+not be found, though there must have been vast sums of it. What became
+of it has been an unsolved mystery.”
+
+“Not to me,” said a passenger, with a sneer.
+
+“I understand you,” the Hebrew answered. “Others have had your idea.
+That it furnished old Simonides his start is a common belief. The
+procurator is of that opinion—or he has been—for twice in five years he
+has caught the merchant, and put him to torture.”
+
+Judah gripped the rope he was holding with crushing force.
+
+“It is said,” the narrator continued, “that there is not a sound bone
+in the man’s body. The last time I saw him he sat in a chair, a
+shapeless cripple, propped against cushions.”
+
+“So tortured!” exclaimed several listeners in a breath.
+
+“Disease could not have produced such a deformity. Still the suffering
+made no impression upon him. All he had was his lawfully, and he was
+making lawful use of it—that was the most they wrung from him. Now,
+however, he is past persecution. He has a license to trade signed by
+Tiberius himself.”
+
+“He paid roundly for it, I warrant.”
+
+“These ships are his,” the Hebrew continued, passing the remark. “It is
+a custom among his sailors to salute each other upon meeting by
+throwing out yellow flags, sight of which is as much as to say, ‘We
+have had a fortunate voyage.’”
+
+The story ended there.
+
+When the transport was fairly in the channel of the river, Judah spoke
+to the Hebrew.
+
+“What was the name of the merchant’s master?”
+
+“Ben-Hur, Prince of Jerusalem.”
+
+“What became of the prince’s family?”
+
+“The boy was sent to the galleys. I may say he is dead. One year is the
+ordinary limit of life under that sentence. The widow and daughter have
+not been heard of; those who know what became of them will not speak.
+They died doubtless in the cells of one of the castles which spot the
+waysides of Judea.”
+
+Judah walked to the pilot’s quarter. So absorbed was he in thought that
+he scarcely noticed the shores of the river, which from sea to city
+were surpassingly beautiful with orchards of all the Syrian fruits and
+vines, clustered about villas rich as those of Neapolis. No more did he
+observe the vessels passing in an endless fleet, nor hear the singing
+and shouting of the sailors, some in labor, some in merriment. The sky
+was full of sunlight, lying in hazy warmth upon the land and the water;
+nowhere except over his life was there a shadow.
+
+Once only he awoke to a momentary interest, and that was when some one
+pointed out the Grove of Daphne, discernible from a bend in the river.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+When the city came into view, the passengers were on deck, eager that
+nothing of the scene might escape them. The respectable Jew already
+introduced to the reader was the principal spokesman.
+
+“The river here runs to the west,” he said, in the way of general
+answer. “I remember when it washed the base of the walls; but as Roman
+subjects we have lived in peace, and, as always happens in such times,
+trade has had its will; now the whole river front is taken up with
+wharves and docks. Yonder”—the speaker pointed southward—“is Mount
+Casius, or, as these people love to call it, the Mountains of Orontes,
+looking across to its brother Amnus in the north; and between them lies
+the Plain of Antioch. Farther on are the Black Mountains, whence the
+Ducts of the Kings bring the purest water to wash the thirsty streets
+and people; yet they are forests in wilderness state, dense, and full
+of birds and beasts.”
+
+“Where is the lake?” one asked.
+
+“Over north there. You can take horse, if you wish to see it—or,
+better, a boat, for a tributary connects it with the river.”
+
+“The Grove of Daphne!” he said, to a third inquirer. “Nobody can
+describe it; only beware! It was begun by Apollo, and completed by him.
+He prefers it to Olympus. People go there for one look—just one—and
+never come away. They have a saying which tells it all—‘Better be a
+worm and feed on the mulberries of Daphne than a king’s guest.’”
+
+“Then you advise me to stay away from it?”
+
+“Not I! Go you will. Everybody goes, cynic philosopher, virile boy,
+women, and priests—all go. So sure am I of what you will do that I
+assume to advise you. Do not take quarters in the city—that will be
+loss of time; but go at once to the village in the edge of the grove.
+The way is through a garden, under the spray of fountains. The lovers
+of the god and his Penaean maid built the town; and in its porticos and
+paths and thousand retreats you will find characters and habits and
+sweets and kinds elsewhere impossible. But the wall of the city! there
+it is, the masterpiece of Xeraeus, the master of mural architecture.”
+
+All eyes followed his pointing finger.
+
+“This part was raised by order of the first of the Seleucidæ. Three
+hundred years have made it part of the rock it rests upon.”
+
+The defense justified the encomium. High, solid, and with many bold
+angles, it curved southwardly out of view.
+
+“On the top there are four hundred towers, each a reservoir of water,”
+the Hebrew continued. “Look now! Over the wall, tall as it is, see in
+the distance two hills, which you may know as the rival crests of
+Sulpius. The structure on the farthest one is the citadel, garrisoned
+all the year round by a Roman legion. Opposite it this way rises the
+Temple of Jupiter, and under that the front of the legate’s residence—a
+palace full of offices, and yet a fortress against which a mob would
+dash harmlessly as a south wind.”
+
+At this point the sailors began taking in sail, whereupon the Hebrew
+exclaimed, heartily, “See! you who hate the sea, and you who have vows,
+get ready your curses and your prayers. The bridge yonder, over which
+the road to Seleucia is carried, marks the limit of navigation. What
+the ship unloads for further transit, the camel takes up there. Above
+the bridge begins the island upon which Calinicus built his new city,
+connecting it with five great viaducts so solid time has made no
+impression upon them, nor floods nor earthquakes. Of the main town, my
+friends, I have only to say you will be happier all your lives for
+having seen it.”
+
+As he concluded, the ship turned and made slowly for her wharf under
+the wall, bringing even more fairly to view the life with which the
+river at that point was possessed. Finally, the lines were thrown, the
+oars shipped, and the voyage was done. Then Ben-Hur sought the
+respectable Hebrew.
+
+“Let me trouble you a moment before saying farewell.”
+
+The man bowed assent.
+
+“Your story of the merchant has made me curious to see him. You called
+him Simonides?”
+
+“Yes. He is a Jew with a Greek name.”
+
+“Where is he to be found?”
+
+The acquaintance gave a sharp look before he answered,
+
+“I may save you mortification. He is not a money-lender.”
+
+“Nor am I a money-borrower,” said Ben-Hur, smiling at the other’s
+shrewdness.
+
+The man raised his head and considered an instant.
+
+“One would think,” he then replied, “that the richest merchant in
+Antioch would have a house for business corresponding to his wealth;
+but if you would find him in the day, follow the river to yon bridge,
+under which he quarters in a building that looks like a buttress of the
+wall. Before the door there is an immense landing, always covered with
+cargoes come and to go. The fleet that lies moored there is his. You
+cannot fail to find him.”
+
+“I give you thanks.”
+
+“The peace of our fathers go with you.”
+
+“And with you.”
+
+With that they separated.
+
+Two street-porters, loaded with his baggage, received Ben-Hur’s orders
+upon the wharf.
+
+“To the citadel,” he said; a direction which implied an official
+military connection.
+
+Two great streets, cutting each other at right angles, divided the city
+into quarters. A curious and immense structure, called the Nymphaeum,
+arose at the foot of the one running north and south. When the porters
+turned south there, the new-comer, though fresh from Rome, was amazed
+at the magnificence of the avenue. On the right and left there were
+palaces, and between them extended indefinitely double colonnades of
+marble, leaving separate ways for footmen, beasts, and chariots; the
+whole under shade, and cooled by fountains of incessant flow.
+
+Ben-Hur was not in mood to enjoy the spectacle. The story of Simonides
+haunted him. Arrived at the Omphalus—a monument of four arches wide as
+the streets, superbly illustrated, and erected to himself by Epiphanes,
+the eighth of the Seleucidæ—he suddenly changed his mind.
+
+“I will not go to the citadel to-night,” he said to the porters. “Take
+me to the khan nearest the bridge on the road to Seleucia.”
+
+The party faced about, and in good time he was deposited in a public
+house of primitive but ample construction, within stone’s-throw of the
+bridge under which old Simonides had his quarters. He lay upon the
+house-top through the night. In his inner mind lived the thought,
+“Now—now I will hear of home—and mother—and the dear little Tirzah. If
+they are on earth, I will find them.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Next day early, to the neglect of the city, Ben-Hur sought the house of
+Simonides. Through an embattled gateway he passed to a continuity of
+wharves; thence up the river midst a busy press, to the Seleucian
+Bridge, under which he paused to take in the scene.
+
+There, directly under the bridge, was the merchant’s house, a mass of
+gray stone, unhewn, referable to no style, looking, as the voyager had
+described it, like a buttress of the wall against which it leaned. Two
+immense doors in front communicated with the wharf. Some holes near the
+top, heavily barred, served as windows. Weeds waved from the crevices,
+and in places black moss splotched the otherwise bald stones.
+
+The doors were open. Through one of them business went in; through the
+other it came out; and there was hurry, hurry in all its movements.
+
+On the wharf there were piles of goods in every kind of package, and
+groups of slaves, stripped to the waist, going about in the abandon of
+labor.
+
+Below the bridge lay a fleet of galleys, some loading, others
+unloading. A yellow flag blew out from each masthead. From fleet and
+wharf, and from ship to ship, the bondmen of traffic passed in
+clamorous counter-currents.
+
+Above the bridge, across the river, a wall rose from the water’s edge,
+over which towered the fanciful cornices and turrets of an imperial
+palace, covering every foot of the island spoken of in the Hebrew’s
+description. But, with all its suggestions, Ben-Hur scarcely noticed
+it. Now, at last, he thought to hear of his people—this, certainly, if
+Simonides had indeed been his father’s slave. But would the man
+acknowledge the relation? That would be to give up his riches and the
+sovereignty of trade so royally witnessed on the wharf and river. And
+what was of still greater consequence to the merchant, it would be to
+forego his career in the midst of amazing success, and yield himself
+voluntarily once more a slave. Simple thought of the demand seemed a
+monstrous audacity. Stripped of diplomatic address, it was to say, You
+are my slave; give me all you have, and—yourself.
+
+Yet Ben-Hur derived strength for the interview from faith in his rights
+and the hope uppermost in his heart. If the story to which he was
+yielding were true, Simonides belonged to him, with all he had. For the
+wealth, be it said in justice, he cared nothing. When he started to the
+door determined in mind, it was with a promise to himself—“Let him tell
+me of mother and Tirzah, and I will give him his freedom without
+account.”
+
+He passed boldly into the house.
+
+The interior was that of a vast depot where, in ordered spaces, and
+under careful arrangement, goods of every kind were heaped and pent.
+Though the light was murky and the air stifling, men moved about
+briskly; and in places he saw workmen with saws and hammers making
+packages for shipments. Down a path between the piles he walked slowly,
+wondering if the man of whose genius there were here such abounding
+proofs could have been his father’s slave? If so, to what class had he
+belonged? If a Jew, was he the son of a servant? Or was he a debtor or
+a debtor’s son? Or had he been sentenced and sold for theft? These
+thoughts, as they passed, in nowise disturbed the growing respect for
+the merchant of which he was each instant more and more conscious. A
+peculiarity of our admiration for another is that it is always looking
+for circumstances to justify itself.
+
+At length a man approached and spoke to him.
+
+“What would you have?”
+
+“I would see Simonides, the merchant.”
+
+“Will you come this way?”
+
+By a number of paths left in the stowage, they finally came to a flight
+of steps; ascending which, he found himself on the roof of the depot,
+and in front of a structure which cannot be better described than as a
+lesser stone house built upon another, invisible from the landing
+below, and out west of the bridge under the open sky. The roof, hemmed
+in by a low wall, seemed like a terrace, which, to his astonishment,
+was brilliant with flowers; in the rich surrounding, the house sat
+squat, a plain square block, unbroken except by a doorway in front. A
+dustless path led to the door, through a bordering of shrubs of Persian
+rose in perfect bloom. Breathing a sweet attar-perfume, he followed the
+guide.
+
+At the end of a darkened passage within, they stopped before a curtain
+half parted. The man called out,
+
+“A stranger to see the master.”
+
+A clear voice replied, “In God’s name, let him enter.”
+
+A Roman might have called the apartment into which the visitor was
+ushered his atrium. The walls were paneled; each panel was comparted
+like a modern office-desk, and each compartment crowded with labelled
+folios all filemot with age and use. Between the panels, and above and
+below them, were borders of wood once white, now tinted like cream, and
+carved with marvellous intricacy of design. Above a cornice of gilded
+balls, the ceiling rose in pavilion style until it broke into a shallow
+dome set with hundreds of panes of violet mica, permitting a flood of
+light deliciously reposeful. The floor was carpeted with gray rugs so
+thick that an invading foot fell half buried and soundless.
+
+In the midlight of the room were two persons—a man resting in a chair
+high-backed, broad-armed, and lined with pliant cushions; and at his
+left, leaning against the back of the chair, a girl well forward into
+womanhood. At sight of them Ben-Hur felt the blood redden his forehead;
+bowing, as much to recover himself as in respect, he lost the lifting
+of the hands, and the shiver and shrink with which the sitter caught
+sight of him—an emotion as swift to go as it had been to come. When he
+raised his eyes the two were in the same position, except the girl’s
+hand had fallen and was resting lightly upon the elder’s shoulder; both
+of them were regarding him fixedly.
+
+“If you are Simonides, the merchant, and a Jew”—Ben-Hur stopped an
+instant—“then the peace of the God of our father Abraham upon you
+and—yours.”
+
+The last word was addressed to the girl.
+
+“I am the Simonides of whom you speak, by birthright a Jew,” the man
+made answer, in a voice singularly clear. “I am Simonides, and a Jew;
+and I return you your salutation, with prayer to know who calls upon
+me.”
+
+Ben-Hur looked as he listened, and where the figure of the man should
+have been in healthful roundness, there was only a formless heap sunk
+in the depths of the cushions, and covered by a quilted robe of sombre
+silk. Over the heap shone a head royally proportioned—the ideal head of
+a statesman and conqueror—a head broad of base and domelike in front,
+such as Angelo would have modelled for Cæsar. White hair dropped in
+thin locks over the white brows, deepening the blackness of the eyes
+shining through them like sullen lights. The face was bloodless, and
+much puffed with folds, especially under the chin. In other words, the
+head and face were those of a man who might move the world more readily
+than the world could move him—a man to be twice twelve times tortured
+into the shapeless cripple he was, without a groan, much less a
+confession; a man to yield his life, but never a purpose or a point; a
+man born in armor, and assailable only through his loves. To him
+Ben-Hur stretched his hands, open and palm up, as he would offer peace
+at the same time he asked it.
+
+“I am Judah, son of Ithamar, late head of the House of Hur, and a
+prince of Jerusalem.”
+
+The merchant’s right hand lay outside the robe—a long, thin hand,
+articulate to deformity with suffering. It closed tightly; otherwise
+there was not the slightest expression of feeling of any kind on his
+part; nothing to warrant an inference of surprise or interest; nothing
+but this calm answer,
+
+“The princes of Jerusalem, of the pure blood, are always welcome in my
+house; you are welcome. Give the young man a seat, Esther.”
+
+The girl took an ottoman near by, and carried it to Ben-Hur. As she
+arose from placing the seat, their eyes met.
+
+“The peace of our Lord with you,” she said, modestly. “Be seated and at
+rest.”
+
+When she resumed her place by the chair, she had not divined his
+purpose. The powers of woman go not so far: if the matter is of finer
+feeling, such as pity, mercy, sympathy, that she detects; and therein
+is a difference between her and man which will endure as long as she
+remains, by nature, alive to such feelings. She was simply sure he
+brought some wound of life for healing.
+
+Ben-Hur did not take the offered seat, but said, deferentially, “I pray
+the good master Simonides that he will not hold me an intruder. Coming
+up the river yesterday, I heard he knew my father.”
+
+“I knew the Prince Hur. We were associated in some enterprises lawful
+to merchants who find profit in lands beyond the sea and the desert.
+But sit, I pray you—and, Esther, some wine for the young man. Nehemiah
+speaks of a son of Hur who once ruled the half part of Jerusalem; an
+old house; very old, by the faith! In the days of Moses and Joshua even
+some of them found favor in the sight of the Lord, and divided honors
+with those princes among men. It can hardly be that their descendant,
+lineally come to us, will refuse a cup of wine-fat of the genuine vine
+of Sorek, grown on the south hill-sides of Hebron.”
+
+By the time of the conclusion of this speech, Esther was before Ben-Hur
+with a silver cup filled from a vase upon a table a little removed from
+the chair. She offered the drink with downcast face. He touched her
+hand gently to put it away. Again their eyes met; whereat he noticed
+that she was small, not nearly to his shoulder in height; but very
+graceful, and fair and sweet of face, with eyes black and inexpressibly
+soft. She is kind and pretty, he thought, and looks as Tirzah would
+were she living. Poor Tirzah! Then he said aloud,
+
+“No, thy father—if he is thy father?”—he paused.
+
+“I am Esther, the daughter of Simonides,” she said, with dignity.
+
+“Then, fair Esther, thy father, when he has heard my further speech,
+will not think worse of me if yet I am slow to take his wine of famous
+extract; nor less I hope not to lose grace in thy sight. Stand thou
+here with me a moment!”
+
+Both of them, as in common cause, turned to the merchant. “Simonides!”
+he said, firmly, “my father, at his death, had a trusted servant of thy
+name, and it has been told me that thou art the man!”
+
+There was a sudden start of the wrenched limbs under the robe, and the
+thin hand clenched.
+
+“Esther, Esther!” the man called, sternly; “here, not there, as thou
+art thy mother’s child and mine—here, not there, I say!”
+
+The girl looked once from father to visitor; then she replaced the cup
+upon the table, and went dutifully to the chair. Her countenance
+sufficiently expressed her wonder and alarm.
+
+Simonides lifted his left hand, and gave it into hers, lying lovingly
+upon his shoulder, and said, dispassionately, “I have grown old in
+dealing with men—old before my time. If he who told thee that whereof
+thou speakest was a friend acquainted with my history, and spoke of it
+not harshly, he must have persuaded thee that I could not be else than
+a man distrustful of my kind. The God of Israel help him who, at the
+end of life, is constrained to acknowledge so much! My loves are few,
+but they are. One of them is a soul which”—he carried the hand holding
+his to his lips, in manner unmistakable—“a soul which to this time has
+been unselfishly mine, and such sweet comfort that, were it taken from
+me, I would die.”
+
+Esther’s head drooped until her cheek touched his.
+
+“The other love is but a memory; of which I will say further that, like
+a benison of the Lord, it hath a compass to contain a whole family, if
+only”—his voice lowered and trembled—“if only I knew where they were.”
+
+Ben-Hur’s face suffused, and, advancing a step, he cried, impulsively,
+“My mother and sister! Oh, it is of them you speak!”
+
+Esther, as if spoken to, raised her head; but Simonides returned to his
+calm, and answered, coldly, “Hear me to the end. Because I am that I
+am, and because of the loves of which I have spoken, before I make
+return to thy demand touching my relations to the Prince Hur, and as
+something which of right should come first, do thou show me proofs of
+who thou art. Is thy witness in writing? Or cometh it in person?”
+
+The demand was plain, and the right of it indisputable. Ben-Hur
+blushed, clasped his hands, stammered, and turned away at loss.
+Simonides pressed him.
+
+“The proofs, the proofs, I say! Set them before me—lay them in my
+hands!”
+
+Yet Ben-Hur had no answer. He had not anticipated the requirement; and,
+now that it was made, to him as never before came the awful fact that
+the three years in the galley had carried away all the proofs of his
+identity; mother and sister gone, he did not live in the knowledge of
+any human being. Many there were acquainted with him, but that was all.
+Had Quintus Arrius been present, what could he have said more than
+where he found him, and that he believed the pretender to be the son of
+Hur? But, as will presently appear in full, the brave Roman sailor was
+dead. Judah had felt the loneliness before; to the core of life the
+sense struck him now. He stood, hands clasped, face averted, in
+stupefaction. Simonides respected his suffering, and waited in silence.
+
+“Master Simonides,” he said, at length, “I can only tell my story; and
+I will not that unless you stay judgment so long, and with good-will
+deign to hear me.”
+
+“Speak,” said Simonides, now, indeed, master of the situation—“speak,
+and I will listen the more willingly that I have not denied you to be
+the very person you claim yourself.”
+
+Ben-Hur proceeded then, and told his life hurriedly, yet with the
+feeling which is the source of all eloquence; but as we are familiar
+with it down to his landing at Misenum, in company with Arrius,
+returned victorious from the Ægean, at that point we will take up the
+words.
+
+“My benefactor was loved and trusted by the emperor, who heaped him
+with honorable rewards. The merchants of the East contributed
+magnificent presents, and he became doubly rich among the rich of Rome.
+May a Jew forget his religion? or his birthplace, if it were the Holy
+Land of our fathers? The good man adopted me his son by formal rites of
+law; and I strove to make him just return: no child was ever more
+dutiful to father than I to him. He would have had me a scholar; in
+art, philosophy, rhetoric, oratory, he would have furnished me the most
+famous teacher. I declined his insistence, because I was a Jew, and
+could not forget the Lord God, or the glory of the prophets, or the
+city set on the hills by David and Solomon. Oh, ask you why I accepted
+any of the benefactions of the Roman? I loved him; next place, I
+thought with his help, array influences which would enable me one day
+to unseal the mystery close-locking the fate of my mother and sister;
+and to these there was yet another motive of which I shall not speak
+except to say it controlled me so far that I devoted myself to arms,
+and the acquisition of everything deemed essential to thorough
+knowledge of the art of war. In the palaestrae and circuses of the city
+I toiled, and in the camps no less; and in all of them I have a name,
+but not that of my fathers. The crowns I won—and on the walls of the
+villa by Misenum there are many of them—all came to me as the son of
+Arrius, the duumvir. In that relation only am I known among Romans....
+In steadfast pursuit of my secret aim, I left Rome for Antioch,
+intending to accompany the Consul Maxentius in the campaign he is
+organizing against the Parthians. Master of personal skill in all arms,
+I seek now the higher knowledge pertaining to the conduct of bodies of
+men in the field. The consul has admitted me one of his military
+family. But yesterday, as our ship entered the Orontes, two other ships
+sailed in with us flying yellow flags. A fellow-passenger and
+countryman from Cyprus explained that the vessels belonged to
+Simonides, the master-merchant of Antioch; he told us, also, who the
+merchant was; his marvellous success in commerce; of his fleets and
+caravans, and their coming and going; and, not knowing I had interest
+in the theme beyond my associate listeners, he said Simonides was a
+Jew, once the servant of the Prince Hur; nor did he conceal the
+cruelties of Gratus, or the purpose of their infliction.”
+
+At this allusion Simonides bowed his head, and, as if to help him
+conceal his feelings and her own deep sympathy, the daughter hid her
+face on his neck. Directly he raised his eyes, and said, in a clear
+voice, “I am listening.”
+
+“O good Simonides!” Ben-Hur then said, advancing a step, his whole soul
+seeking expression, “I see thou art not convinced, and that yet I stand
+in the shadow of thy distrust.”
+
+The merchant held his features fixed as marble, and his tongue as
+still.
+
+“And not less clearly, I see the difficulties of my position,” Ben-Hur
+continued. “All my Roman connection I can prove; I have only to call
+upon the consul, now the guest of the governor of the city; but I
+cannot prove the particulars of thy demand upon me. I cannot prove I am
+my father’s son. They who could serve me in that—alas! they are dead or
+lost.”
+
+He covered his face with his hands; whereupon Esther arose, and, taking
+the rejected cup to him, said, “The wine is of the country we all so
+love. Drink, I pray thee!”
+
+The voice was sweet as that of Rebekah offering drink at the well near
+Nahor the city; he saw there were tears in her eyes, and he drank,
+saying, “Daughter of Simonides, thy heart is full of goodness; and
+merciful art thou to let the stranger share it with thy father. Be thou
+blessed of our God! I thank thee.”
+
+Then he addressed himself to the merchant again:
+
+“As I have no proof that I am my father’s son, I will withdraw that I
+demanded of thee, O Simonides, and go hence to trouble you no more;
+only let me say I did not seek thy return to servitude nor account of
+thy fortune; in any event, I would have said, as now I say, that all
+which is product of thy labor and genius is thine; keep it in welcome.
+I have no need of any part thereof. When the good Quintus, my second
+father, sailed on the voyage which was his last, he left me his heir,
+princely rich. If, therefore, thou dost think of me again, be it with
+remembrance of this question, which, as I do swear by the prophets and
+Jehovah, thy God and mine, was the chief purpose of my coming here:
+What dost thou know—what canst thou tell me—of my mother and Tirzah, my
+sister—she who should be in beauty and grace even as this one, thy
+sweetness of life, if not thy very life? Oh! what canst thou tell me of
+them?”
+
+The tears ran down Esther’s cheeks; but the man was wilful: in a clear
+voice, he replied,
+
+“I have said I knew the Prince Ben-Hur. I remember hearing of the
+misfortune which overtook his family. I remember the bitterness with
+which I heard it. He who wrought such misery to the widow of my friend
+is the same who, in the same spirit, hath since wrought upon me. I will
+go further, and say to you, I have made diligent quest concerning the
+family, but—I have nothing to tell you of them. They are lost.”
+
+Ben-Hur uttered a great groan.
+
+“Then—then it is another hope broken!” he said, struggling with his
+feelings. “I am used to disappointments. I pray you pardon my
+intrusion; and if I have occasioned you annoyance, forgive it because
+of my sorrow. I have nothing now to live for but vengeance. Farewell.”
+
+At the curtain he turned, and said, simply, “I thank you both.”
+
+“Peace go with you,” the merchant said.
+
+Esther could not speak for sobbing.
+
+And so he departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Scarcely was Ben-Hur gone, when Simonides seemed to wake as from sleep:
+his countenance flushed; the sullen light of his eyes changed to
+brightness; and he said, cheerily,
+
+“Esther, ring—quick!”
+
+She went to the table, and rang a service-bell.
+
+One of the panels in the wall swung back, exposing a doorway which gave
+admittance to a man who passed round to the merchant’s front, and
+saluted him with a half-salaam.
+
+“Malluch, here—nearer—to the chair,” the master said, imperiously. “I
+have a mission which shall not fail though the sun should. Hearken! A
+young man is now descending to the store-room—tall, comely, and in the
+garb of Israel; follow him, his shadow not more faithful; and every
+night send me report of where he is, what he does, and the company he
+keeps; and if, without discovery, you overhear his conversations,
+report them word for word, together with whatever will serve to expose
+him, his habits, motives, life. Understand you? Go quickly! Stay,
+Malluch: if he leave the city, go after him—and, mark you, Malluch, be
+as a friend. If he bespeak you, tell him what you will to the occasion
+most suited, except that you are in my service, of that, not a word.
+Haste—make haste!”
+
+The man saluted as before, and was gone.
+
+Then Simonides rubbed his wan hands together, and laughed.
+
+“What is the day, daughter?” he said, in the midst of the mood. “What
+is the day? I wish to remember it for happiness come. See, and look for
+it laughing, and laughing tell me, Esther.”
+
+The merriment seemed unnatural to her; and, as if to entreat him from
+it, she answered, sorrowfully, “Woe’s me, father, that I should ever
+forget this day!”
+
+His hands fell down the instant, and his chin, dropping upon his
+breast, lost itself in the muffling folds of flesh composing his lower
+face.
+
+“True, most true, my daughter!” he said, without looking up. “This is
+the twentieth day of the fourth month. To-day, five years ago, my
+Rachel, thy mother, fell down and died. They brought me home broken as
+thou seest me, and we found her dead of grief. Oh, to me she was a
+cluster of camphire in the vineyards of En-Gedi! I have gathered my
+myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey. We laid
+her away in a lonely place—in a tomb cut in the mountain; no one near
+her. Yet in the darkness she left me a little light, which the years
+have increased to a brightness of morning.” He raised his hand and
+rested it upon his daughter’s head. “Dear Lord, I thank thee that now
+in my Esther my lost Rachel liveth again!”
+
+Directly he lifted his head, and said, as with a sudden thought, “Is it
+not clear day outside?”
+
+“It was, when the young man came in.”
+
+“Then let Abimelech come and take me to the garden, where I can see the
+river and the ships, and I will tell thee, dear Esther, why but now my
+mouth filled with laughter, and my tongue with singing, and my spirit
+was like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.”
+
+In answer to the bell a servant came, and at her bidding pushed the
+chair, set on little wheels for the purpose, out of the room to the
+roof of the lower house, called by him his garden. Out through the
+roses, and by beds of lesser flowers, all triumphs of careful
+attendance, but now unnoticed, he was rolled to a position from which
+he could view the palace-tops over against him on the island, the
+bridge in lessening perspective to the farther shore, and the river
+below the bridge crowded with vessels, all swimming amidst the dancing
+splendors of the early sun upon the rippling water. There the servant
+left him with Esther.
+
+The much shouting of laborers, and their beating and pounding, did not
+disturb him any more than the tramping of people on the bridge floor
+almost overhead, being as familiar to his ear as the view before him to
+his eye, and therefore unnoticeable, except as suggestions of profits
+in promise.
+
+Esther sat on the arm of the chair nursing his hand, and waiting his
+speech, which came at length in the calm way, the mighty will having
+carried him back to himself.
+
+“When the young man was speaking, Esther, I observed thee, and thought
+thou wert won by him.”
+
+Her eyes fell as she replied,
+
+“Speak you of faith, father, I believed him.”
+
+“In thy eyes, then, he is the lost son of the Prince Hur?”
+
+“If he is not—” She hesitated.
+
+“And if he is not, Esther?”
+
+“I have been thy handmaiden, father, since my mother answered the call
+of the Lord God; by thy side I have heard and seen thee deal in wise
+ways with all manner of men seeking profit, holy and unholy; and now I
+say, if indeed the young man be not the prince he claims to be, then
+before me falsehood never played so well the part of righteous truth.”
+
+“By the glory of Solomon, daughter, thou speakest earnestly. Dost thou
+believe thy father his father’s servant?”
+
+“I understood him to ask of that as something he had but heard.”
+
+For a time Simonides’ gaze swam among his swimming ships, though they
+had no place in his mind.
+
+“Well, thou art a good child, Esther, of genuine Jewish shrewdness, and
+of years and strength to hear a sorrowful tale. Wherefore give me heed,
+and I will tell you of myself, and of thy mother, and of many things
+pertaining to the past not in thy knowledge or thy dreams—things
+withheld from the persecuting Romans for a hope’s sake, and from thee
+that thy nature should grow towards the Lord straight as the reed to
+the sun.... I was born in a tomb in the valley of Hinnom, on the south
+side of Zion. My father and mother were Hebrew bond-servants, tenders
+of the fig and olive trees growing, with many vines, in the King’s
+Garden hard by Siloam; and in my boyhood I helped them. They were of
+the class bound to serve forever. They sold me to the Prince Hur, then,
+next to Herod the King, the richest man in Jerusalem. From the garden
+he transferred me to his storehouse in Alexandria of Egypt, where I
+came of age. I served him six years, and in the seventh, by the law of
+Moses, I went free.”
+
+Esther clapped her hands lightly.
+
+“Oh, then, thou art not his father’s servant!”
+
+“Nay, daughter, hear. Now, in those days there were lawyers in the
+cloisters of the Temple who disputed vehemently, saying the children of
+servants bound forever took the condition of their parents; but the
+Prince Hur was a man righteous in all things, and an interpreter of the
+law after the straitest sect, though not of them. He said I was a
+Hebrew servant bought, in the true meaning of the great lawgiver, and,
+by sealed writings, which I yet have, he set me free.”
+
+“And my mother?” Esther asked.
+
+“Thou shalt hear all, Esther; be patient. Before I am through thou
+shalt see it were easier for me to forget myself than thy mother.... At
+the end of my service, I came up to Jerusalem to the Passover. My
+master entertained me. I was in love with him already, and I prayed to
+be continued in his service. He consented, and I served him yet another
+seven years, but as a hired son of Israel. In his behalf I had charge
+of ventures on the sea by ships, and of ventures on land by caravans
+eastward to Susa and Persepolis, and the lands of silk beyond them.
+Perilous passages were they, my daughter; but the Lord blessed all I
+undertook. I brought home vast gains for the prince, and richer
+knowledge for myself, without which I could not have mastered the
+charges since fallen to me.... One day I was a guest in his house in
+Jerusalem. A servant entered with some sliced bread on a platter. She
+came to me first. It was then I saw thy mother, and loved her, and took
+her away in my secret heart. After a while a time came when I sought
+the prince to make her my wife. He told me she was bond-servant
+forever; but if she wished, he would set her free that I might be
+gratified. She gave me love for love, but was happy where she was, and
+refused her freedom. I prayed and besought, going again and again after
+long intervals. She would be my wife, she all the time said, if I would
+become her fellow in servitude. Our father Jacob served yet other seven
+years for his Rachel. Could I not as much for mine? But thy mother said
+I must become as she, to serve forever. I came away, but went back.
+Look, Esther, look here.”
+
+He pulled out the lobe of his left ear.
+
+“See you not the scar of the awl?”
+
+“I see it,” she said; “and, oh, I see how thou didst love my mother!”
+
+“Love her, Esther! She was to me more than the Shulamite to the singing
+king, fairer, more spotless; a fountain of gardens, a well of living
+waters, and streams from Lebanon. The master, even as I required him,
+took me to the judges, and back to his door, and thrust the awl through
+my ear into the door, and I was his servant forever. So I won my
+Rachel. And was ever love like mine?”
+
+Esther stooped and kissed him, and they were silent, thinking of the
+dead.
+
+“My master was drowned at sea, the first sorrow that ever fell upon
+me,” the merchant continued. “There was mourning in his house, and in
+mine here in Antioch, my abiding-place at the time. Now, Esther, mark
+you! When the good prince was lost, I had risen to be his chief
+steward, with everything of property belonging to him in my management
+and control. Judge you how much he loved and trusted me! I hastened to
+Jerusalem to render account to the widow. She continued me in the
+stewardship. I applied myself with greater diligence. The business
+prospered, and grew year by year. Ten years passed; then came the blow
+which you heard the young man tell about—the accident, as he called it,
+to the Procurator Gratus. The Roman gave it out an attempt to
+assassinate him. Under that pretext, by leave from Rome, he confiscated
+to his own use the immense fortune of the widow and children. Nor
+stopped he there. That there might be no reversal of the judgment, he
+removed all the parties interested. From that dreadful day to this the
+family of Hur have been lost. The son, whom I had seen as a child, was
+sentenced to the galleys. The widow and daughter are supposed to have
+been buried in some of the many dungeons of Judea, which, once closed
+upon the doomed, are like sepulchers sealed and locked. They passed
+from the knowledge of men as utterly as if the sea had swallowed them
+unseen. We could not hear how they died—nay, not even that they were
+dead.”
+
+Esther’s eyes were dewy with tears.
+
+“Thy heart is good, Esther, good as thy mother’s was; and I pray it
+have not the fate of most good hearts—to be trampled upon by the
+unmerciful and blind. But hearken further. I went up to Jerusalem to
+give help to my benefactress, and was seized at the gate of the city
+and carried to the sunken cells of the Tower of Antonia; why, I knew
+not, until Gratus himself came and demanded of me the moneys of the
+House of Hur, which he knew, after our Jewish custom of exchange, were
+subject to my draft in the different marts of the world. He required me
+to sign to his order. I refused. He had the houses, lands, goods,
+ships, and movable property of those I served; he had not their moneys.
+I saw, if I kept favor in the sight of the Lord, I could rebuild their
+broken fortunes. I refused the tyrant’s demands. He put me to torture;
+my will held good, and he set me free, nothing gained. I came home and
+began again, in the name of Simonides of Antioch, instead of the Prince
+Hur of Jerusalem. Thou knowest, Esther, how I have prospered; that the
+increase of the millions of the prince in my hands was miraculous; thou
+knowest how, at the end of three years, while going up to Cæsarea, I
+was taken and a second time tortured by Gratus to compel a confession
+that my goods and moneys were subject to his order of confiscation;
+thou knowest he failed as before. Broken in body, I came home and found
+my Rachel dead of fear and grief for me. The Lord our God reigned, and
+I lived. From the emperor himself I bought immunity and license to
+trade throughout the world. To-day—praised be He who maketh the clouds
+his chariot and walketh upon the winds!—to-day, Esther, that which was
+in my hands for stewardship is multiplied into talents sufficient to
+enrich a Cæsar.”
+
+He lifted his head proudly; their eyes met; each read the other’s
+thought. “What shall I with the treasure, Esther?” he asked, without
+lowering his gaze.
+
+“My father,” she answered, in a low voice, “did not the rightful owner
+call for it but now?”
+
+Still his look did not fail.
+
+“And thou, my child; shall I leave thee a beggar?”
+
+“Nay, father, am not I, because I am thy child, his bond-servant? And
+of whom was it written, ‘Strength and honor are her clothing, and she
+shall rejoice in time to come?’”
+
+A gleam of ineffable love lighted his face as he said, “The Lord hath
+been good to me in many ways; but thou, Esther, art the sovereign
+excellence of his favor.”
+
+He drew her to his breast and kissed her many times.
+
+“Hear now,” he said, with clearer voice—“hear now why I laughed this
+morning. The young man faced me the apparition of his father in comely
+youth. My spirit arose to salute him. I felt my trial-days were over
+and my labors ended. Hardly could I keep from crying out. I longed to
+take him by the hand and show the balance I had earned, and say, ‘Lo,
+’tis all thine! and I am thy servant, ready now to be called away.’ And
+so I would have done, Esther, so I would have done, but that moment
+three thoughts rushed to restrain me. I will be sure he is my master’s
+son—such was the first thought; if he is my master’s son, I will learn
+somewhat of his nature. Of those born to riches, bethink you, Esther,
+how many there are in whose hands riches are but breeding curses”—he
+paused, while his hands clutched, and his voice shrilled with
+passion—“Esther, consider the pains I endured at the Roman’s hands;
+nay, not Gratus’s alone: the merciless wretches who did his bidding the
+first time and the last were Romans, and they all alike laughed to hear
+me scream. Consider my broken body, and the years I have gone shorn of
+my stature; consider thy mother yonder in her lonely tomb, crushed of
+soul as I of body; consider the sorrows of my master’s family if they
+are living, and the cruelty of their taking-off if they are dead;
+consider all, and, with Heaven’s love about thee, tell me, daughter,
+shall not a hair fall or a red drop run in expiation? Tell me not, as
+the preachers sometimes do—tell me not that vengeance is the Lord’s.
+Does he not work his will harmfully as well as in love by agencies? Has
+he not his men of war more numerous than his prophets? Is not his the
+law, Eye for eye, hand for hand, foot for foot? Oh, in all these years
+I have dreamed of vengeance, and prayed and provided for it, and
+gathered patience from the growing of my store, thinking and promising,
+as the Lord liveth, it will one day buy me punishment of the
+wrong-doers? And when, speaking of his practise with arms, the young
+man said it was for a nameless purpose, I named the purpose even as he
+spoke—vengeance! and that, Esther, that it was—the third thought which
+held me still and hard while his pleading lasted, and made me laugh
+when he was gone.”
+
+Esther caressed the faded hands, and said, as if her spirit with his
+were running forward to results, “He is gone. Will he come again?”
+
+“Ay, Malluch the faithful goes with him, and will bring him back when I
+am ready.”
+
+“And when will that be, father?”
+
+“Not long, not long. He thinks all his witnesses dead. There is one
+living who will not fail to know him, if he be indeed my master’s son.”
+
+“His mother?”
+
+“Nay, daughter, I will set the witness before him; till then let us
+rest the business with the Lord. I am tired. Call Abimelech.”
+
+Esther called the servant, and they returned into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+When Ben-Hur sallied from the great warehouse, it was with the thought
+that another failure was to be added to the many he had already met in
+the quest for his people; and the idea was depressing exactly in
+proportion as the objects of his quest were dear to him; it curtained
+him round about with a sense of utter loneliness on earth, which, more
+than anything else, serves to eke from a soul cast down its remaining
+interest in life.
+
+Through the people, and the piles of goods, he made way to the edge of
+the landing, and was tempted by the cool shadows darkening the river’s
+depth. The lazy current seemed to stop and wait for him. In
+counteraction of the spell, the saying of the voyager flashed into
+memory—“Better be a worm, and feed upon the mulberries of Daphne, than
+a king’s guest.” He turned, and walked rapidly down the landing and
+back to the khan.
+
+“The road to Daphne!” the steward said, surprised at the question
+Ben-Hur put to him. “You have not been here before? Well, count this
+the happiest day of your life. You cannot mistake the road. The next
+street to the left, going south, leads straight to Mount Sulpius,
+crowned by the altar of Jupiter and the Amphitheater; keep it to the
+third cross street, known as Herod’s Colonnade; turn to your right
+there, and hold the way through the old city of Seleucus to the bronze
+gates of Epiphanes. There the road to Daphne begins—and may the gods
+keep you!”
+
+A few directions respecting his baggage, and Ben-Hur set out.
+
+The Colonnade of Herod was easily found; thence to the brazen gates,
+under a continuous marble portico, he passed with a multitude mixed of
+people from all the trading nations of the earth.
+
+It was about the fourth hour of the day when he passed out the gate,
+and found himself one of a procession apparently interminable, moving
+to the famous Grove. The road was divided into separate ways for
+footmen, for men on horses, and men in chariots; and those again into
+separate ways for outgoers and incomers. The lines of division were
+guarded by low balustrading, broken by massive pedestals, many of which
+were surmounted with statuary. Right and left of the road extended
+margins of sward perfectly kept, relieved at intervals by groups of oak
+and sycamore trees, and vine-clad summer-houses for the accommodation
+of the weary, of whom, on the return side, there were always
+multitudes. The ways of the footmen were paved with red stone, and
+those of the riders strewn with white sand compactly rolled, but not so
+solid as to give back an echo to hoof or wheel. The number and variety
+of fountains at play were amazing, all gifts of visiting kings, and
+called after them. Out southwest to the gates of the Grove, the
+magnificent thoroughfare stretched a little over four miles from the
+city.
+
+In his wretchedness of feeling, Ben-Hur barely observed the royal
+liberality which marked the construction of the road. Nor more did he
+at first notice the crowd going with him. He treated the processional
+displays with like indifference. To say truth, besides his
+self-absorption, he had not a little of the complacency of a Roman
+visiting the provinces fresh from the ceremonies which daily eddied
+round and round the golden pillar set up by Augustus as the centre of
+the world. It was not possible for the provinces to offer anything new
+or superior. He rather availed himself of every opportunity to push
+forward through the companies in the way, and too slow-going for his
+impatience. By the time he reached Heracleia, a suburban village
+intermediate the city and the Grove, he was somewhat spent with
+exercise, and began to be susceptible of entertainment. Once a pair of
+goats led by a beautiful woman, woman and goats alike brilliant with
+ribbons and flowers, attracted his attention. Then he stopped to look
+at a bull of mighty girth, and snowy white, covered with vines freshly
+cut, and bearing on its broad back a naked child in a basket, the image
+of a young Bacchus, squeezing the juice of ripened berries into a
+goblet, and drinking with libational formulas. As he resumed his walk,
+he wondered whose altars would be enriched by the offerings. A horse
+went by with clipped mane, after the fashion of the time, his rider
+superbly dressed. He smiled to observe the harmony of pride between the
+man and the brute. Often after that he turned his head at hearing the
+rumble of wheels and the dull thud of hoofs; unconsciously he was
+becoming interested in the styles of chariots and charioteers, as they
+rustled past him going and coming. Nor was it long until he began to
+make notes of the people around him. He saw they were of all ages,
+sexes, and conditions, and all in holiday attire. One company was
+uniformed in white, another in black; some bore flags, some smoking
+censers; some went slowly, singing hymns; others stepped to the music
+of flutes and tabrets. If such were the going to Daphne every day in
+the year, what a wondrous sight Daphne must be! At last there was a
+clapping of hands, and a burst of joyous cries; following the pointing
+of many fingers, he looked and saw upon the brow of a hill the templed
+gate of the consecrated Grove. The hymns swelled to louder strains; the
+music quickened time; and, borne along by the impulsive current, and
+sharing the common eagerness, he passed in, and, Romanized in taste as
+he was, fell to worshiping the place.
+
+Rearward of the structure which graced the entrance-way—a purely
+Grecian pile—he stood upon a broad esplanade paved with polished stone;
+around him a restless exclamatory multitude, in gayest colors, relieved
+against the iridescent spray flying crystal-white from fountains;
+before him, off to the southwest, dustless paths radiated out into a
+garden, and beyond that into a forest, over which rested a veil of
+pale-blue vapor. Ben-Hur gazed wistfully, uncertain where to go. A
+woman that moment exclaimed,
+
+“Beautiful! But where to now?”
+
+Her companion, wearing a chaplet of bays, laughed and answered, “Go to,
+thou pretty barbarian! The question implies an earthly fear; and did we
+not agree to leave all such behind in Antioch with the rusty earth? The
+winds which blow here are respirations of the gods. Let us give
+ourselves to waftage of the winds.”
+
+“But if we should get lost?”
+
+“O thou timid! No one was ever lost in Daphne, except those on whom her
+gates close forever.”
+
+“And who are they?” she asked, still fearful.
+
+“Such as have yielded to the charms of the place and chosen it for life
+and death. Hark! Stand we here, and I will show you of whom I speak.”
+
+Upon the marble pavement there was a scurry of sandalled feet; the
+crowd opened, and a party of girls rushed about the speaker and his
+fair friend, and began singing and dancing to the tabrets they
+themselves touched. The woman, scared, clung to the man, who put an arm
+about her, and, with kindled face, kept time to the music with the
+other hand overhead. The hair of the dancers floated free, and their
+limbs blushed through the robes of gauze which scarcely draped them.
+Words may not be used to tell of the voluptuousness of the dance. One
+brief round, and they darted off through the yielding crowd lightly as
+they had come.
+
+“Now what think you?” cried the man to the woman.
+
+“Who are they?” she asked.
+
+“Devadasi—priestesses devoted to the Temple of Apollo. There is an army
+of them. They make the chorus in celebrations. This is their home.
+Sometimes they wander off to other cities, but all they make is brought
+here to enrich the house of the divine musician. Shall we go now?”
+
+Next minute the two were gone.
+
+Ben-Hur took comfort in the assurance that no one was ever lost in
+Daphne, and he, too, set out—where, he knew not.
+
+A sculpture reared upon a beautiful pedestal in the garden attracted
+him first. It proved to be the statue of a centaur. An inscription
+informed the unlearned visitor that it exactly represented Chiron, the
+beloved of Apollo and Diana, instructed by them in the mysteries of
+hunting, medicine, music, and prophecy. The inscription also bade the
+stranger look out at a certain part of the heavens, at a certain hour
+of the clear night, and he would behold the dead alive among the stars,
+whither Jupiter had transferred the good genius.
+
+The wisest of the centaurs continued, nevertheless, in the service of
+mankind. In his hand he held a scroll, on which, graven in Greek, were
+paragraphs of a notice:
+
+“O Traveller!
+“Art thou a stranger?
+
+
+“I. Hearken to the singing of the brooks, and fear not the rain of the
+fountains; so will the Naiades learn to love thee.
+
+“II. The invited breezes of Daphne are Zephyrus and Auster; gentle
+ministers of life, they will gather sweets for thee; when Eurus blows,
+Diana is elsewhere hunting; when Boreas blusters, go hide, for Apollo
+is angry.
+
+“III. The shades of the Grove are thine in the day; at night they
+belong to Pan and his Dryades. Disturb them not.
+
+“IV. Eat of the Lotus by the brooksides sparingly, unless thou wouldst
+have surcease of memory, which is to become a child of Daphne.
+
+“V. Walk thou round the weaving spider—’tis Arachne at work for
+Minerva.
+
+“VI. Wouldst thou behold the tears of Daphne, break but a bud from a
+laurel bough—and die.
+
+“Heed thou!
+“And stay and be happy.”
+
+
+Ben-Hur left the interpretation of the mystic notice to others fast
+enclosing him, and turned away as the white bull was led by. The boy
+sat in the basket, followed by a procession; after them again, the
+woman with the goats; and behind her the flute and tabret players, and
+another procession of gift-bringers.
+
+“Whither go they?” asked a bystander.
+
+Another made answer, “The bull to Father Jove; the goat—”
+
+“Did not Apollo once keep the flocks of Admetus?”
+
+“Ay, the goat to Apollo!”
+
+The goodness of the reader is again besought in favor of an
+explanation. A certain facility of accommodation in the matter of
+religion comes to us after much intercourse with people of a different
+faith; gradually we attain the truth that every creed is illustrated by
+good men who are entitled to our respect, but whom we cannot respect
+without courtesy to their creed. To this point Ben-Hur had arrived.
+Neither the years in Rome nor those in the galley had made any
+impression upon his religious faith; he was yet a Jew. In his view,
+nevertheless, it was not an impiety to look for the beautiful in the
+Grove of Daphne.
+
+The remark does not interdict the further saying, if his scruples had
+been ever so extreme, not improbably he would at this time have
+smothered them. He was angry; not as the irritable, from chafing of a
+trifle; nor was his anger like the fool’s, pumped from the wells of
+nothing, to be dissipated by a reproach or a curse; it was the wrath
+peculiar to ardent natures rudely awakened by the sudden annihilation
+of a hope—dream, if you will—in which the choicest happinesses were
+thought to be certainly in reach. In such case nothing intermediate
+will carry off the passion—the quarrel is with Fate.
+
+Let us follow the philosophy a little further, and say to ourselves, it
+were well in such quarrels if Fate were something tangible, to be
+despatched with a look or a blow, or a speaking personage with whom
+high words were possible; then the unhappy mortal would not always end
+the affair by punishing himself.
+
+In ordinary mood, Ben-Hur would not have come to the Grove alone, or,
+coming alone, he would have availed himself of his position in the
+consul’s family, and made provision against wandering idly about,
+unknowing and unknown; he would have had all the points of interest in
+mind, and gone to them under guidance, as in the despatch of business;
+or, wishing to squander days of leisure in the beautiful place, he
+would have had in hand a letter to the master of it all, whoever he
+might be. This would have made him a sightseer, like the shouting herd
+he was accompanying; whereas he had no reverence for the deities of the
+Grove, nor curiosity; a man in the blindness of bitter disappointment,
+he was adrift, not waiting for Fate, but seeking it as a desperate
+challenger.
+
+Every one has known this condition of mind, though perhaps not all in
+the same degree; every one will recognize it as the condition in which
+he has done brave things with apparent serenity; and every one reading
+will say, Fortunate for Ben-Hur if the folly which now catches him is
+but a friendly harlequin with whistle and painted cap, and not some
+Violence with a pointed sword pitiless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Ben-Hur entered the woods with the processions. He had not interest
+enough at first to ask where they were going; yet, to relieve him from
+absolute indifference, he had a vague impression that they were in
+movement to the temples, which were the central objects of the Grove,
+supreme in attractions.
+
+Presently, as singers dreamfully play with a flitting chorus, he began
+repeating to himself, “Better be a worm, and feed on the mulberries of
+Daphne, than a king’s guest.” Then of the much repetition arose
+questions importunate of answer. Was life in the Grove so very sweet?
+Wherein was the charm? Did it lie in some tangled depth of philosophy?
+Or was it something in fact, something on the surface, discernible to
+every-day wakeful senses? Every year thousands, forswearing the world,
+gave themselves to service here. Did they find the charm? And was it
+sufficient, when found, to induce forgetfulness profound enough to shut
+out of mind the infinitely diverse things of life? those that sweeten
+and those that embitter? hopes hovering in the near future as well as
+sorrows born of the past? If the Grove were so good for them, why
+should it not be good for him? He was a Jew; could it be that the
+excellences were for all the world but children of Abraham? Forthwith
+he bent all his faculties to the task of discovery, unmindful of the
+singing of the gift-bringers and the quips of his associates.
+
+In the quest, the sky yielded him nothing; it was blue, very blue, and
+full of twittering swallows—so was the sky over the city.
+
+Further on, out of the woods at his right hand, a breeze poured across
+the road, splashing him with a wave of sweet smells, blent of roses and
+consuming spices. He stopped, as did others, looking the way the breeze
+came.
+
+“A garden over there?” he said, to a man at his elbow.
+
+“Rather some priestly ceremony in performance—something to Diana, or
+Pan, or a deity of the woods.”
+
+The answer was in his mother tongue. Ben-Hur gave the speaker a
+surprised look.
+
+“A Hebrew?” he asked him.
+
+The man replied with a deferential smile,
+
+“I was born within a stone’s-throw of the market-place in Jerusalem.”
+
+Ben-Hur was proceeding to further speech, when the crowd surged
+forward, thrusting him out on the side of the walk next the woods, and
+carrying the stranger away. The customary gown and staff, a brown cloth
+on the head tied by a yellow rope, and a strong Judean face to avouch
+the garments of honest right, remained in the young man’s mind, a kind
+of summary of the man.
+
+This took place at a point where a path into the woods began, offering
+a happy escape from the noisy processions. Ben-Hur availed himself of
+the offer.
+
+He walked first into a thicket which, from the road, appeared in a
+state of nature, close, impenetrable, a nesting-place for wild birds. A
+few steps, however, gave him to see the master’s hand even there. The
+shrubs were flowering or fruit-bearing; under the bending branches the
+ground was pranked with brightest blooms; over them the jasmine
+stretched its delicate bonds. From lilac and rose, and lily and tulip,
+from oleander and strawberry-tree, all old friends in the gardens of
+the valleys about the city of David, the air, lingering or in haste,
+loaded itself with exhalations day and night; and that nothing might be
+wanting to the happiness of the nymphs and naiads, down through the
+flower-lighted shadows of the mass a brook went its course gently, and
+by many winding ways.
+
+Out of the thicket, as he proceeded, on his right and left, issued the
+cry of the pigeon and the cooing of turtle-doves; blackbirds waited for
+him, and bided his coming close; a nightingale kept its place fearless,
+though he passed in arm’s-length; a quail ran before him at his feet,
+whistling to the brood she was leading, and as he paused for them to
+get out of his way, a figure crawled from a bed of honeyed musk
+brilliant with balls of golden blossoms. Ben-Hur was startled. Had he,
+indeed, been permitted to see a satyr at home? The creature looked up
+at him, and showed in its teeth a hooked pruning-knife; he smiled at
+his own scare, and, lo! the charm was evolved! Peace without fear—peace
+a universal condition—that it was!
+
+He sat upon the ground beneath a citron-tree, which spread its gray
+roots sprawling to receive a branch of the brook. The nest of a
+titmouse hung close to the bubbling water, and the tiny creature looked
+out of the door of the nest into his eyes. “Verily, the bird is
+interpreting to me,” he thought. “It says, ‘I am not afraid of you, for
+the law of this happy place is Love.’”
+
+The charm of the Grove seemed plain to him; he was glad, and determined
+to render himself one of the lost in Daphne. In charge of the flowers
+and shrubs, and watching the growth of all the dumb excellences
+everywhere to be seen, could not he, like the man with the
+pruning-knife in his mouth, forego the days of his troubled life—forego
+them forgetting and forgotten?
+
+But by-and-by his Jewish nature began to stir within him.
+
+The charm might be sufficient for some people. Of what kind were they?
+
+Love is delightful—ah! how pleasant as a successor to wretchedness like
+his. But was it all there was of life? All?
+
+There was an unlikeness between him and those who buried themselves
+contentedly here. They had no duties—they could not have had; but he—
+
+“God of Israel!” he cried aloud, springing to his feet, with burning
+cheeks—“Mother! Tirzah! Cursed be the moment, cursed the place, in
+which I yield myself happy in your loss!”
+
+He hurried away through the thicket, and came to a stream flowing with
+the volume of a river between banks of masonry, broken at intervals by
+gated sluiceways. A bridge carried the path he was traversing across
+the stream; and, standing upon it, he saw other bridges, no two of them
+alike. Under him the water was lying in a deep pool, clear as a shadow;
+down a little way it tumbled with a roar over rocks; then there was
+another pool, and another cascade; and so on, out of view; and bridges
+and pools and resounding cascades said, plainly as inarticulate things
+can tell a story, the river was running by permission of a master,
+exactly as the master would have it, tractable as became a servant of
+the gods.
+
+Forward from the bridge he beheld a landscape of wide valleys and
+irregular heights, with groves and lakes and fanciful houses linked
+together by white paths and shining streams. The valleys were spread
+below, that the river might be poured upon them for refreshment in days
+of drought, and they were as green carpets figured with beds and fields
+of flowers, and flecked with flocks of sheep white as balls of snow;
+and the voices of shepherds following the flocks were heard afar. As if
+to tell him of the pious inscription of all he beheld, the altars out
+under the open sky seemed countless, each with a white-gowned figure
+attending it, while processions in white went slowly hither and thither
+between them; and the smoke of the altars half-risen hung collected in
+pale clouds over the devoted places.
+
+Here, there, happy in flight, intoxicated in pause, from object to
+object, point to point, now in the meadow, now on the heights, now
+lingering to penetrate the groves and observe the processions, then
+lost in efforts to pursue the paths and streams which trended mazily
+into dim perspectives to end finally in— Ah, what might be a fitting
+end to scene so beautiful! What adequate mysteries were hidden behind
+an introduction so marvellous! Here and there, the speech was
+beginning, his gaze wandered, so he could not help the conviction,
+forced by the view, and as the sum of it all, that there was peace in
+the air and on the earth, and invitation everywhere to come and lie
+down here and be at rest.
+
+Suddenly a revelation dawned upon him—the Grove was, in fact, a
+temple—one far-reaching, wall-less temple!
+
+Never anything like it!
+
+The architect had not stopped to pother about columns and porticos,
+proportions or interiors, or any limitation upon the epic he sought to
+materialize; he had simply made a servant of Nature—art can go no
+further. So the cunning son of Jupiter and Callisto built the old
+Arcadia; and in this, as in that, the genius was Greek.
+
+From the bridge Ben-Hur went forward into the nearest valley.
+
+He came to a flock of sheep. The shepherd was a girl, and she beckoned
+him, “Come!”
+
+Farther on, the path was divided by an altar—a pedestal of black
+gneiss, capped with a slab of white marble deftly foliated, and on that
+a brazier of bronze holding a fire. Close by it, a woman, seeing him,
+waved a wand of willow, and as he passed called him, “Stay!” And the
+temptation in her smile was that of passionate youth.
+
+On yet further, he met one of the processions; at its head a troop of
+little girls, nude except as they were covered with garlands, piped
+their shrill voices into a song; then a troop of boys, also nude, their
+bodies deeply sun-browned, came dancing to the song of the girls;
+behind them the procession, all women, bearing baskets of spices and
+sweets to the altars—women clad in simple robes, careless of exposure.
+As he went by they held their hands to him, and said, “Stay, and go
+with us.” One, a Greek, sang a verse from Anacreon:
+
+“For to-day I take or give;
+For to-day I drink and live;
+For to-day I beg or borrow;
+Who knows about the silent morrow?”
+
+
+But he pursued his way indifferent, and came next to a grove luxuriant,
+in the heart of the vale at the point where it would be most attractive
+to the observing eye. As it came close to the path he was travelling,
+there was a seduction in its shade, and through the foliage he caught
+the shining of what appeared a pretentious statue; so he turned aside,
+and entered the cool retreat.
+
+The grass was fresh and clean. The trees did not crowd each other; and
+they were of every kind native to the East, blended well with strangers
+adopted from far quarters; here grouped in exclusive companionship
+palm-trees plumed like queens; there sycamores, overtopping laurels of
+darker foliage; and evergreen oaks rising verdantly, with cedars vast
+enough to be kings on Lebanon; and mulberries; and terebinths so
+beautiful it is not hyperbole to speak of them as blown from the
+orchards of Paradise.
+
+The statue proved to be a Daphne of wondrous beauty. Hardly, however,
+had he time to more than glance at her face: at the base of the
+pedestal a girl and a youth were lying upon a tiger’s skin asleep in
+each other’s arms; close by them the implements of their service—his
+axe and sickle, her basket—flung carelessly upon a heap of fading
+roses.
+
+The exposure startled him. Back in the hush of the perfumed thicket he
+discovered, as he thought, that the charm of the great Grove was peace
+without fear, and almost yielded to it; now, in this sleep in the day’s
+broad glare—this sleep at the feet of Daphne—he read a further chapter
+to which only the vaguest allusion is sufferable. The law of the place
+was Love, but Love without Law.
+
+And this was the sweet peace of Daphne!
+
+This the life’s end of her ministers!
+
+For this kings and princes gave of their revenues!
+
+For this a crafty priesthood subordinated nature—her birds and brooks
+and lilies, the river, the labor of many hands, the sanctity of altars,
+the fertile power of the sun!
+
+It would be pleasant now to record that as Ben-Hur pursued his walk
+assailed by such reflections, he yielded somewhat to sorrow for the
+votaries of the great outdoor temple; especially for those who, by
+personal service, kept it in a state so surpassingly lovely. How they
+came to the condition was not any longer a mystery; the motive, the
+influence, the inducement, were before him. Some there were, no doubt,
+caught by the promise held out to their troubled spirits of endless
+peace in a consecrated abode, to the beauty of which, if they had not
+money, they could contribute their labor; this class implied intellect
+peculiarly subject to hope and fear; but the great body of the faithful
+could not be classed with such. Apollo’s nets were wide, and their
+meshes small; and hardly may one tell what all his fishermen landed:
+this less for that they cannot be described than because they ought not
+to be. Enough that the mass were of the sybarites of the world, and of
+the herds in number vaster and in degree lower—devotees of the unmixed
+sensualism to which the East was almost wholly given. Not to any of the
+exaltations—not to the singing-god, or his unhappy mistress; not to any
+philosophy requiring for its enjoyment the calm of retirement, nor to
+any service for the comfort there is in religion, nor to love in its
+holier sense—were they abiding their vows. Good reader, why shall not
+the truth be told here? Why not learn that, at this age, there were in
+all earth but two peoples capable of exaltations of the kind referred
+to—those who lived by the law of Moses, and those who lived by the law
+of Brahma. They alone could have cried you, Better a law without love
+than a love without law.
+
+Besides that, sympathy is in great degree a result of the mood we are
+in at the moment: anger forbids the emotion. On the other hand, it is
+easiest taken on when we are in a state of most absolute
+self-satisfaction. Ben-Hur walked with a quicker step, holding his head
+higher; and, while not less sensitive to the delightfulness of all
+about him, he made his survey with calmer spirit, though sometimes with
+curling lip; that is to say, he could not so soon forget how nearly he
+himself had been imposed upon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+In front of Ben-Hur there was a forest of cypress-trees, each a column
+tall and straight as a mast. Venturing into the shady precinct, he
+heard a trumpet gayly blown, and an instant after saw lying upon the
+grass close by the countryman whom he had run upon in the road going to
+the temples. The man arose, and came to him.
+
+“I give you peace again,” he said, pleasantly.
+
+“Thank you,” Ben-Hur replied, then asked, “Go you my way?”
+
+“I am for the stadium, if that is your way.”
+
+“The stadium!”
+
+“Yes. The trumpet you heard but now was a call for the competitors.”
+
+“Good friend,” said Ben-Hur, frankly, “I admit my ignorance of the
+Grove; and if you will let me be your follower, I will be glad.”
+
+“That will delight me. Hark! I hear the wheels of the chariots. They
+are taking the track.”
+
+Ben-Hur listened a moment, then completed the introduction by laying
+his hand upon the man’s arm, and saying, “I am the son of Arrius, the
+duumvir, and thou?”
+
+“I am Malluch, a merchant of Antioch.”
+
+“Well, good Malluch, the trumpet, and the gride of wheels, and the
+prospect of diversion excite me. I have some skill in the exercises. In
+the palaestrae of Rome I am not unknown. Let us to the course.”
+
+Malluch lingered to say, quickly, “The duumvir was a Roman, yet I see
+his son in the garments of a Jew.”
+
+“The noble Arrius was my father by adoption,” Ben-Hur answered.
+
+“Ah! I see, and beg pardon.”
+
+Passing through the belt of forest, they came to a field with a track
+laid out upon it, in shape and extent exactly like those of the stadia.
+The course, or track proper, was of soft earth, rolled and sprinkled,
+and on both sides defined by ropes, stretched loosely upon upright
+javelins. For the accommodation of spectators, and such as had
+interests reaching forward of the mere practise, there were several
+stands shaded by substantial awnings, and provided with seats in rising
+rows. In one of the stands the two new-comers found places.
+
+Ben-Hur counted the chariots as they went by—nine in all.
+
+“I commend the fellows,” he said, with good-will. “Here in the East, I
+thought they aspired to nothing better than the two; but they are
+ambitious, and play with royal fours. Let us study their performance.”
+
+Eight of the fours passed the stand, some walking, others on the trot,
+and all unexceptionably handled; then the ninth one came on the gallop.
+Ben-Hur burst into exclamation.
+
+“I have been in the stables of the emperor, Malluch, but, by our father
+Abraham of blessed memory! I never saw the like of these.”
+
+The last four was then sweeping past. All at once they fell into
+confusion. Some one on the stand uttered a sharp cry. Ben-Hur turned,
+and saw an old man half-risen from an upper seat, his hands clenched
+and raised, his eyes fiercely bright, his long white beard fairly
+quivering. Some of the spectators nearest him began to laugh.
+
+“They should respect his beard at least. Who is he?” asked Ben-Hur.
+
+“A mighty man from the Desert, somewhere beyond Moab, and owner of
+camels in herds, and horses descended, they say, from the racers of the
+first Pharaoh—Sheik Ilderim by name and title.”
+
+Thus Malluch replied.
+
+The driver meanwhile exerted himself to quiet the four, but without
+avail. Each ineffectual effort excited the sheik the more.
+
+“Abaddon seize him!” yelled the patriarch, shrilly. “Run! fly! do you
+hear, my children?” The question was to his attendants, apparently of
+the tribe. “Do you hear? They are Desert-born, like yourselves. Catch
+them—quick!”
+
+The plunging of the animals increased.
+
+“Accursed Roman!” and the sheik shook his fist at the driver. “Did he
+not swear he could drive them—swear it by all his brood of bastard
+Latin gods? Nay, hands off me—off, I say! They should run swift as
+eagles, and with the temper of hand-bred lambs, he swore. Cursed be
+he—cursed the mother of liars who calls him son! See them, the
+priceless! Let him touch one of them with a lash, and”—the rest of the
+sentence was lost in a furious grinding of his teeth. “To their heads,
+some of you, and speak them—a word, one is enough, from the tent-song
+your mothers sang you. Oh, fool, fool that I was to put trust in a
+Roman!”
+
+Some of the shrewder of the old man’s friends planted themselves
+between him and the horses. An opportune failure of breath on his part
+helped the stratagem.
+
+Ben-Hur, thinking he comprehended the sheik, sympathized with him. Far
+more than mere pride of property—more than anxiety for the result of
+the race—in his view it was within the possible for the patriarch,
+according to his habits of thought and his ideas of the inestimable, to
+love such animals with a tenderness akin to the most sensitive passion.
+
+They were all bright bays, unspotted, perfectly matched, and so
+proportioned as to seem less than they really were. Delicate ears
+pointed small heads; the faces were broad and full between the eyes;
+the nostrils in expansion disclosed membrane so deeply red as to
+suggest the flashing of flame; the necks were arches, overlaid with
+fine mane so abundant as to drape the shoulders and breast, while in
+happy consonance the forelocks were like ravellings of silken veils;
+between the knees and the fetlocks the legs were flat as an open hand,
+but above the knees they were rounded with mighty muscles, needful to
+upbear the shapely close-knit bodies; the hoofs were like cups of
+polished agate; and in rearing and plunging they whipped the air, and
+sometimes the earth, with tails glossy-black and thick and long. The
+sheik spoke of them as the priceless, and it was a good saying.
+
+In this second and closer look at the horses, Ben-Hur read the story of
+their relation to their master. They had grown up under his eyes,
+objects of his special care in the day, his visions of pride in the
+night, with his family at home in the black tent out on the shadeless
+bosom of the desert, as his children beloved. That they might win him a
+triumph over the haughty and hated Roman, the old man had brought his
+loves to the city, never doubting they would win, if only he could find
+a trusty expert to take them in hand; not merely one with skill, but of
+a spirit which their spirits would acknowledge. Unlike the colder
+people of the West, he could not protest the driver’s inability, and
+dismiss him civilly; an Arab and a sheik, he had to explode, and rive
+the air about him with clamor.
+
+Before the patriarch was done with his expletives, a dozen hands were
+at the bits of the horses, and their quiet assured. About that time,
+another chariot appeared upon the track; and, unlike the others,
+driver, vehicle, and races were precisely as they would be presented in
+the Circus the day of final trial. For a reason which will presently be
+more apparent, it is desirable now to give this turnout plainly to the
+reader.
+
+There should be no difficulty in understanding the carriage known to us
+all as the chariot of classical renown. One has but to picture to
+himself a dray with low wheels and broad axle, surmounted by a box open
+at the tail end. Such was the primitive pattern. Artistic genius came
+along in time, and, touching the rude machine, raised it into a thing
+of beauty—that, for instance, in which Aurora, riding in advance of the
+dawn, is given to our fancy.
+
+The jockeys of the ancients, quite as shrewd and ambitious as their
+successors of the present, called their humblest turnout a two, and
+their best in grade a four; in the latter, they contested the Olympics
+and the other festal shows founded in imitation of them.
+
+The same sharp gamesters preferred to put their horses to the chariot
+all abreast; and for distinction they termed the two next the pole
+yoke-steeds, and those on the right and left outside trace-mates. It
+was their judgment, also, that, by allowing the fullest freedom of
+action, the greatest speed was attainable; accordingly, the harness
+resorted to was peculiarly simple; in fact, there was nothing of it
+save a collar round the animal’s neck, and a trace fixed to the collar,
+unless the lines and a halter fall within the term. Wanting to hitch
+up, the masters pinned a narrow wooden yoke, or cross-tree, near the
+end of the pole, and, by straps passed through rings at the end of the
+yoke, buckled the latter to the collar. The traces of the yokesteeds
+they hitched to the axle; those of the trace-mates to the top rim of
+the chariot-bed. There remained then but the adjustment of the lines,
+which, judged by the modern devices, was not the least curious part of
+the method. For this there was a large ring at the forward extremity of
+the pole; securing the ends to that ring first, they parted the lines
+so as to give one to each horse, and proceeded to pass them to the
+driver, slipping them separately through rings on the inner side of the
+halters at the mouth.
+
+With this plain generalization in mind, all further desirable knowledge
+upon the subject can be had by following the incidents of the scene
+occurring.
+
+The other contestants had been received in silence; the last comer was
+more fortunate. While moving towards the stand from which we are
+viewing the scene, his progress was signalized by loud demonstrations,
+by clapping of hands and cheers, the effect of which was to centre
+attention upon him exclusively. His yoke-steeds, it was observed, were
+black, while the trace-mates were snow-white. In conformity to the
+exacting canons of Roman taste, they had all four been mutilated; that
+is to say, their tails had been clipped, and, to complete the
+barbarity, their shorn manes were divided into knots tied with flaring
+red and yellow ribbons.
+
+In advancing, the stranger at length reached a point where the chariot
+came into view from the stand, and its appearance would of itself have
+justified the shouting. The wheels were very marvels of construction.
+Stout bands of burnished bronze reinforced the hubs, otherwise very
+light; the spokes were sections of ivory tusks, set in with the natural
+curve outward to perfect the dishing, considered important then as now;
+bronze tires held the fellies, which were of shining ebony. The axle,
+in keeping with the wheels, was tipped with heads of snarling tigers
+done in brass, and the bed was woven of willow wands gilded with gold.
+
+The coming of the beautiful horses and resplendent chariot drew Ben-Hur
+to look at the driver with increased interest.
+
+Who was he?
+
+When Ben-Hur asked himself the question first, he could not see the
+man’s face, or even his full figure; yet the air and manner were
+familiar, and pricked him keenly with a reminder of a period long gone.
+
+Who could it be?
+
+Nearer now, and the horses approaching at a trot. From the shouting and
+the gorgeousness of the turnout, it was thought he might be some
+official favorite or famous prince. Such an appearance was not
+inconsistent with exalted rank. Kings often struggled for the crown of
+leaves which was the prize of victory. Nero and Commodus, it will be
+remembered, devoted themselves to the chariot. Ben-Hur arose and forced
+a passage down nearly to the railing in front of the lower seat of the
+stand. His face was earnest, his manner eager.
+
+And directly the whole person of the driver was in view. A companion
+rode with him, in classic description a Myrtilus, permitted men of high
+estate indulging their passion for the race-course. Ben-Hur could see
+only the driver, standing erect in the chariot, with the reins passed
+several times round his body—a handsome figure, scantily covered by a
+tunic of light-red cloth; in the right hand a whip; in the other, the
+arm raised and lightly extended, the four lines. The pose was
+exceedingly graceful and animated. The cheers and clapping of hands
+were received with statuesque indifference. Ben-Hur stood
+transfixed—his instinct and memory had served him faithfully—THE DRIVER
+WAS MESSALA.
+
+By the selection of horses, the magnificence of the chariot, the
+attitude, and display of person—above all, by the expression of the
+cold, sharp, eagle features, imperialized in his countrymen by sway of
+the world through so many generations, Ben-Hur knew Messala unchanged,
+as haughty, confident, and audacious as ever, the same in ambition,
+cynicism, and mocking insouciance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+As Ben-Hur descended the steps of the stand, an Arab arose upon the
+last one at the foot, and cried out,
+
+“Men of the East and West—hearken! The good Sheik Ilderim giveth
+greeting. With four horses, sons of the favorites of Solomon the Wise,
+he hath come up against the best. Needs he most a mighty man to drive
+them. Whoso will take them to his satisfaction, to him he promiseth
+enrichment forever. Here—there—in the city and in the Circuses, and
+wherever the strong most do congregate, tell ye this his offer. So
+saith my master, Sheik Ilderim the Generous.”
+
+The proclamation awakened a great buzz among the people under the
+awning. By night it would be repeated and discussed in all the sporting
+circles of Antioch. Ben-Hur, hearing it, stopped and looked
+hesitatingly from the herald to the sheik. Malluch thought he was about
+to accept the offer, but was relieved when he presently turned to him,
+and asked, “Good Malluch, where to now?”
+
+The worthy replied, with a laugh, “Would you liken yourself to others
+visiting the Grove for the first time, you will straightway to hear
+your fortune told.”
+
+“My fortune, said you? Though the suggestion has in it a flavor of
+unbelief, let us to the goddess at once.”
+
+“Nay, son of Arrius, these Apollonians have a better trick than that.
+Instead of speech with a Pythia or a Sibyl, they will sell you a plain
+papyrus leaf, hardly dry from the stalk, and bid you dip it in the
+water of a certain fountain, when it will show you a verse in which you
+may hear of your future.”
+
+The glow of interest departed from Ben-Hur’s face.
+
+“There are people who have no need to vex themselves about their
+future,” he said, gloomily.
+
+“Then you prefer to go to the temples?”
+
+“The temples are Greek, are they not?”
+
+“They call them Greek.”
+
+“The Hellenes were masters of the beautiful in art; but in architecture
+they sacrificed variety to unbending beauty. Their temples are all
+alike. How call you the fountain?”
+
+“Castalia.”
+
+“Oh! it has repute throughout the world. Let us thither.”
+
+Malluch kept watch on his companion as they went, and saw that for the
+moment at least his good spirits were out. To the people passing he
+gave no attention; over the wonders they came upon there were no
+exclamations; silently, even sullenly, he kept a slow pace.
+
+The truth was, the sight of Messala had set Ben-Hur to thinking. It
+seemed scarce an hour ago that the strong hands had torn him from his
+mother, scarce an hour ago that the Roman had put seal upon the gates
+of his father’s house. He recounted how, in the hopeless misery of the
+life—if such it might be called—in the galleys, he had had little else
+to do, aside from labor, than dream dreams of vengeance, in all of
+which Messala was the principal. There might be, he used to say to
+himself, escape for Gratus, but for Messala—never! And to strengthen
+and harden his resolution, he was accustomed to repeat over and over,
+Who pointed us out to the persecutors? And when I begged him for
+help—not for myself—who mocked me, and went away laughing? And always
+the dream had the same ending. The day I meet him, help me, thou good
+God of my people!—help me to some fitting special vengeance!
+
+And now the meeting was at hand.
+
+Perhaps, if he had found Messala poor and suffering, Ben-Hur’s feeling
+had been different; but it was not so. He found him more than
+prosperous; in the prosperity there was a dash and glitter—gleam of sun
+on gilt of gold.
+
+So it happened that what Malluch accounted a passing loss of spirit was
+pondering when the meeting should be, and in what manner he could make
+it most memorable.
+
+They turned after a while into an avenue of oaks, where the people were
+going and coming in groups; footmen here, and horsemen; there women in
+litters borne slaves; and now and then chariots rolled by thunderously.
+
+At the end of the avenue the road, by an easy grade, descended into a
+lowland, where, on the right hand, there was a precipitous facing of
+gray rock, and on the left an open meadow of vernal freshness. Then
+they came in view of the famous Fountain of Castalia.
+
+Edging through a company assembled at the point, Ben-Hur beheld a jet
+of sweet water pouring from the crest of a stone into a basin of black
+marble, where, after much boiling and foaming, it disappeared as
+through a funnel.
+
+By the basin, under a small portico cut in the solid wall, sat a
+priest, old, bearded, wrinkled, cowled—never being more perfectly
+eremitish. From the manner of the people present, hardly might one say
+which was the attraction, the fountain, forever sparkling, or the
+priest, forever there. He heard, saw, was seen, but never spoke.
+Occasionally a visitor extended a hand to him with a coin in it. With a
+cunning twinkle of the eyes, he took the money, and gave the party in
+exchange a leaf of papyrus.
+
+The receiver made haste to plunge the papyrus into the basin; then,
+holding the dripping leaf in the sunlight, he would be rewarded with a
+versified inscription upon its face; and the fame of the fountain
+seldom suffered loss by poverty of merit in the poetry. Before Ben-Hur
+could test the oracle, some other visitors were seen approaching across
+the meadow, and their appearance piqued the curiosity of the company,
+his not less than theirs.
+
+He saw first a camel, very tall and very white, in leading of a driver
+on horseback. A houdah on the animal, besides being unusually large,
+was of crimson and gold. Two other horsemen followed the camel with
+tall spears in hand.
+
+“What a wonderful camel!” said one of the company.
+
+“A prince from afar,” another one suggested.
+
+“More likely a king.”
+
+“If he were on an elephant, I would say he was a king.”
+
+A third man had a very different opinion.
+
+“A camel—and a white camel!” he said, authoritatively. “By Apollo,
+friends, they who come yonder—you can see there are two of them—are
+neither kings nor princes; they are women!”
+
+In the midst of the dispute the strangers arrived.
+
+The camel seen at hand did not belie his appearance afar. A taller,
+statelier brute of his kind no traveller at the fountain, though from
+the remotest parts, had ever beheld. Such great black eyes! such
+exceedingly fine white hair! feet so contractile when raised, so
+soundless in planting, so broad when set!—nobody had ever seen the peer
+of this camel. And how well he became his housing of silk, and all its
+frippery of gold in fringe and gold in tassel! The tinkling of silver
+bells went before him, and he moved lightly, as if unknowing of his
+burden.
+
+But who were the man and woman under the houdah?
+
+Every eye saluted them with the inquiry.
+
+If the former were a prince or a king, the philosophers of the crowd
+might not deny the impartiality of Time. When they saw the thin,
+shrunken face buried under an immense turban, the skin of the hue of a
+mummy, making it impossible to form an idea of his nationality, they
+were pleased to think the limit of life was for the great as well as
+the small. They saw about his person nothing so enviable as the shawl
+which draped him.
+
+The woman was seated in the manner of the East, amidst veils and laces
+of surpassing fineness. Above her elbows she wore armlets fashioned
+like coiled asps, and linked to bracelets at the wrists by strands of
+gold; otherwise the arms were bare and of singular natural grace,
+complemented with hands modelled daintily as a child’s. One of the
+hands rested upon the side of the carriage, showing tapered fingers
+glittering with rings, and stained at the tips till they blushed like
+the pink of mother-of-pearl. She wore an open caul upon her head,
+sprinkled with beads of coral, and strung with coin-pieces called
+sunlets, some of which were carried across her forehead, while others
+fell down her back, half-smothered in the mass of her straight
+blue-black hair, of itself an incomparable ornament, not needing the
+veil which covered it, except as a protection against sun and dust.
+From her elevated seat she looked upon the people calmly, pleasantly,
+and apparently so intent upon studying them as to be unconscious of the
+interest she herself was exciting; and, what was unusual—nay, in
+violent contravention of the custom among women of rank in public—she
+looked at them with an open face.
+
+It was a fair face to see; quite youthful; in form, oval: complexion
+not white, like the Greek; nor brunet, like the Roman; nor blond, like
+the Gaul; but rather the tinting of the sun of the Upper Nile upon a
+skin of such transparency that the blood shone through it on cheek and
+brow with nigh the ruddiness of lamplight. The eyes, naturally large,
+were touched along the lids with the black paint immemorial throughout
+the East. The lips were slightly parted, disclosing, through their
+scarlet lake, teeth of glistening whiteness. To all these excellences
+of countenance the reader is finally besought to superadd the air
+derived from the pose of a small head, classic in shape, set upon a
+neck long, drooping, and graceful—the air, we may fancy, happily
+described by the word queenly.
+
+As if satisfied with the survey of people and locality, the fair
+creature spoke to the driver—an Ethiopian of vast brawn, naked to the
+waist—who led the camel nearer the fountain, and caused it to kneel;
+after which he received from her hand a cup, and proceeded to fill it
+at the basin. That instant the sound of wheels and the trampling of
+horses in rapid motion broke the silence her beauty had imposed, and,
+with a great outcry, the bystanders parted in every direction, hurrying
+to get away.
+
+“The Roman has a mind to ride us down. Look out!” Malluch shouted to
+Ben-Hur, setting him at the same time an example of hasty flight.
+
+The latter faced to the direction the sounds came from, and beheld
+Messala in his chariot pushing the four straight at the crowd. This
+time the view was near and distinct.
+
+The parting of the company uncovered the camel, which might have been
+more agile than his kind generally; yet the hoofs were almost upon him,
+and he resting with closed eyes, chewing the endless cud with such
+sense of security as long favoritism may be supposed to have bred in
+him. The Ethiopian wrung his hands afraid. In the houdah, the old man
+moved to escape; but he was hampered with age, and could not, even in
+the face of danger, forget the dignity which was plainly his habit. It
+was too late for the woman to save herself. Ben-Hur stood nearest them,
+and he called to Messala,
+
+“Hold! Look where thou goest! Back, back!”
+
+The patrician was laughing in hearty good-humor; and, seeing there was
+but one chance of rescue, Ben-Hur stepped in, and caught the bits of
+the left yoke-steed and his mate. “Dog of a Roman! Carest thou so
+little for life?” he cried, putting forth all his strength. The two
+horses reared, and drew the others round; the tilting of the pole
+tilted the chariot; Messala barely escaped a fall, while his complacent
+Myrtilus rolled back like a clod to the ground. Seeing the peril past,
+all the bystanders burst into derisive laughter.
+
+The matchless audacity of the Roman then manifested itself. Loosing the
+lines from his body, he tossed them to one side, dismounted, walked
+round the camel, looked at Ben-Hur, and spoke partly to the old man and
+partly to the woman.
+
+“Pardon, I pray you—I pray you both. I am Messala,” he said; “and, by
+the old Mother of the earth, I swear I did not see you or your camel!
+As to these good people—perhaps I trusted too much to my skill. I
+sought a laugh at them—the laugh is theirs. Good may it do them!”
+
+The good-natured, careless look and gesture he threw the bystanders
+accorded well with the speech. To hear what more he had to say, they
+became quiet. Assured of victory over the body of the offended, he
+signed his companion to take the chariot to a safer distance, and
+addressed himself boldly to the woman.
+
+“Thou hast interest in the good man here, whose pardon, if not granted
+now, I shall seek with the greater diligence hereafter; his daughter, I
+should say.”
+
+She made him no reply.
+
+“By Pallas, thou art beautiful! Beware Apollo mistake thee not for his
+lost love. I wonder what land can boast herself thy mother. Turn not
+away. A truce! a truce! There is the sun of India in thine eyes; in the
+corners of thy mouth, Egypt hath set her love-signs. Perpol! Turn not
+to that slave, fair mistress, before proving merciful to this one. Tell
+me at least that I am pardoned.”
+
+At this point she broke in upon him.
+
+“Wilt thou come here?” she asked, smiling, and with gracious bend of
+the head to Ben-Hur.
+
+“Take the cup and fill it, I pray thee,” she said to the latter. “My
+father is thirsty.”
+
+“I am thy most willing servant!”
+
+Ben-Hur turned about to do the favor, and was face to face with
+Messala. Their glances met; the Jew’s defiant; the Roman’s sparkling
+with humor.
+
+“O stranger, beautiful as cruel!” Messala said, waving his hand to her.
+“If Apollo get thee not, thou shalt see me again. Not knowing thy
+country, I cannot name a god to commend thee to; so, by all the gods, I
+will commend thee to—myself!”
+
+Seeing that Myrtilus had the four composed and ready, he returned to
+the chariot. The woman looked after him as he moved away, and whatever
+else there was in her look, there was no displeasure. Presently she
+received the water; her father drank; then she raised the cup to her
+lips, and, leaning down, gave it to Ben-Hur; never action more graceful
+and gracious.
+
+“Keep it, we pray of thee! It is full of blessings—all thine!”
+
+Immediately the camel was aroused, and on his feet, and about to go,
+when the old man called,
+
+“Stand thou here.”
+
+Ben-Hur went to him respectfully.
+
+“Thou hast served the stranger well to-day. There is but one God. In
+his holy name I thank thee. I am Balthasar, the Egyptian. In the Great
+Orchard of Palms, beyond the village of Daphne, in the shade of the
+palms, Sheik Ilderim the Generous abideth in his tents, and we are his
+guests. Seek us there. Thou shalt have welcome sweet with the savor of
+the grateful.”
+
+Ben-Hur was left in wonder at the old man’s clear voice and reverend
+manner. As he gazed after the two departing, he caught sight of Messala
+going as he had come, joyous, indifferent, and with a mocking laugh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+As a rule, there is no surer way to the dislike of men than to behave
+well where they have behaved badly. In this instance, happily, Malluch
+was an exception to the rule. The affair he had just witnessed raised
+Ben-Hur in his estimation, since he could not deny him courage and
+address; could he now get some insight into the young man’s history,
+the results of the day would not be all unprofitable to good master
+Simonides.
+
+On the latter point, referring to what he had as yet learned, two facts
+comprehended it all—the subject of his investigation was a Jew, and the
+adopted son of a famous Roman. Another conclusion which might be of
+importance was beginning to formulate itself in the shrewd mind of the
+emissary; between Messala and the son of the duumvir there was a
+connection of some kind. But what was it?—and how could it be reduced
+to assurance? With all his sounding, the ways and means of solution
+were not at call. In the heat of the perplexity, Ben-Hur himself came
+to his help. He laid his hand on Malluch’s arm and drew him out of the
+crowd, which was already going back to its interest in the gray old
+priest and the mystic fountain.
+
+“Good Malluch,” he said, stopping, “may a man forget his mother?”
+
+The question was abrupt and without direction, and therefore of the
+kind which leaves the person addressed in a state of confusion. Malluch
+looked into Ben-Hur’s face for a hint of meaning, but saw, instead, two
+bright-red spots, one on each cheek, and in his eyes traces of what
+might have been repressed tears; then he answered, mechanically, “No!”
+adding, with fervor, “never;” and a moment after, when he began to
+recover himself, “If he is an Israelite, never!” And when at length he
+was completely recovered—“My first lesson in the synagogue was the
+Shema; my next was the saying of the son of Sirach, ‘Honor thy father
+with thy whole soul, and forget not the sorrows of thy mother.’”
+
+The red spots on Ben-Hur’s face deepened.
+
+“The words bring my childhood back again; and, Malluch, they prove you
+a genuine Jew. I believe I can trust you.”
+
+Ben-Hur let go the arm he was holding, and caught the folds of the gown
+covering his own breast, and pressed them close, as if to smother a
+pain, or a feeling there as sharp as a pain.
+
+“My father,” he said, “bore a good name, and was not without honor in
+Jerusalem, where he dwelt. My mother, at his death, was in the prime of
+womanhood; and it is not enough to say of her she was good and
+beautiful: in her tongue was the law of kindness, and her works were
+the praise of all in the gates, and she smiled at days to come. I had a
+little sister, and she and I were the family, and we were so happy that
+I, at least, have never seen harm in the saying of the old rabbi, ‘God
+could not be everywhere, and, therefore, he made mothers.’ One day an
+accident happened to a Roman in authority as he was riding past our
+house at the head of a cohort; the legionaries burst the gate and
+rushed in and seized us. I have not seen my mother or sister since. I
+cannot say they are dead or living. I do not know what became of them.
+But, Malluch, the man in the chariot yonder was present at the
+separation; he gave us over to the captors; he heard my mother’s prayer
+for her children, and he laughed when they dragged her away. Hardly may
+one say which graves deepest in memory, love or hate. To-day I knew him
+afar—and, Malluch—”
+
+He caught the listener’s arm again.
+
+“And, Malluch, he knows and takes with him now the secret I would give
+my life for: he could tell if she lives, and where she is, and her
+condition; if she—no, THEY—much sorrow has made the two as one—if they
+are dead, he could tell where they died, and of what, and where their
+bones await my finding.”
+
+“And will he not?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“I am a Jew, and he is a Roman.”
+
+“But Romans have tongues, and Jews, though ever so despised, have
+methods to beguile them.”
+
+“For such as he? No; and, besides, the secret is one of state. All my
+father’s property was confiscated and divided.”
+
+Malluch nodded his head slowly, much as to admit the argument; then he
+asked anew, “Did he not recognize you?”
+
+“He could not. I was sent to death in life, and have been long since
+accounted of the dead.”
+
+“I wonder you did not strike him,” said Malluch, yielding to a touch of
+passion.
+
+“That would have been to put him past serving me forever. I would have
+had to kill him, and Death, you know, keeps secrets better even than a
+guilty Roman.”
+
+The man who, with so much to avenge, could so calmly put such an
+opportunity aside must be confident of his future or have ready some
+better design, and Malluch’s interest changed with the thought; it
+ceased to be that of an emissary in duty bound to another. Ben-Hur was
+actually asserting a claim upon him for his own sake. In other words,
+Malluch was preparing to serve him with good heart and from downright
+admiration.
+
+After brief pause, Ben-Hur resumed speaking.
+
+“I would not take his life, good Malluch; against that extreme the
+possession of the secret is for the present, at least, his safeguard;
+yet I may punish him, and so you give me help, I will try.”
+
+“He is a Roman,” said Malluch, without hesitation; “and I am of the
+tribe of Judah. I will help you. If you choose, put me under oath—under
+the most solemn oath.”
+
+“Give me your hand, that will suffice.”
+
+As their hands fell apart, Ben-Hur said, with lightened feeling, “That
+I would charge you with is not difficult, good friend; neither is it
+dreadful to conscience. Let us move on.”
+
+They took the road which led to the right across the meadow spoken of
+in the description of the coming to the fountain. Ben-Hur was first to
+break the silence.
+
+“Do you know Sheik Ilderim the Generous?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Where is his Orchard of Palms? or, rather, Malluch, how far is it
+beyond the village of Daphne?”
+
+Malluch was touched by a doubt; he recalled the prettiness of the favor
+shown him by the woman at the fountain, and wondered if he who had the
+sorrows of a mother in mind was about to forget them for a lure of
+love; yet he replied, “The Orchard of Palms lies beyond the village two
+hours by horse, and one by swift camel.”
+
+“Thank you; and to your knowledge once more. Have the games of which
+you told me been widely published? and when will they take place?”
+
+The questions were suggestive; and if they did not restore Malluch his
+confidence, they at least stimulated his curiosity.
+
+“Oh yes, they will be of ample splendor. The prefect is rich, and could
+afford to lose his place; yet, as is the way with successful men, his
+love of riches is nowise diminished; and to gain a friend at court, if
+nothing more, he must make ado for the Consul Maxentius, who is coming
+hither to make final preparations for a campaign against the Parthians.
+The money there is in the preparations the citizens of Antioch know
+from experience; so they have had permission to join the prefect in the
+honors intended for the great man. A month ago heralds went to the four
+quarters to proclaim the opening of the Circus for the celebration. The
+name of the prefect would be of itself good guarantee of variety and
+magnificence, particularly throughout the East; but when to his
+promises Antioch joins hers, all the islands and the cities by the sea
+stand assured of the extraordinary, and will be here in person or by
+their most famous professionals. The fees offered are royal.”
+
+“And the Circus—I have heard it is second only to the Maximus.”
+
+“At Rome, you mean. Well, ours seats two hundred thousand people, yours
+seats seventy-five thousand more; yours is of marble, so is ours; in
+arrangement they are exactly the same.”
+
+“Are the rules the same?”
+
+Malluch smiled.
+
+“If Antioch dared be original, son of Arrius, Rome would not be the
+mistress she is. The laws of the Circus Maximus govern except in one
+particular: there but four chariots may start at once, here all start
+without reference to number.”
+
+“That is the practise of the Greeks,” said Ben-Hur.
+
+“Yes, Antioch is more Greek than Roman.”
+
+“So then, Malluch, I may choose my own chariot?”
+
+“Your own chariot and horses. There is no restriction upon either.”
+
+While replying, Malluch observed the thoughtful look on Ben-Hur’s face
+give place to one of satisfaction.
+
+“One thing more now, O Malluch. When will the celebration be?”
+
+“Ah! your pardon,” the other answered. “To-morrow—and the next day,” he
+said, counting aloud, “then, to speak in the Roman style, if the
+sea-gods be propitious, the consul arrives. Yes, the sixth day from
+this we have the games.”
+
+“The time is short, Malluch, but it is enough.” The last words were
+spoken decisively. “By the prophets of our old Israel! I will take to
+the reins again. Stay! a condition; is there assurance that Messala
+will be a competitor?”
+
+Malluch saw now the plan, and all its opportunities for the humiliation
+of the Roman; and he had not been true descendant of Jacob if, with all
+his interest wakened, he had not rushed to a consideration of the
+chances. His voice actually trembled as he said, “Have you the
+practise?”
+
+“Fear not, my friend. The winners in the Circus Maximus have held their
+crowns these three years at my will. Ask them—ask the best of them—and
+they will tell you so. In the last great games the emperor himself
+offered me his patronage if I would take his horses in hand and run
+them against the entries of the world.”
+
+“But you did not?”
+
+Malluch spoke eagerly.
+
+“I—I am a Jew”—Ben-Hur seemed shrinking within himself as he
+spoke—“and, though I wear a Roman name, I dared not do professionally a
+thing to sully my father’s name in the cloisters and courts of the
+Temple. In the palaestrae I could indulge practise which, if followed
+into the Circus, would become an abomination; and if I take to the
+course here, Malluch, I swear it will not be for the prize or the
+winner’s fee.”
+
+“Hold—swear not so!” cried Malluch. “The fee is ten thousand
+sestertii—a fortune for life!”
+
+“Not for me, though the prefect trebled it fifty times. Better than
+that, better than all the imperial revenues from the first year of the
+first Cæsar—I will make this race to humble my enemy. Vengeance is
+permitted by the law.”
+
+Malluch smiled and nodded as if saying, “Right, right—trust me a Jew to
+understand a Jew.”
+
+“The Messala will drive,” he said, directly. “He is committed to the
+race in many ways—by publication in the streets, and in the baths and
+theaters, the palace and barracks; and, to fix him past retreat, his
+name is on the tablets of every young spendthrift in Antioch.”
+
+“In wager, Malluch?”
+
+“Yes, in wager; and every day he comes ostentatiously to practise, as
+you saw him.”
+
+“Ah! and that is the chariot, and those the horses, with which he will
+make the race? Thank you, thank you, Malluch! You have served me well
+already. I am satisfied. Now be my guide to the Orchard of Palms, and
+give me introduction to Sheik Ilderim the Generous.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“To-day. His horses may be engaged to-morrow.”
+
+“You like them, then?”
+
+Ben-Hur answered with animation,
+
+“I saw them from the stand an instant only, for Messala then drove up,
+and I might not look at anything else; yet I recognized them as of the
+blood which is the wonder as well as the glory of the deserts. I never
+saw the kind before, except in the stables of Cæsar; but once seen,
+they are always to be known. To-morrow, upon meeting, I will know you,
+Malluch, though you do not so much as salute me; I will know you by
+your face, by your form, by your manner; and by the same signs I will
+know them, and with the same certainty. If all that is said of them be
+true, and I can bring their spirit under control of mine, I can—”
+
+“Win the sestertii!” said Malluch, laughing.
+
+“No,” answered Ben-Hur, as quickly. “I will do what better becomes a
+man born to the heritage of Jacob—I will humble mine enemy in a most
+public place. But,” he added, impatiently, “we are losing time. How can
+we most quickly reach the tents of the sheik?”
+
+Malluch took a moment for reflection.
+
+“It is best we go straight to the village, which is fortunately near
+by; if two swift camels are to be had for hire there, we will be on the
+road but an hour.”
+
+“Let us about it, then.”
+
+The village was an assemblage of palaces in beautiful gardens,
+interspersed with khans of princely sort. Dromedaries were happily
+secured, and upon them the journey to the famous Orchard of Palms was
+begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Beyond the village the country was undulating and cultivated; in fact,
+it was the garden-land of Antioch, with not a foot lost to labor. The
+steep faces of the hills were terraced; even the hedges were brighter
+of the trailing vines which, besides the lure of shade, offered
+passers-by sweet promises of wine to come, and grapes in clustered
+purple ripeness. Over melon-patches, and through apricot and fig-tree
+groves, and groves of oranges and limes, the white-washed houses of the
+farmers were seen; and everywhere Plenty, the smiling daughter of
+Peace, gave notice by her thousand signs that she was at home, making
+the generous traveller merry at heart, until he was even disposed to
+give Rome her dues. Occasionally, also, views were had of Taurus and
+Lebanon, between which, a separating line of silver, the Orontes
+placidly pursued its way.
+
+In course of their journey the friends came to the river, which they
+followed with the windings of the road, now over bold bluffs, and then
+into vales, all alike allotted for country-seats, and if the land was
+in full foliage of oak and sycamore and myrtle, and bay and arbutus,
+and perfuming jasmine, the river was bright with slanted sunlight,
+which would have slept where it fell but for ships in endless
+procession, gliding with the current, tacking for the wind, or bounding
+under the impulse of oars—some coming, some going, and all suggestive
+of the sea, and distant peoples, and famous places, and things coveted
+on account of their rarity. To the fancy there is nothing so winsome as
+a white sail seaward blown, unless it be a white sail homeward bound,
+its voyage happily done. And down the shore the friends went
+continuously till they came to a lake fed by back-water from the river,
+clear, deep, and without current. An old palm-tree dominated the angle
+of the inlet; turning to the left at the foot of the tree, Malluch
+clapped his hands and shouted,
+
+“Look, look! The Orchard of Palms!”
+
+The scene was nowhere else to be found unless in the favored oases of
+Arabia or the Ptolemaean farms along the Nile; and to sustain a
+sensation new as it was delightful, Ben-Hur was admitted into a tract
+of land apparently without limit and level as a floor. All under foot
+was fresh grass, in Syria the rarest and most beautiful production of
+the soil; if he looked up, it was to see the sky paley blue through the
+groinery of countless date-bearers, very patriarchs of their kind, so
+numerous and old, and of such mighty girth, so tall, so serried, so
+wide of branch, each branch so perfect with fronds, plumy and waxlike
+and brilliant, they seemed enchanters enchanted. Here was the grass
+coloring the very atmosphere; there the lake, cool and clear, rippling
+but a few feet under the surface, and helping the trees to their long
+life in old age. Did the Grove of Daphne excel this one? And the palms,
+as if they knew Ben-Hur’s thought, and would win him after a way of
+their own, seemed, as he passed under their arches, to stir and
+sprinkle him with dewy coolness.
+
+The road wound in close parallelism with the shore of the lake; and
+when it carried the travellers down to the water’s edge, there was
+always on that side a shining expanse limited not far off by the
+opposite shore, on which, as on this one, no tree but the palm was
+permitted.
+
+“See that,” said Malluch, pointing to a giant of the place. “Each ring
+upon its trunk marks a year of its life. Count them from root to
+branch, and if the sheik tells you the grove was planted before the
+Seleucidæ were heard of in Antioch, do not doubt him.”
+
+One may not look at a perfect palm-tree but that, with a subtlety all
+its own, it assumes a presence for itself, and makes a poet of the
+beholder. This is the explanation of the honors it has received,
+beginning with the artists of the first kings, who could find no form
+in all the earth to serve them so well as a model for the pillars of
+their palaces and temples; and for the same reason Ben-Hur was moved to
+say,
+
+“As I saw him at the stand to-day, good Malluch, Sheik Ilderim appeared
+to be a very common man. The rabbis in Jerusalem would look down upon
+him, I fear, as a son of a dog of Edom. How came he in possession of
+the Orchard? And how has he been able to hold it against the greed of
+Roman governors?”
+
+“If blood derives excellence from time, son of Arrius, then is old
+Ilderim a man, though he be an uncircumcised Edomite.”
+
+Malluch spoke warmly.
+
+“All his fathers before him were sheiks. One of them—I shall not say
+when he lived or did the good deed—once helped a king who was being
+hunted with swords. The story says he loaned him a thousand horsemen,
+who knew the paths of the wilderness and its hiding-places as shepherds
+know the scant hills they inhabit with their flocks; and they carried
+him here and there until the opportunity came, and then with their
+spears they slew the enemy, and set him upon his throne again. And the
+king, it is said, remembered the service, and brought the son of the
+Desert to this place, and bade him set up his tent and bring his family
+and his herds, for the lake and trees, and all the land from the river
+to the nearest mountains, were his and his children’s forever. And they
+have never been disturbed in the possession. The rulers succeeding have
+found it policy to keep good terms with the tribe, to whom the Lord has
+given increase of men and horses, and camels and riches, making them
+masters of many highways between cities; so that it is with them any
+time they please to say to commerce, ‘Go in peace,’ or ‘Stop,’ and what
+they say shall be done. Even the prefect in the citadel overlooking
+Antioch thinks it happy day with him when Ilderim, surnamed the
+Generous on account of good deeds done unto all manner of men, with his
+wives and children, and his trains of camels and horses, and his
+belongings of sheik, moving as our fathers Abraham and Jacob moved,
+comes up to exchange briefly his bitter wells for the pleasantness you
+see about us.”
+
+“How is it, then?” said Ben-Hur, who had been listening unmindful of
+the slow gait of the dromedaries. “I saw the sheik tear his beard while
+he cursed himself that he had put trust in a Roman. Cæsar, had he
+heard him, might have said, ‘I like not such a friend as this; put him
+away.’”
+
+“It would be but shrewd judgment,” Malluch replied, smiling. “Ilderim
+is not a lover of Rome; he has a grievance. Three years ago the
+Parthians rode across the road from Bozra to Damascus, and fell upon a
+caravan laden, among other things, with the incoming tax-returns of a
+district over that way. They slew every creature taken, which the
+censors in Rome could have forgiven if the imperial treasure had been
+spared and forwarded. The farmers of the taxes, being chargeable with
+the loss, complained to Cæsar, and Cæsar held Herod to payment, and
+Herod, on his part, seized property of Ilderim, whom he charged with
+treasonable neglect of duty. The sheik appealed to Cæsar, and Cæsar
+has made him such answer as might be looked for from the unwinking
+sphinx. The old man’s heart has been aching sore ever since, and he
+nurses his wrath, and takes pleasure in its daily growth.”
+
+“He can do nothing, Malluch.”
+
+“Well,” said Malluch, “that involves another explanation, which I will
+give you, if we can draw nearer. But see!—the hospitality of the sheik
+begins early—the children are speaking to you.”
+
+The dromedaries stopped, and Ben-Hur looked down upon some little girls
+of the Syrian peasant class, who were offering him their baskets filled
+with dates. The fruit was freshly gathered, and not to be refused; he
+stooped and took it, and as he did so a man in the tree by which they
+were halted cried, “Peace to you, and welcome!”
+
+Their thanks said to the children, the friends moved on at such gait as
+the animals chose.
+
+“You must know,” Malluch continued, pausing now and then to dispose of
+a date, “that the merchant Simonides gives me his confidence, and
+sometimes flatters me by taking me into council; and as I attend him at
+his house, I have made acquaintance with many of his friends, who,
+knowing my footing with the host, talk to him freely in my presence. In
+that way I became somewhat intimate with Sheik Ilderim.”
+
+For a moment Ben-Hur’s attention wandered. Before his mind’s eye there
+arose the image, pure, gentle, and appealing, of Esther, the merchant’s
+daughter. Her dark eyes bright with the peculiar Jewish lustre met his
+in modest gaze; he heard her step as when she approached him with the
+wine, and her voice as she tendered him the cup; and he acknowledged to
+himself again all the sympathy she manifested for him, and manifested
+so plainly that words were unnecessary, and so sweetly that words would
+have been but a detraction. The vision was exceeding pleasant, but upon
+his turning to Malluch, it flew away.
+
+“A few weeks ago,” said Malluch, continuing, “the old Arab called on
+Simonides, and found me present. I observed he seemed much moved about
+something, and, in deference, offered to withdraw, but he himself
+forbade me. ‘As you are an Israelite,’ he said, ‘stay, for I have a
+strange story to tell.’ The emphasis on the word Israelite excited my
+curiosity. I remained, and this is in substance his story—I cut it
+short because we are drawing nigh the tent, and I leave the details to
+the good man himself. A good many years ago, three men called at
+Ilderim’s tent out in the wilderness. They were all foreigners, a
+Hindoo, a Greek, and an Egyptian; and they had come on camels, the
+largest he had ever seen, and all white. He welcomed them, and gave
+them rest. Next morning they arose and prayed a prayer new to the
+sheik—a prayer addressed to God and his son—this with much mystery
+besides. After breaking fast with him, the Egyptian told who they were,
+and whence they had come. Each had seen a star, out of which a voice
+had bidden them go to Jerusalem and ask, Where is he that is born King
+of the Jews?’ They obeyed. From Jerusalem they were led by a star to
+Bethlehem, where, in a cave, they found a child newly born, which they
+fell down and worshipped; and after worshipping it, and giving it
+costly presents, and bearing witness of what it was, they took to their
+camels, and fled without pause to the sheik, because if Herod—meaning
+him surnamed the Great—could lay hands upon them, he would certainly
+kill them. And, faithful to his habit, the sheik took care of them, and
+kept them concealed for a year, when they departed, leaving with him
+gifts of great value, and each going a separate way.”
+
+“It is, indeed, a most wonderful story,” Ben-Hur exclaimed at its
+conclusion. “What did you say they were to ask at Jerusalem?”
+
+“They were to ask, ‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews?’”
+
+“Was that all?”
+
+“There was more to the question, but I cannot recall it.”
+
+“And they found the child?”
+
+“Yes, and worshipped him.”
+
+“It is a miracle, Malluch.”
+
+“Ilderim is a grave man, though excitable as all Arabs are. A lie on
+his tongue is impossible.”
+
+Malluch spoke positively. Thereupon the dromedaries were forgotten,
+and, quite as unmindful of their riders, they turned off the road to
+the growing grass.
+
+“Has Ilderim heard nothing more of the three men?” asked Ben-Hur. “What
+became of them?”
+
+“Ah, yes, that was the cause of his coming to Simonides the day of
+which I was speaking. Only the night before that day the Egyptian
+reappeared to him.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Here at the door of the tent to which we are coming.”
+
+“How knew he the man?”
+
+“As you knew the horses to-day—by face and manner.”
+
+“By nothing else?”
+
+“He rode the same great white camel, and gave him the same
+name—Balthasar, the Egyptian.”
+
+“It is a wonder of the Lord’s!”
+
+Ben-Hur spoke with excitement.
+
+And Malluch, wondering, asked, “Why so?”
+
+“Balthasar, you said?”
+
+“Yes. Balthasar, the Egyptian.”
+
+“That was the name the old man gave us at the fountain today.”
+
+Then, at the reminder, Malluch became excited.
+
+“It is true,” he said; “and the camel was the same—and you saved the
+man’s life.”
+
+“And the woman,” said Ben-Hur, like one speaking to himself—“the woman
+was his daughter.”
+
+He fell to thinking; and even the reader will say he was having a
+vision of the woman, and that it was more welcome than that of Esther,
+if only because it stayed longer with him; but no—
+
+“Tell me again,” he said, presently. “Were the three to ask, ‘Where is
+he that is to be King of the Jews?’”
+
+“Not exactly. The words were BORN TO BE KING OF THE JEWS. Those were
+the words as the old sheik caught them first in the desert, and he has
+ever since been waiting the coming of the king; nor can any one shake
+his faith that he will come.”
+
+“How—as king?”
+
+“Yes, and bringing the doom of Rome—so says the sheik.”
+
+Ben-Hur kept silent awhile, thinking and trying to control his
+feelings.
+
+“The old man is one of many millions,” he said, slowly—“one of many
+millions each with a wrong to avenge; and this strange faith, Malluch,
+is bread and wine to his hope; for who but a Herod may be King of the
+Jews while Rome endures? But, following the story, did you hear what
+Simonides said to him?”
+
+“If Ilderim is a grave man, Simonides is a wise one,” Malluch replied.
+“I listened, and he said— But hark! Some one comes overtaking us.”
+
+The noise grew louder, until presently they heard the rumble of wheels
+mixed with the beating of horse-hoofs—a moment later Sheik Ilderim
+himself appeared on horseback, followed by a train, among which were
+the four wine-red Arabs drawing the chariot. The sheik’s chin, in its
+muffling of long white beard, was drooped upon his breast. Our friends
+had out-travelled him; but at sight of them he raised his head and
+spoke kindly.
+
+“Peace to you!—Ah, my friend Malluch! Welcome! And tell me you are not
+going, but just come; that you have something for me from the good
+Simonides—may the Lord of his fathers keep him in life for many years
+to come! Ay, take up the straps, both of you, and follow me. I have
+bread and leben, or, if you prefer it, arrack, and the flesh of young
+kid. Come!”
+
+They followed after him to the door of the tent, in which, when they
+were dismounted, he stood to receive them, holding a platter with three
+cups filled with creamy liquor just drawn from a great smoke-stained
+skin bottle, pendent from the central post.
+
+“Drink,” he said, heartily, “drink, for this is the fear-naught of the
+tentmen.”
+
+They each took a cup, and drank till but the foam remained.
+
+“Enter now, in God’s name.”
+
+And when they were gone in, Malluch took the sheik aside, and spoke to
+him privately; after which he went to Ben-Hur and excused himself.
+
+“I have told the sheik about you, and he will give you the trial of his
+horses in the morning. He is your friend. Having done for you all I
+can, you must do the rest, and let me return to Antioch. There is one
+there who has my promise to meet him to-night. I have no choice but to
+go. I will come back to-morrow prepared, if all goes well in the
+meantime, to stay with you until the games are over.”
+
+With blessings given and received, Malluch set out in return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+What time the lower horn of a new moon touched the castellated piles on
+Mount Sulpius, and two thirds of the people of Antioch were out on
+their house-tops comforting themselves with the night breeze when it
+blew, and with fans when it failed, Simonides sat in the chair which
+had come to be a part of him, and from the terrace looked down over the
+river, and his ships a-swing at their moorings. The wall at his back
+cast its shadow broadly over the water to the opposite shore. Above him
+the endless tramp upon the bridge went on. Esther was holding a plate
+for him containing his frugal supper—some wheaten cakes, light as
+wafers, some honey, and a bowl of milk, into which he now and then
+dipped the wafers after dipping them into the honey.
+
+“Malluch is a laggard to-night,” he said, showing where his thoughts
+were.
+
+“Do you believe he will come?” Esther asked.
+
+“Unless he has taken to the sea or the desert, and is yet following on,
+he will come.”
+
+Simonides spoke with quiet confidence.
+
+“He may write,” she said.
+
+“Not so, Esther. He would have despatched a letter when he found he
+could not return, and told me so; because I have not received such a
+letter, I know he can come, and will.”
+
+“I hope so,” she said, very softly.
+
+Something in the utterance attracted his attention; it might have been
+the tone, it might have been the wish. The smallest bird cannot light
+upon the greatest tree without sending a shock to its most distant
+fibre; every mind is at times no less sensitive to the most trifling
+words.
+
+“You wish him to come, Esther?” he asked.
+
+“Yes,” she said, lifting her eyes to his.
+
+“Why? Can you tell me?” he persisted.
+
+“Because”—she hesitated, then began again—“because the young man is—”
+The stop was full.
+
+“Our master. Is that the word?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you still think I should not suffer him to go away without telling
+him to come, if he chooses, and take us—and all we have—all, Esther—the
+goods, the shekels, the ships, the slaves, and the mighty credit, which
+is a mantle of cloth of gold and finest silver spun for me by the
+greatest of the angels of men—Success.”
+
+She made no answer.
+
+“Does that move you nothing? No?” he said, with the slightest taint of
+bitterness. “Well, well, I have found, Esther, the worst reality is
+never unendurable when it comes out from behind the clouds through
+which we at first see it darkly—never—not even the rack. I suppose it
+will be so with death. And by that philosophy the slavery to which we
+are going must afterwhile become sweet. It pleases me even now to think
+what a favored man our master is. The fortune cost him nothing—not an
+anxiety, not a drop of sweat, not so much as a thought; it attaches to
+him undreamed of, and in his youth. And, Esther, let me waste a little
+vanity with the reflection; he gets what he could not go into the
+market and buy with all the pelf in a sum—thee, my child, my darling;
+thou blossom from the tomb of my lost Rachel!”
+
+He drew her to him, and kissed her twice—once for herself, once for her
+mother.
+
+“Say not so,” she said, when his hand fell from her neck. “Let us think
+better of him; he knows what sorrow is, and will set us free.”
+
+“Ah, thy instincts are fine, Esther; and thou knowest I lean upon them
+in doubtful cases where good or bad is to be pronounced of a person
+standing before thee as he stood this morning. But—but”—his voice rose
+and hardened—“these limbs upon which I cannot stand—this body drawn and
+beaten out of human shape—they are not all I bring him of myself. Oh
+no, no! I bring him a soul which has triumphed over torture and Roman
+malice keener than any torture—I bring him a mind which has eyes to see
+gold at a distance farther than the ships of Solomon sailed, and power
+to bring it to hand—ay, Esther, into my palm here for the fingers to
+grip and keep lest it take wings at some other’s word—a mind skilled at
+scheming”—he stopped and laughed—“Why, Esther, before the new moon
+which in the courts of the Temple on the Holy Hill they are this moment
+celebrating passes into its next quartering I could ring the world so
+as to startle even Cæsar; for know you, child, I have that faculty
+which is better than any one sense, better than a perfect body, better
+than courage and will, better than experience, ordinarily the best
+product of the longest lives—the faculty divinest of men, but which”—he
+stopped, and laughed again, not bitterly, but with real zest—“but which
+even the great do not sufficiently account, while with the herd it is a
+non-existent—the faculty of drawing men to my purpose and holding them
+faithfully to its achievement, by which, as against things to be done,
+I multiply myself into hundreds and thousands. So the captains of my
+ships plough the seas, and bring me honest returns; so Malluch follows
+the youth, our master, and will”—just then a footstep was heard upon
+the terrace—“Ha, Esther! said I not so? He is here—and we will have
+tidings. For thy sake, sweet child—my lily just budded—I pray the Lord
+God, who has not forgotten his wandering sheep of Israel, that they be
+good and comforting. Now we will know if he will let thee go with all
+thy beauty, and me with all my faculties.”
+
+Malluch came to the chair.
+
+“Peace to you, good master,” he said, with a low obeisance—“and to you,
+Esther, most excellent of daughters.”
+
+He stood before them deferentially, and the attitude and the address
+left it difficult to define his relation to them; the one was that of a
+servant, the other indicated the familiar and friend. On the other
+side, Simonides, as was his habit in business, after answering the
+salutation went straight to the subject.
+
+“What of the young man, Malluch?”
+
+The events of the day were told quietly and in the simplest words, and
+until he was through there was no interruption; nor did the listener in
+the chair so much as move a hand during the narration; but for his
+eyes, wide open and bright, and an occasional long-drawn breath, he
+might have been accounted an effigy.
+
+“Thank you, thank you, Malluch,” he said, heartily, at the conclusion;
+“you have done well—no one could have done better. Now what say you of
+the young man’s nationality?”
+
+“He is an Israelite, good master, and of the tribe of Judah.”
+
+“You are positive?”
+
+“Very positive.”
+
+“He appears to have told you but little of his life.”
+
+“He has somewhere learned to be prudent. I might call him distrustful.
+He baffled all my attempts upon his confidence until we started from
+the Castalian fount going to the village of Daphne.”
+
+“A place of abomination! Why went he there?”
+
+“I would say from curiosity, the first motive of the many who go; but,
+very strangely, he took no interest in the things he saw. Of the
+Temple, he merely asked if it were Grecian. Good master, the young man
+has a trouble of mind from which he would hide, and he went to the
+Grove, I think, as we go to sepulchres with our dead—he went to bury
+it.”
+
+“That were well, if so,” Simonides said, in a low voice; then louder,
+“Malluch, the curse of the time is prodigality. The poor make
+themselves poorer as apes of the rich, and the merely rich carry
+themselves like princes. Saw you signs of the weakness in the youth?
+Did he display moneys—coin of Rome or Israel?”
+
+“None, none, good master.”
+
+“Surely, Malluch, where there are so many inducements to folly—so much,
+I mean, to eat and drink—surely he made you generous offer of some
+sort. His age, if nothing more, would warrant that much.”
+
+“He neither ate nor drank in my company.”
+
+“In what he said or did, Malluch, could you in anywise detect his
+master-idea? You know they peep through cracks close enough to stop the
+wind.”
+
+“Give me to understand you,” said Malluch, in doubt.
+
+“Well, you know we nor speak nor act, much less decide grave questions
+concerning ourselves, except as we be driven by a motive. In that
+respect, what made you of him?”
+
+“As to that, Master Simonides, I can answer with much assurance. He is
+devoted to finding his mother and sister—that first. Then he has a
+grievance against Rome; and as the Messala of whom I told you had
+something to do with the wrong, the great present object is to
+humiliate him. The meeting at the fountain furnished an opportunity,
+but it was put aside as not sufficiently public.”
+
+“The Messala is influential,” said Simonides, thoughtfully.
+
+“Yes; but the next meeting will be in the Circus.”
+
+“Well—and then?”
+
+“The son of Arrius will win.”
+
+“How know you?”
+
+Malluch smiled.
+
+“I am judging by what he says.”
+
+“Is that all?”
+
+“No; there is a much better sign—his spirit.”
+
+“Ay; but, Malluch, his idea of vengeance—what is its scope? Does he
+limit it to the few who did him the wrong, or does he take in the many?
+And more—is his feeling but the vagary of a sensitive boy, or has it
+the seasoning of suffering manhood to give it endurance? You know,
+Malluch, the vengeful thought that has root merely in the mind is but a
+dream of idlest sort which one clear day will dissipate; while revenge
+the passion is a disease of the heart which climbs up, up to the brain,
+and feeds itself on both alike.”
+
+In this question, Simonides for the first time showed signs of feeling;
+he spoke with rapid utterance, and with clenched hands and the
+eagerness of a man illustrating the disease he described.
+
+“Good my master,” Malluch replied, “one of my reasons for believing the
+young man a Jew is the intensity of his hate. It was plain to me he had
+himself under watch, as was natural, seeing how long he has lived in an
+atmosphere of Roman jealousy; yet I saw it blaze—once when he wanted to
+know Ilderim’s feeling towards Rome, and again when I told him the
+story of the sheik and the wise man, and spoke of the question, ‘Where
+is he that is born King of the Jews?’”
+
+Simonides leaned forward quickly.
+
+“Ah, Malluch, his words—give me his words; let me judge the impression
+the mystery made upon him.”
+
+“He wanted to know the exact words. Were they TO BE or BORN TO BE? It
+appeared he was struck by a seeming difference in the effect of the two
+phrases.”
+
+Simonides settled back into his pose of listening judge.
+
+“Then,” said Malluch, “I told him Ilderim’s view of the mystery—that
+the king would come with the doom of Rome. The young man’s blood rose
+over his cheeks and forehead, and he said earnestly, ‘Who but a Herod
+can be king while Rome endures?’”
+
+“Meaning what?”
+
+“That the empire must be destroyed before there could be another rule.”
+
+Simonides gazed for a time at the ships and their shadows slowly
+swinging together in the river; when he looked up, it was to end the
+interview.
+
+“Enough, Malluch,” he said. “Get you to eat, and make ready to return
+to the Orchard of Palms; you must help the young man in his coming
+trial. Come to me in the morning. I will send a letter to Ilderim.”
+Then in an undertone, as if to himself, he added, “I may attend the
+Circus myself.”
+
+When Malluch after the customary benediction given and received was
+gone, Simonides took a deep draught of milk, and seemed refreshed and
+easy of mind.
+
+“Put the meal down, Esther,” he said; “it is over.”
+
+She obeyed.
+
+“Here now.”
+
+She resumed her place upon the arm of the chair close to him.
+
+“God is good to me, very good,” he said, fervently. “His habit is to
+move in mystery, yet sometimes he permits us to think we see and
+understand him. I am old, dear, and must go; but now, in this eleventh
+hour, when my hope was beginning to die, he sends me this one with a
+promise, and I am lifted up. I see the way to a great part in a
+circumstance itself so great that it shall be as a new birth to the
+whole world. And I see a reason for the gift of my great riches, and
+the end for which they were designed. Verily, my child, I take hold on
+life anew.”
+
+Esther nestled closer to him, as if to bring his thoughts from their
+far-flying.
+
+“The king has been born” he continued, imagining he was still speaking
+to her, “and he must be near the half of common life. Balthasar says he
+was a child on his mother’s lap when he saw him, and gave him presents
+and worship; and Ilderim holds it was twenty-seven years ago last
+December when Balthasar and his companions came to his tent asking a
+hiding-place from Herod. Wherefore the coming cannot now be long
+delayed. To-night—to-morrow it may be. Holy fathers of Israel, what
+happiness in the thought! I seem to hear the crash of the falling of
+old walls and the clamor of a universal change—ay, and for the
+uttermost joy of men, the earth opens to take Rome in, and they look up
+and laugh and sing that she is not, while we are;” then he laughed at
+himself. “Why, Esther, heard you ever the like? Surely, I have on me
+the passion of a singer, the heat of blood and the thrill of Miriam and
+David. In my thoughts, which should be those of a plain worker in
+figures and facts, there is a confusion of cymbals clashing and
+harp-strings loud beaten, and the voices of a multitude standing around
+a new-risen throne. I will put the thinking by for the present; only,
+dear, when the king comes he will need money and men, for as he was a
+child born of woman he will be but a man after all, bound to human ways
+as you and I are. And for the money he will have need of getters and
+keepers, and for the men leaders. There, there! See you not a broad
+road for my walking, and the running of the youth our master?—and at
+the end of it glory and revenge for us both?—and—and”—he paused, struck
+with the selfishness of a scheme in which she had no part or good
+result; then added, kissing her, “And happiness for thy mother’s
+child.”
+
+She sat still, saying nothing. Then he remembered the difference in
+natures, and the law by which we are not permitted always to take
+delight in the same cause or be equally afraid of the same thing. He
+remembered she was but a girl.
+
+“Of what are you thinking, Esther?” he said, in his common home-like
+way. “If the thought have the form of a wish, give it me, little one,
+while the power remains mine. For power, you know, is a fretful thing,
+and hath its wings always spread for flight.”
+
+She answered with a simplicity almost childish,
+
+“Send for him, father. Send for him to-night, and do not let him go
+into the Circus.”
+
+“Ah!” he said, prolonging the exclamation; and again his eyes fell upon
+the river, where the shadows were more shadowy than ever, since the
+moon had sunk far down behind Sulpius, leaving the city to the
+ineffectual stars. Shall we say it, reader? He was touched by a twinge
+of jealousy. If she should really love the young master! Oh no! That
+could not be; she was too young. But the idea had fast grip, and
+directly held him still and cold. She was sixteen. He knew it well. On
+the last natal day he had gone with her to the shipyard where there was
+a launch, and the yellow flag which the galley bore to its bridal with
+the waves had on it “Esther;” so they celebrated the day together. Yet
+the fact struck him now with the force of a surprise. There are
+realizations which come to us all painfully; mostly, however, such as
+pertain to ourselves; that we are growing old, for instance; and, more
+terrible, that we must die. Such a one crept into his heart, shadowy as
+the shadows, yet substantial enough to wring from him a sigh which was
+almost a groan. It was not sufficient that she should enter upon her
+young womanhood a servant, but she must carry to her master her
+affections, the truth and tenderness and delicacy of which he the
+father so well knew, because to this time they had all been his own
+undividedly. The fiend whose task it is to torture us with fears and
+bitter thoughts seldom does his work by halves. In the pang of the
+moment, the brave old man lost sight of his new scheme, and of the
+miraculous king its subject. By a mighty effort, however, he controlled
+himself, and asked, calmly, “Not go into the Circus, Esther? Why,
+child?”
+
+“It is not a place for a son of Israel, father.”
+
+“Rabbinical, rabbinical, Esther! Is that all?”
+
+The tone of the inquiry was searching, and went to her heart, which
+began to beat loudly—so loudly she could not answer. A confusion new
+and strangely pleasant fell upon her.
+
+“The young man is to have the fortune,” he said, taking her hand, and
+speaking more tenderly; “he is to have the ships and the shekels—all,
+Esther, all. Yet I did not feel poor, for thou wert left me, and thy
+love so like the dead Rachel’s. Tell me, is he to have that too?”
+
+She bent over him, and laid her cheek against his head.
+
+“Speak, Esther. I will be the stronger of the knowledge. In warning
+there is strength.”
+
+She sat up then, and spoke as if she were Truth’s holy self.
+
+“Comfort thee, father. I will never leave thee; though he take my love,
+I will be thy handmaid ever as now.”
+
+And, stooping, she kissed him.
+
+“And more,” she said, continuing: “he is comely in my sight, and the
+pleading of his voice drew me to him, and I shudder to think of him in
+danger. Yes, father, I would be more than glad to see him again. Still,
+the love that is unrequited cannot be perfect love, wherefore I will
+wait a time, remembering I am thy daughter and my mother’s.”
+
+“A very blessing of the Lord art thou, Esther! A blessing to keep me
+rich, though all else be lost. And by his holy name and everlasting
+life, I swear thou shalt not suffer.”
+
+At his request, a little later, the servant came and rolled the chair
+into the room, where he sat for a time thinking of the coming of the
+king, while she went off and slept the sleep of the innocent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The palace across the river nearly opposite Simonides’ place is said to
+have been completed by the famous Epiphanes, and was all such a
+habitation can be imagined; though he was a builder whose taste ran to
+the immense rather than the classical, now so called—an architectural
+imitator, in other words, of the Persians instead of the Greeks.
+
+The wall enclosing the whole island to the waters edge, and built for
+the double purpose of bulwark against the river and defence against the
+mob, was said to have rendered the palace unfit for constant occupancy,
+insomuch that the legates abandoned it and moved to another residence
+erected for them on the western ridge of Mount Sulpius, under the
+Temple of Jupiter. Persons were not wanting, however, who flatly denied
+the bill against the ancient abode. They said, with shrewdness at
+least, that the real object of the removal of the legates was not a
+more healthful locality, but the assurance afforded them by the huge
+barracks, named, according to the prevalent style, citadel, situated
+just over the way on the eastern ridge of the mount. And the opinion
+had plausible showing. Among other pertinent things, it was remarked
+that the palace was kept in perpetual readiness for use; and when a
+consul, general of the army, king, or visiting potentate of any kind
+arrived at Antioch, quarters were at once assigned him on the island.
+
+As we have to do with but one apartment in the old pile, the residue of
+it is left to the reader’s fancy; and as pleases him, he may go through
+its gardens, baths, halls, and labyrinth of rooms to the pavilions on
+the roof, all furnished as became a house of fame in a city which was
+more nearly Milton’s “gorgeous East” than any other in the world.
+
+At this age the apartment alluded to would be termed a saloon. It was
+quite spacious, floored with polished marble slabs, and lighted in the
+day by skylights in which colored mica served as glass. The walls were
+broken by Atlantes, no two of which were alike, but all supporting a
+cornice wrought with arabesques exceedingly intricate in form, and more
+elegant on account of superadditions of color—blue, green, Tyrian
+purple, and gold. Around the room ran a continuous divan of Indian
+silks and wool of Cashmere. The furniture consisted of tables and
+stools of Egyptian patterns grotesquely carved. We have left Simonides
+in his chair perfecting his scheme in aid of the miraculous king, whose
+coming he has decided is so close at hand. Esther is asleep; and now,
+having crossed the river by the bridge, and made way through the
+lion-guarded gate and a number of Babylonian halls and courts, let us
+enter the gilded saloon.
+
+There are five chandeliers hanging by sliding bronze chains from the
+ceiling—one in each corner, and in the centre one—enormous pyramids of
+lighted lamps, illuminating even the demoniac faces of the Atlantes and
+the complex tracery of the cornice. About the tables, seated or
+standing, or moving restlessly from one to another, there are probably
+a hundred persons, whom we must study at least for a moment.
+
+They are all young, some of them little more than boys. That they are
+Italians and mostly Romans is past doubt. They all speak Latin in
+purity, while each one appears in the in-door dress of the great
+capital on the Tiber; that is, in tunics short of sleeve and skirt, a
+style of vesture well adapted to the climate of Antioch, and especially
+comfortable in the too close atmosphere of the saloon. On the divan
+here and there togas and lacernae lie where they have been carelessly
+tossed, some of them significantly bordered with purple. On the divan
+also lie sleepers stretched at ease; whether they were overcome by the
+heat and fatigue of the sultry day or by Bacchus we will not pause to
+inquire.
+
+The hum of voices is loud and incessant. Sometimes there is an
+explosion of laughter, sometimes a burst of rage or exultation; but
+over all prevails a sharp, prolonged rattle, at first somewhat
+confusing to the non-familiar. If we approach the tables, however, the
+mystery solves itself. The company is at the favorite games, draughts
+and dice, singly or together, and the rattle is merely of the tesserae,
+or ivory cubes, loudly shaken, and the moving of the hostes on the
+checkered boards.
+
+Who are the company?
+
+“Good Flavius,” said a player, holding his piece in suspended movement,
+“thou seest yon lacerna; that one in front of us on the divan. It is
+fresh from the shop, and hath a shoulder-buckle of gold broad as a
+palm.”
+
+“Well,” said Flavius, intent upon his game, “I have seen such before;
+wherefore thine may not be old, yet, by the girdle of Venus, it is not
+new! What of it?”
+
+“Nothing. Only I would give it to find a man who knows everything.”
+
+“Ha, ha! For something cheaper, I will find thee here several with
+purple who will take thy offer. But play.”
+
+“There—check!”
+
+“So, by all the Jupiters! Now, what sayest thou? Again?”
+
+“Be it so.”
+
+“And the wager?”
+
+“A sestertium.”
+
+Then each drew his tablets and stilus and made a memorandum; and, while
+they were resetting the pieces, Flavius returned to his friend’s
+remark.
+
+“A man who knows everything! Hercle! the oracles would die. What
+wouldst thou with such a monster?”
+
+“Answer to one question, my Flavius; then, perpol! I would cut his
+throat.”
+
+“And the question?”
+
+“I would have him tell me the hour— Hour, said I?—nay, the
+minute—Maxentius will arrive to-morrow.”
+
+“Good play, good play! I have you! And why the minute?”
+
+“Hast thou ever stood uncovered in the Syrian sun on the quay at which
+he will land? The fires of the Vesta are not so hot; and, by the Stator
+of our father Romulus, I would die, if die I must, in Rome. Avernus is
+here; there, in the square before the Forum, I could stand, and, with
+my hand raised thus, touch the floor of the gods. Ha, by Venus, my
+Flavius, thou didst beguile me! I have lost. O Fortune!”
+
+“Again?”
+
+“I must have back my sestertium.”
+
+“Be it so.”
+
+And they played again and again; and when day, stealing through the
+skylights, began to dim the lamps, it found the two in the same places
+at the same table, still at the game. Like most of the company, they
+were military attaches of the consul, awaiting his arrival and amusing
+themselves meantime.
+
+During this conversation a party entered the room, and, unnoticed at
+first, proceeded to the central table. The signs were that they had
+come from a revel just dismissed. Some of them kept their feet with
+difficulty. Around the leader’s brow was a chaplet which marked him
+master of the feast, if not the giver. The wine had made no impression
+upon him unless to heighten his beauty, which was of the most manly
+Roman style; he carried his head high raised; the blood flushed his
+lips and cheeks brightly; his eyes glittered; though the manner in
+which, shrouded in a toga spotless white and of ample folds, he walked
+was too nearly imperial for one sober and not a Cæsar. In going to the
+table, he made room for himself and his followers with little ceremony
+and no apologies; and when at length he stopped, and looked over it and
+at the players, they all turned to him, with a shout like a cheer.
+
+“Messala! Messala!” they cried.
+
+Those in distant quarters, hearing the cry, re-echoed it where they
+were. Instantly there were dissolution of groups, and breaking-up of
+games, and a general rush towards the centre.
+
+Messala took the demonstration indifferently, and proceeded presently
+to show the ground of his popularity.
+
+“A health to thee, Drusus, my friend,” he said to the player next at
+his right; “a health—and thy tablets a moment.”
+
+He raised the waxen boards, glanced at the memoranda of wagers, and
+tossed them down.
+
+“Denarii, only denarii—coin of cartmen and butchers!” he said, with a
+scornful laugh. “By the drunken Semele, to what is Rome coming, when a
+Cæsar sits o’ nights waiting a turn of fortune to bring him but a
+beggarly denarius!”
+
+The scion of the Drusi reddened to his brows, but the bystanders broke
+in upon his reply by surging closer around the table, and shouting,
+“The Messala! the Messala!”
+
+“Men of the Tiber,” Messala continued, wresting a box with the dice in
+it from a hand near-by, “who is he most favored of the gods? A Roman.
+Who is he lawgiver of the nations? A Roman. Who is he, by sword right,
+the universal master?”
+
+The company were of the easily inspired, and the thought was one to
+which they were born; in a twinkling they snatched the answer from him.
+
+“A Roman, a Roman!” they shouted.
+
+“Yet—yet”—he lingered to catch their ears—“yet there is a better than
+the best of Rome.”
+
+He tossed his patrician head and paused, as if to sting them with his
+sneer.
+
+“Hear ye?” he asked. “There is a better than the best of Rome.”
+
+“Ay—Hercules!” cried one.
+
+“Bacchus!” yelled a satirist.
+
+“Jove—Jove!” thundered the crowd.
+
+“No,” Messala answered, “among men.”
+
+“Name him, name him!” they demanded.
+
+“I will,” he said, the next lull. “He who to the perfection of Rome
+hath added the perfection of the East; who to the arm of conquest,
+which is Western, hath also the art needful to the enjoyment of
+dominion, which is Eastern.”
+
+“Perpol! His best is a Roman, after all,” some one shouted; and there
+was a great laugh, and long clapping of hands—an admission that Messala
+had the advantage.
+
+“In the East” he continued, “we have no gods, only Wine, Women, and
+Fortune, and the greatest of them is Fortune; wherefore our motto, ‘Who
+dareth what I dare?’—fit for the senate, fit for battle, fittest for
+him who, seeking the best, challenges the worst.”
+
+His voice dropped into an easy, familiar tone, but without relaxing the
+ascendancy he had gained.
+
+“In the great chest up in the citadel I have five talents coin current
+in the markets, and here are the receipts for them.”
+
+From his tunic he drew a roll of paper, and, flinging it on the table,
+continued, amidst breathless silence, every eye having him in view
+fixed on his, every ear listening:
+
+“The sum lies there the measure of what I dare. Who of you dares so
+much! You are silent. Is it too great? I will strike off one talent.
+What! still silent? Come, then, throw me once for these three
+talents—only three; for two; for one—one at least—one for the honor of
+the river by which you were born—Rome East against Rome West!—Orontes
+the barbarous against Tiber the sacred!”
+
+He rattled the dice overhead while waiting.
+
+“The Orontes against the Tiber!” he repeated, with an increase of
+scornful emphasis.
+
+Not a man moved; then he flung the box upon the table and, laughing,
+took up the receipts.
+
+“Ha, ha, ha! By the Olympian Jove, I know now ye have fortunes to make
+or to mend; therefore are ye come to Antioch. Ho, Cecilius!”
+
+“Here, Messala!” cried a man behind him; “here am I, perishing in the
+mob, and begging a drachma to settle with the ragged ferryman. But,
+Pluto take me! these new ones have not so much as an obolus among
+them.”
+
+The sally provoked a burst of laughter, under which the saloon rang and
+rang again. Messala alone kept his gravity.
+
+“Go, thou,” he said to Cecilius, “to the chamber whence we came, and
+bid the servants bring the amphorae here, and the cups and goblets. If
+these our countrymen, looking for fortune, have not purses, by the
+Syrian Bacchus, I will see if they are not better blessed with
+stomachs! Haste thee!”
+
+Then he turned to Drusus, with a laugh heard throughout the apartment.
+
+“Ha, ha, my friend! Be thou not offended because I levelled the Cæsar
+in thee down to the denarii. Thou seest I did but use the name to try
+these fine fledglings of our old Rome. Come, my Drusus, come!” He took
+up the box again and rattled the dice merrily. “Here, for what sum thou
+wilt, let us measure fortunes.”
+
+The manner was frank, cordial, winsome. Drusus melted in a moment.
+
+“By the Nymphae, yes!” he said, laughing. “I will throw with thee,
+Messala—for a denarius.”
+
+A very boyish person was looking over the table watching the scene.
+Suddenly Messala turned to him.
+
+“Who art thou?” he asked.
+
+The lad drew back.
+
+“Nay, by Castor! and his brother too! I meant not offence. It is a rule
+among men, in matters other than dice, to keep the record closest when
+the deal is least. I have need of a clerk. Wilt thou serve me?”
+
+The young fellow drew his tablets ready to keep the score: the manner
+was irresistible.
+
+“Hold, Messala, hold!” cried Drusus. “I know not if it be ominous to
+stay the poised dice with a question; but one occurs to me, and I must
+ask it though Venus slap me with her girdle.”
+
+“Nay, my Drusus, Venus with her girdle off is Venus in love. To thy
+question—I will make the throw and hold it against mischance. Thus—”
+
+He turned the box upon the table and held it firmly over the dice.
+
+And Drusus asked, “Did you ever see one Quintus Arrius?”
+
+“The duumvir?”
+
+“No—his son?”
+
+“I knew not he had a son.”
+
+“Well, it is nothing,” Drusus added, indifferently; “only, my Messala,
+Pollux was not more like Castor than Arrius is like thee.”
+
+The remark had the effect of a signal: twenty voices took it up.
+
+“True, true! His eyes—his face,” they cried.
+
+“What!” answered one, disgusted. “Messala is a Roman; Arrius is a Jew.”
+
+“Thou sayest right,” a third exclaimed. “He is a Jew, or Momus lent his
+mother the wrong mask.”
+
+There was promise of a dispute; seeing which, Messala interposed. “The
+wine is not come, my Drusus; and, as thou seest, I have the freckled
+Pythias as they were dogs in leash. As to Arrius, I will accept thy
+opinion of him, so thou tell me more about him.”
+
+“Well, be he Jew or Roman—and, by the great god Pan, I say it not in
+disrespect of thy feelings, my Messala!—this Arrius is handsome and
+brave and shrewd. The emperor offered him favor and patronage, which he
+refused. He came up through mystery, and keepeth distance as if he felt
+himself better or knew himself worse than the rest of us. In the
+palaestrae he was unmatched; he played with the blue-eyed giants from
+the Rhine and the hornless bulls of Sarmatia as they were willow wisps.
+The duumvir left him vastly rich. He has a passion for arms, and thinks
+of nothing but war. Maxentius admitted him into his family, and he was
+to have taken ship with us, but we lost him at Ravenna. Nevertheless he
+arrived safely. We heard of him this morning. Perpol! Instead of coming
+to the palace or going to the citadel, he dropped his baggage at the
+khan, and hath disappeared again.”
+
+At the beginning of the speech Messala listened with polite
+indifference; as it proceeded, he became more attentive; at the
+conclusion, he took his hand from the dice-box, and called out, “Ho, my
+Caius! Dost thou hear?”
+
+A youth at his elbow—his Myrtilus, or comrade, in the day’s chariot
+practice—answered, much pleased with the attention, “Did I not, my
+Messala, I were not thy friend.”
+
+“Dost thou remember the man who gave thee the fall to-day?”
+
+“By the love-locks of Bacchus, have I not a bruised shoulder to help me
+keep it in mind?” and he seconded the words with a shrug that submerged
+his ears.
+
+“Well, be thou grateful to the Fates—I have found thy enemy. Listen.”
+
+Thereupon Messala turned to Drusus.
+
+“Tell us more of him—perpol!—of him who is both Jew and Roman—by
+Phoebus, a combination to make a Centaur lovely! What garments doth he
+affect, my Drusus?”
+
+“Those of the Jews.”
+
+“Hearest thou, Caius?” said Messala. “The fellow is young—one; he hath
+the visage of a Roman—two; he loveth best the garb of a Jew—three; and
+in the palaestrae fame and fortune come of arms to throw a horse or
+tilt a chariot, as the necessity may order—four. And, Drusus, help thou
+my friend again. Doubtless this Arrius hath tricks of language;
+otherwise he could not so confound himself, to-day a Jew, to-morrow a
+Roman; but of the rich tongue of Athene—discourseth he in that as
+well?”
+
+“With such purity, Messala, he might have been a contestant in the
+Isthmia.”
+
+“Art thou listening, Caius?” said Messala. “The fellow is qualified to
+salute a woman—for that matter Aristomache herself—in the Greek; and as
+I keep the count, that is five. What sayest thou?”
+
+“Thou hast found him, my Messala,” Caius answered; “or I am not
+myself.”
+
+“Thy pardon, Drusus—and pardon of all—for speaking in riddles thus,”
+Messala said, in his winsome way. “By all the decent gods, I would not
+strain thy courtesy to the point of breaking, but now help thou me.
+See!”—he put his hand on the dice-box again, laughing—“See how close I
+hold the Pythias and their secret! Thou didst speak, I think, of
+mystery in connection with the coming of the son of Arrius. Tell me of
+that.”
+
+“’Tis nothing, Messala, nothing,” Drusus replied; “a child’s story.
+When Arrius, the father, sailed in pursuit of the pirates, he was
+without wife or family; he returned with a boy—him of whom we speak—and
+next day adopted him.”
+
+“Adopted him?” Messala repeated. “By the gods, Drusus, thou dost,
+indeed, interest me! Where did the duumvir find the boy? And who was
+he?”
+
+“Who shall answer thee that, Messala? who but the young Arrius himself?
+Perpol! in the fight the duumvir—then but a tribune—lost his galley. A
+returning vessel found him and one other—all of the crew who
+survived—afloat upon the same plank. I give you now the story of the
+rescuers, which hath this excellence at least—it hath never been
+contradicted. They say, the duumvir’s companion on the plank was a
+Jew—”
+
+“A Jew!” echoed Messala.
+
+“And a slave.”
+
+“How Drusus? A slave?”
+
+“When the two were lifted to the deck, the duumvir was in his tribune’s
+armor, and the other in the vesture of a rower.”
+
+Messala rose from leaning against the table.
+
+“A galley”—he checked the debasing word, and looked around, for once in
+his life at loss. Just then a procession of slaves filed into the room,
+some with great jars of wine, others with baskets of fruits and
+confections, others again with cups and flagons, mostly silver. There
+was inspiration in the sight. Instantly Messala climbed upon a stool.
+
+“Men of the Tiber,” he said, in a clear voice, “let us turn this
+waiting for our chief into a feast of Bacchus. Whom choose ye for
+master?”
+
+Drusus arose.
+
+“Who shall be master but the giver of the feast?” he said. “Answer,
+Romans.”
+
+They gave their reply in a shout.
+
+Messala took the chaplet from his head, gave it to Drusus, who climbed
+upon the table, and, in the view of all, solemnly replaced it, making
+Messala master of the night.
+
+“There came with me into the room,” he said, “some friends just risen
+from table. That our feast may have the approval of sacred custom,
+bring hither that one of them most overcome by wine.”
+
+A din of voices answered, “Here he is, here he is!”
+
+And from the floor where he had fallen, a youth was brought forward, so
+effeminately beautiful he might have passed for the drinking-god
+himself—only the crown would have dropped from his head, and the
+thyrsus from his hand.
+
+“Lift him upon the table,” the master said.
+
+It was found he could not sit.
+
+“Help him, Drusus, as the fair Nyone may yet help thee.”
+
+Drusus took the inebriate in his arms.
+
+Then addressing the limp figure, Messala said, amidst profound silence,
+“O Bacchus! greatest of the gods, be thou propitious to-night. And for
+myself, and these thy votaries, I vow this chaplet”—and from his head
+he raised it reverently—“I vow this chaplet to thy altar in the Grove
+of Daphne.”
+
+He bowed, replaced the crown upon his locks, then stooped and uncovered
+the dice, saying, with a laugh, “See, my Drusus, by the ass of Silenus,
+the denarius is mine!”
+
+There was a shout that set the floor to quaking, and the grim Atlantes
+to dancing, and the orgies began.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Sheik Ilderim was a man of too much importance to go about with a small
+establishment. He had a reputation to keep with his tribe, such as
+became a prince and patriarch of the greatest following in all the
+Desert east of Syria; with the people of the cities he had another
+reputation, which was that of one of the richest personages not a king
+in all the East; and, being rich in fact—in money as well as in
+servants, camels, horses, and flocks of all kinds—he took pleasure in a
+certain state, which, besides magnifying his dignity with strangers,
+contributed to his personal pride and comfort. Wherefore the reader
+must not be misled by the frequent reference to his tent in the Orchard
+of Palms. He had there really a respectable dowar; that is to say, he
+had there three large tents—one for himself, one for visitors, one for
+his favorite wife and her women; and six or eight lesser ones, occupied
+by his servants and such tribal retainers as he had chosen to bring
+with him as a body-guard—strong men of approved courage, and skillful
+with bow, spear, and horses.
+
+To be sure, his property of whatever kind was in no danger at the
+Orchard; yet as the habits of a man go with him to town not less than
+the country, and as it is never wise to slip the bands of discipline,
+the interior of the dowar was devoted to his cows, camels, goats, and
+such property in general as might tempt a lion or a thief.
+
+To do him full justice, Ilderim kept well all the customs of his
+people, abating none, not even the smallest; in consequence his life at
+the Orchard was a continuation of his life in the Desert; nor that
+alone, it was a fair reproduction of the old patriarchal modes—the
+genuine pastoral life of primitive Israel.
+
+Recurring to the morning the caravan arrived at the Orchard—“Here,
+plant it here,” he said, stopping his horse, and thrusting a spear into
+the ground. “Door to the south; the lake before it thus; and these, the
+children of the Desert, to sit under at the going-down of the sun.”
+
+At the last words he went to a group of three great palm-trees, and
+patted one of them as he would have patted his horse’s neck, or the
+cheek of the child of his love.
+
+Who but the sheik could of right say to the caravan, Halt! or of the
+tent, Here be it pitched? The spear was wrested from the ground, and
+over the wound it had riven in the sod the base of the first pillar of
+the tent was planted, marking the centre of the front door. Then eight
+others were planted—in all, three rows of pillars, three in a row.
+Then, at call, the women and children came, and unfolded the canvas
+from its packing on the camels. Who might do this but the women? Had
+they not sheared the hair from the brown goats of the flock? and
+twisted it into thread? and woven the thread into cloth? and stitched
+the cloth together, making the perfect roof, dark-brown in fact, though
+in the distance black as the tents of Kedar? And, finally, with what
+jests and laughter, and pulls altogether, the united following of the
+sheik stretched the canvas from pillar to pillar, driving the stakes
+and fastening the cords as they went! And when the walls of open reed
+matting were put in place—the finishing-touch to the building after the
+style of the Desert—with what hush of anxiety they waited the good
+man’s judgment! When he walked in and out, looking at the house in
+connection with the sun, the trees, and the lake, and said, rubbing his
+hands with might of heartiness, “Well done! Make the dowar now as ye
+well know, and to-night we will sweeten the bread with arrack, and the
+milk with honey, and at every fire there shall be a kid. God with ye!
+Want of sweet water there shall not be, for the lake is our well;
+neither shall the bearers of burden hunger, or the least of the flock,
+for here is green pasture also. God with you all, my children! Go.”
+
+And, shouting, the many happy went their ways then to pitch their own
+habitations. A few remained to arrange the interior for the sheik; and
+of these the men-servants hung a curtain to the central row of pillars,
+making two apartments; the one on the right sacred to Ilderim himself,
+the other sacred to his horses—his jewels of Solomon—which they led in,
+and with kisses and love-taps set at liberty. Against the middle pillar
+they then erected the arms-rack, and filled it with javelins and
+spears, and bows, arrows, and shields; outside of them hanging the
+master’s sword, modelled after the new moon; and the glitter of its
+blade rivalled the glitter of the jewels bedded in its grip. Upon one
+end of the rack they hung the housings of the horses, gay some of them
+as the livery of a king’s servant, while on the other end they
+displayed the great man’s wearing apparel—his robes woollen and robes
+linen, his tunics and trousers, and many colored kerchiefs for the
+head. Nor did they give over the work until he pronounced it well.
+
+Meantime the women drew out and set up the divan, more indispensable to
+him than the beard down-flowing over his breast, white as Aaron’s. They
+put a frame together in shape of three sides of a square, the opening
+to the door, and covered it with cushions and base curtains, and the
+cushions with a changeable spread striped brown and yellow; at the
+corners they placed pillows and bolsters sacked in cloth blue and
+crimson; then around the divan they laid a margin of carpet, and the
+inner space they carpeted as well; and when the carpet was carried from
+the opening of the divan to the door of the tent, their work was done;
+whereupon they again waited until the master said it was good. Nothing
+remained then but to bring and fill the jars with water, and hang the
+skin bottles of arrack ready for the hand—to-morrow the leben. Nor
+might an Arab see why Ilderim should not be both happy and generous—in
+his tent by the lake of sweet waters, under the palms of the Orchard of
+Palms.
+
+Such was the tent at the door of which we left Ben-Hur.
+
+Servants were already waiting the master’s direction. One of them took
+off his sandals; another unlatched Ben-Hur’s Roman shoes; then the two
+exchanged their dusty outer garments for fresh ones of white linen.
+
+“Enter—in God’s name, enter, and take thy rest,” said the host,
+heartily, in the dialect of the Market-place of Jerusalem; forthwith he
+led the way to the divan.
+
+“I will sit here,” he said next, pointing; “and there the stranger.”
+
+A woman—in the old time she would have been called a handmaid—answered,
+and dexterously piled the pillows and bolsters as rests for the back;
+after which they sat upon the side of the divan, while water was
+brought fresh from the lake, and their feet bathed and dried with
+napkins.
+
+“We have a saying in the Desert,” Ilderim began, gathering his beard,
+and combing it with his slender fingers, “that a good appetite is the
+promise of a long life. Hast thou such?”
+
+“By that rule, good sheik, I will live a hundred years. I am a hungry
+wolf at thy door,” Ben-Hur replied.
+
+“Well, thou shalt not be sent away like a wolf. I will give thee the
+best of the flocks.”
+
+Ilderim clapped his hands.
+
+“Seek the stranger in the guest-tent, and say I, Ilderim, send him a
+prayer that his peace may be as incessant as the flowing of waters.”
+
+The man in waiting bowed.
+
+“Say, also,” Ilderim continued, “that I have returned with another for
+breaking of bread; and, if Balthasar the wise careth to share the loaf,
+three may partake of it, and the portion of the birds be none the
+less.”
+
+The second servant went away.
+
+“Let us take our rest now.”
+
+Thereupon Ilderim settled himself upon the divan, as at this day
+merchants sit on their rugs in the bazaars of Damascus; and when fairly
+at rest, he stopped combing his beard, and said, gravely, “That thou
+art my guest, and hast drunk my leben, and art about to taste my salt,
+ought not to forbid a question: Who art thou?”
+
+“Sheik Ilderim,” said Ben-Hur, calmly enduring his gaze, “I pray thee
+not to think me trifling with thy just demand; but was there never a
+time in thy life when to answer such a question would have been a crime
+to thyself?”
+
+“By the splendor of Solomon, yes!” Ilderim answered. “Betrayal of self
+is at times as base as the betrayal of a tribe.”
+
+“Thanks, thanks, good sheik!” Ben-Hur exclaimed.
+
+“Never answer became thee better. Now I know thou dost but seek
+assurance to justify the trust I have come to ask, and that such
+assurance is of more interest to thee than the affairs of my poor
+life.”
+
+The sheik in his turn bowed, and Ben-Hur hastened to pursue his
+advantage.
+
+“So it please thee then,” he said, “first, I am not a Roman, as the
+name given thee as mine implieth.”
+
+Ilderim clasped the beard overflowing his breast, and gazed at the
+speaker with eyes faintly twinkling through the shade of the heavy
+close-drawn brows.
+
+“In the next place,” Ben-Hur continued, “I am an Israelite of the tribe
+of Judah.”
+
+The sheik raised his brows a little.
+
+“Nor that merely. Sheik, I am a Jew with a grievance against Rome
+compared with which thine is not more than a child’s trouble.”
+
+The old man combed his beard with nervous haste, and let fall his brows
+until even the twinkle of the eyes went out.
+
+“Still further: I swear to thee, Sheik Ilderim—I swear by the covenant
+the Lord made with my fathers—so thou but give me the revenge I seek,
+the money and the glory of the race shall be thine.”
+
+Ilderim’s brows relaxed; his head arose; his face began to beam; and it
+was almost possible to see the satisfaction taking possession of him.
+
+“Enough!” he said. “If at the roots of thy tongue there is a lie in
+coil, Solomon himself had not been safe against thee. That thou art not
+a Roman—that as a Jew thou hast a grievance against Rome, and revenge
+to compass, I believe; and on that score enough. But as to thy skill.
+What experience hast thou in racing with chariots? And the horses—canst
+thou make them creatures of thy will?—to know thee? to come at call? to
+go, if thou sayest it, to the last extreme of breath and strength? and
+then, in the perishing moment, out of the depths of thy life thrill
+them to one exertion the mightiest of all? The gift, my son, is not to
+every one. Ah, by the splendor of God! I knew a king who governed
+millions of men, their perfect master, but could not win the respect of
+a horse. Mark! I speak not of the dull brutes whose round it is to
+slave for slaves—the debased in blood and image—the dead in spirit; but
+of such as mine here—the kings of their kind; of a lineage reaching
+back to the broods of the first Pharaoh; my comrades and friends,
+dwellers in tents, whom long association with me has brought up to my
+plane; who to their instincts have added our wits and to their senses
+joined our souls, until they feel all we know of ambition, love, hate,
+and contempt; in war, heroes; in trust, faithful as women. Ho, there!”
+
+A servant came forward.
+
+“Let my Arabs come!”
+
+The man drew aside part of the division curtain of the tent, exposing
+to view a group of horses, who lingered a moment where they were as if
+to make certain of the invitation.
+
+“Come!” Ilderim said to them. “Why stand ye there? What have I that is
+not yours? Come, I say!”
+
+They stalked slowly in.
+
+“Son of Israel,” the master said, “thy Moses was a mighty man, but—ha,
+ha ha!—I must laugh when I think of his allowing thy fathers the
+plodding ox and the dull, slow-natured ass, and forbidding them
+property in horses. Ha, ha, ha! Thinkest thou he would have done so had
+he seen that one—and that—and this?” At the word he laid his hand upon
+the face of the first to reach him, and patted it with infinite pride
+and tenderness.
+
+“It is a misjudgment, sheik, a misjudgment,” Ben-Hur said, warmly.
+“Moses was a warrior as well as a lawgiver beloved by God; and to
+follow war—ah, what is it but to love all its creatures—these among the
+rest?”
+
+A head of exquisite turn—with large eyes, soft as a deer’s, and half
+hidden by the dense forelock, and small ears, sharp-pointed and sloped
+well forward—approached then quite to his breast, the nostrils open,
+and the upper lip in motion. “Who are you?” it asked, plainly as ever
+man spoke. Ben-Hur recognized one of the four racers he had seen on the
+course, and gave his open hand to the beautiful brute.
+
+“They will tell you, the blasphemers!—may their days shorten as they
+grow fewer!”—the sheik spoke with the feeling of a man repelling a
+personal defamation—“they will tell you, I say, that our horses of the
+best blood are derived from the Nesaean pastures of Persia. God gave
+the first Arab a measureless waste of sand, with some treeless
+mountains, and here and there a well of bitter waters; and said to him,
+‘Behold thy country!’ And when the poor man complained, the Mighty One
+pitied him, and said again, ‘Be of cheer! for I will twice bless thee
+above other men.’ The Arab heard, and gave thanks, and with faith set
+out to find the blessings. He travelled all the boundaries first, and
+failed; then he made a path into the desert, and went on and on—and in
+the heart of the waste there was an island of green very beautiful to
+see; and in the heart of the island, lo! a herd of camels, and another
+of horses! He took them joyfully and kept them with care for what they
+were—best gifts of God. And from that green isle went forth all the
+horses of the earth; even to the pastures of Nesaea they went; and
+northward to the dreadful vales perpetually threshed by blasts from the
+Sea of Chill Winds. Doubt not the story; or if thou dost, may never
+amulet have charm for an Arab again. Nay, I will give thee proof.”
+
+He clapped his hands.
+
+“Bring me the records of the tribe,” he said to the servant who
+responded.
+
+While waiting, the sheik played with the horses, patting their cheeks,
+combing their forelocks with his fingers, giving each one a token of
+remembrance. Presently six men appeared with chests of cedar reinforced
+by bands of brass, and hinged and bolted with brass.
+
+“Nay,” said Ilderim, when they were all set down by the divan, “I meant
+not all of them; only the records of the horses—that one. Open it and
+take back the others.”
+
+The chest was opened, disclosing a mass of ivory tablets strung on
+rings of silver wire; and as the tablets were scarcely thicker than
+wafers, each ring held several hundreds of them.
+
+“I know,” said Ilderim, taking some of the rings in his hand—“I know
+with what care and zeal, my son, the scribes of the Temple in the Holy
+City keep the names of the newly born, that every son of Israel may
+trace his line of ancestry to its beginning, though it antedate the
+patriarchs. My fathers—may the recollection of them be green
+forever!—did not think it sinful to borrow the idea, and apply it to
+their dumb servants. See these tablets!”
+
+Ben-Hur took the rings, and separating the tablets saw they bore rude
+hieroglyphs in Arabic, burned on the smooth surface by a sharp point of
+heated metal.
+
+“Canst thou read them, O son of Israel?”
+
+“No. Thou must tell me their meaning.”
+
+“Know thou, then, each tablet records the name of a foal of the pure
+blood born to my fathers through the hundreds of years passed; and also
+the names of sire and dam. Take them, and note their age, that thou
+mayst the more readily believe.”
+
+Some of the tablets were nearly worn away. All were yellow with age.
+
+“In the chest there, I can tell thee now, I have the perfect history;
+perfect because certified as history seldom is—showing of what stock
+all these are sprung—this one, and that now supplicating thy notice and
+caress; and as they come to us here, their sires, even the furthest
+removed in time, came to my sires, under a tent-roof like this of mine,
+to eat their measure of barley from the open hand, and be talked to as
+children; and as children kiss the thanks they have not speech to
+express. And now, O son of Israel, thou mayst believe my declaration—if
+I am a lord of the Desert, behold my ministers! Take them from me, and
+I become as a sick man left by the caravan to die. Thanks to them, age
+hath not diminished the terror of me on the highways between cities;
+and it will not while I have strength to go with them. Ha, ha, ha! I
+could tell thee marvels done by their ancestors. In a favoring time I
+may do so; for the present, enough that they were never overtaken in
+retreat; nor, by the sword of Solomon, did they ever fail in pursuit!
+That, mark you, on the sands and under saddle; but now—I do not know—I
+am afraid, for they are under yoke the first time, and the conditions
+of success are so many. They have the pride and the speed and the
+endurance. If I find them a master, they will win. Son of Israel! so
+thou art the man, I swear it shall be a happy day that brought thee
+thither. Of thyself now speak.”
+
+“I know now,” said Ben-Hur, “why it is that in the love of an Arab his
+horse is next to his children; and I know, also, why the Arab horses
+are the best in the world; but, good sheik, I would not have you judge
+me by words alone; for, as you know, all promises of men sometimes
+fail. Give me the trial first on some plain hereabout, and put the four
+in my hand to-morrow.”
+
+Ilderim’s face beamed again, and he would have spoken.
+
+“A moment, good sheik, a moment!” said Ben-Hur. “Let me say further.
+From the masters in Rome I learned many lessons, little thinking they
+would serve me in a time like this. I tell thee these thy sons of the
+Desert, though they have separately the speed of eagles and the
+endurance of lions, will fail if they are not trained to run together
+under the yoke. For bethink thee, sheik, in every four there is one the
+slowest and one the swiftest; and while the race is always to the
+slowest, the trouble is always with the swiftest. It was so to-day; the
+driver could not reduce the best to harmonious action with the poorest.
+My trial may have no better result; but if so, I will tell thee of it:
+that I swear. Wherefore, in the same spirit I say, can I get them to
+run together, moved by my will, the four as one, thou shalt have the
+sestertii and the crown, and I my revenge. What sayest thou?”
+
+Ilderim listened, combing his beard the while. At the end he said, with
+a laugh, “I think better of thee, son of Israel. We have a saying in
+the Desert, ‘If you will cook the meal with words, I will promise an
+ocean of butter.’ Thou shalt have the horses in the morning.”
+
+At that moment there was a stir at the rear entrance to the tent.
+
+“The supper—it is here! and yonder my friend Balthasar, whom thou shalt
+know. He hath a story to tell which an Israelite should never tire of
+hearing.”
+
+And to the servants he added,
+
+“Take the records away, and return my jewels to their apartment.”
+
+And they did as he ordered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+If the reader will return now to the repast of the wise men at their
+meeting in the desert, he will understand the preparations for the
+supper in Ilderim’s tent. The differences were chiefly such as were
+incident to ampler means and better service.
+
+Three rugs were spread on the carpet within the space so nearly
+enclosed by the divan; a table not more than a foot in height was
+brought and set within the same place, and covered with a cloth. Off to
+one side a portable earthenware oven was established under the
+presidency of a woman whose duty it was to keep the company in bread,
+or, more precisely, in hot cakes of flour from the handmills grinding
+with constant sound in a neighboring tent.
+
+Meanwhile Balthasar was conducted to the divan, where Ilderim and
+Ben-Hur received him standing. A loose black gown covered his person;
+his step was feeble, and his whole movement slow and cautious,
+apparently dependent upon a long staff and the arm of a servant.
+
+“Peace to you, my friend,” said Ilderim, respectfully. “Peace and
+welcome.”
+
+The Egyptian raised his head and replied, “And to thee, good sheik—to
+thee and thine, peace and the blessing of the One God—God the true and
+loving.”
+
+The manner was gentle and devout, and impressed Ben-Hur with a feeling
+of awe; besides which the blessing included in the answering salutation
+had been partly addressed to him, and while that part was being spoken,
+the eyes of the aged guest, hollow yet luminous, rested upon his face
+long enough to stir an emotion new and mysterious, and so strong that
+he again and again during the repast scanned the much wrinkled and
+bloodless face for its meaning; but always there was the expression
+bland, placid, and trustful as a child’s. A little later he found that
+expression habitual.
+
+“This is he, O Balthasar,” said the sheik, laying his hand on Ben-Hur’s
+arm, “who will break bread with us this evening.”
+
+The Egyptian glanced at the young man, and looked again surprised and
+doubting; seeing which the sheik continued, “I have promised him my
+horses for trial to-morrow; and if all goes well, he will drive them in
+the Circus.”
+
+Balthasar continued his gaze.
+
+“He came well recommended,” Ilderim pursued, much puzzled. “You may
+know him as the son of Arrius, who was a noble Roman sailor,
+though”—the sheik hesitated, then resumed, with a laugh—“though he
+declares himself an Israelite of the tribe of Judah; and, by the
+splendor of God, I believe what he tells me!”
+
+Balthasar could no longer withhold explanation.
+
+“To-day, O most generous sheik, my life was in peril, and would have
+been lost had not a youth, the counterpart of this one—if, indeed, he
+be not the very same—intervened when all others fled, and saved me.”
+Then he addressed Ben-Hur directly, “Art thou not he?”
+
+“I cannot answer so far,” Ben-Hur replied, with modest deference. “I am
+he who stopped the horses of the insolent Roman when they were rushing
+upon thy camel at the Fountain of Castalia. Thy daughter left a cup
+with me.”
+
+From the bosom of his tunic he produced the cup, and gave it to
+Balthasar.
+
+A glow lighted the faded countenance of the Egyptian.
+
+“The Lord sent thee to me at the Fountain to-day,” he said, in a
+tremulous voice, stretching his hand towards Ben-Hur; “and he sends
+thee to me now. I give him thanks; and praise him thou, for of his
+favor I have wherewith to give thee great reward, and I will. The cup
+is thine; keep it.”
+
+Ben-Hur took back the gift, and Balthasar, seeing the inquiry upon
+Ilderim’s face, related the occurrence at the Fountain.
+
+“What!” said the sheik to Ben-Hur. “Thou saidst nothing of this to me,
+when better recommendation thou couldst not have brought. Am I not an
+Arab, and sheik of my tribe of tens of thousands? And is not he my
+guest? And is it not in my guest-bond that the good or evil thou dost
+him is good or evil done to me? Whither shouldst thou go for reward but
+here? And whose the hand to give it but mine?”
+
+His voice at the end of the speech rose to cutting shrillness.
+
+“Good sheik, spare me, I pray. I came not for reward, great or small;
+and that I may be acquitted of the thought, I say the help I gave this
+excellent man would have been given as well to thy humblest servant.”
+
+“But he is my friend, my guest—not my servant; and seest thou not in
+the difference the favor of Fortune?” Then to Balthasar the sheik
+subjoined, “Ah, by the splendor of God! I tell thee again he is not a
+Roman.”
+
+With that he turned away, and gave attention to the servants, whose
+preparations for the supper were about complete.
+
+The reader who recollects the history of Balthasar as given by himself
+at the meeting in the desert will understand the effect of Ben-Hur’s
+assertion of disinterestedness upon that worthy. In his devotion to men
+there had been, it will be remembered, no distinctions; while the
+redemption which had been promised him in the way of reward—the
+redemption for which he was waiting—was universal. To him, therefore,
+the assertion sounded somewhat like an echo of himself. He took a step
+nearer Ben-Hur, and spoke to him in the childlike way.
+
+“How did the sheik say I should call you? It was a Roman name, I
+think.”
+
+“Arrius, the son of Arrius.”
+
+“Yet thou art not a Roman?”
+
+“All my people were Jews.”
+
+“Were, saidst thou? Are they not living?”
+
+The question was subtle as well as simple; but Ilderim saved Ben-Hur
+from reply.
+
+“Come,” he said to them, “the meal is ready.”
+
+Ben-Hur gave his arm to Balthasar, and conducted him to the table,
+where shortly they were all seated on their rugs Eastern fashion. The
+lavers were brought them, and they washed and dried their hands; then
+the sheik made a sign, the servants stopped, and the voice of the
+Egyptian arose tremulous with holy feeling.
+
+“Father of All—God! What we have is of thee; take our thanks, and bless
+us, that we may continue to do thy will.”
+
+It was the grace the good man had said simultaneously with his brethren
+Gaspar the Greek and Melchior the Hindoo, the utterance in diverse
+tongues out of which had come the miracle attesting the Divine Presence
+at the meal in the desert years before.
+
+The table to which they immediately addressed themselves was, as may be
+thought, rich in the substantials and delicacies favorite in the
+East—in cakes hot from the oven, vegetables from the gardens, meats
+singly, compounds of meats and vegetables, milk of kine, and honey and
+butter—all eaten or drunk, it should be remarked, without any of the
+modern accessories—knives, forks, spoons, cups, or plates; and in this
+part of the repast but little was said, for they were hungry. But when
+the dessert was in course it was otherwise. They laved their hands
+again, had the lap-cloths shaken out, and with a renewed table and the
+sharp edge of their appetites gone they were disposed to talk and
+listen.
+
+With such a company—an Arab, a Jew, and an Egyptian, all believers
+alike in one God—there could be at that age but one subject of
+conversation; and of the three, which should be speaker but he to whom
+the Deity had been so nearly a personal appearance, who had seen him in
+a star, had heard his voice in direction, had been led so far and so
+miraculously by his Spirit? And of what should he talk but that of
+which he had been called to testify?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The shadows cast over the Orchard of Palms by the mountains at set of
+sun left no sweet margin time of violet sky and drowsing earth between
+the day and night. The latter came early and swift; and against its
+glooming in the tent this evening the servants brought four
+candlesticks of brass, and set them by the corners of the table. To
+each candlestick there were four branches, and on each branch a lighted
+silver lamp and a supply cup of olive-oil. In light ample, even
+brilliant, the group at dessert continued their conversation, speaking
+in the Syriac dialect, familiar to all peoples in that part of the
+world.
+
+The Egyptian told his story of the meeting of the three in the desert,
+and agreed with the sheik that it was in December, twenty-seven years
+before, when he and his companions fleeing from Herod arrived at the
+tent praying shelter. The narrative was heard with intense interest;
+even the servants lingering when they could to catch its details.
+Ben-Hur received it as became a man listening to a revelation of deep
+concern to all humanity, and to none of more concern than the people of
+Israel. In his mind, as we shall presently see, there was crystallizing
+an idea which was to change his course of life, if not absorb it
+absolutely.
+
+As the recital proceeded, the impression made by Balthasar upon the
+young Jew increased; at its conclusion, his feeling was too profound to
+permit a doubt of its truth; indeed, there was nothing left him
+desirable in the connection but assurances, if such were to be had,
+pertaining exclusively to the consequences of the amazing event.
+
+And now there is wanting an explanation which the very discerning may
+have heretofore demanded; certainly it can be no longer delayed. Our
+tale begins, in point of date not less than fact, to trench close upon
+the opening of the ministry of the Son of Mary, whom we have seen but
+once since this same Balthasar left him worshipfully in his mother’s
+lap in the cave by Bethlehem. Henceforth to the end the mysterious
+Child will be a subject of continual reference; and slowly though
+surely the current of events with which we are dealing will bring us
+nearer and nearer to him, until finally we see him a man—we would like,
+if armed contrariety of opinion would permit it, to add—A MAN WHOM THE
+WORLD COULD NOT DO WITHOUT. Of this declaration, apparently so simple,
+a shrewd mind inspired by faith will make much—and in welcome. Before
+his time, and since, there have been men indispensable to particular
+people and periods; but his indispensability was to the whole race, and
+for all time—a respect in which it is unique, solitary, divine.
+
+To Sheik Ilderim the story was not new. He had heard it from the three
+wise men together under circumstances which left no room for doubt; he
+had acted upon it seriously, for the helping a fugitive escape from the
+anger of the first Herod was dangerous. Now one of the three sat at his
+table again, a welcome guest and revered friend. Sheik Ilderim
+certainly believed the story; yet, in the nature of things, its mighty
+central fact could not come home to him with the force and absorbing
+effect it came to Ben-Hur. He was an Arab, whose interest in the
+consequences was but general; on the other hand, Ben-Hur was an
+Israelite and a Jew, with more than a special interest in—if the
+solecism can be pardoned—the truth of the fact. He laid hold of the
+circumstance with a purely Jewish mind.
+
+From his cradle, let it be remembered, he had heard of the Messiah; at
+the colleges he had been made familiar with all that was known of that
+Being at once the hope, the fear, and the peculiar glory of the chosen
+people; the prophets from the first to the last of the heroic line
+foretold him; and the coming had been, and yet was, the theme of
+endless exposition with the rabbis—in the synagogues, in the schools,
+in the Temple, of fast-days and feast-days, in public and in private,
+the national teachers expounded and kept expounding until all the
+children of Abraham, wherever their lots were cast, bore the Messiah in
+expectation, and by it literally, and with iron severity, ruled and
+moulded their lives.
+
+Doubtless, it will be understood from this that there was much argument
+among the Jews themselves about the Messiah, and so there was; but the
+disputation was all limited to one point, and one only—when would he
+come?
+
+Disquisition is for the preacher; whereas the writer is but telling a
+tale, and that he may not lose his character, the explanation he is
+making requires notice merely of a point connected with the Messiah
+about which the unanimity among the chosen people was matter of
+marvellous astonishment: he was to be, when come, the KING OF THE
+JEWS—their political King, their Cæsar. By their instrumentality he
+was to make armed conquest of the earth, and then, for their profit and
+in the name of God, hold it down forever. On this faith, dear reader,
+the Pharisees or Separatists—the latter being rather a political
+term—in the cloisters and around the altars of the Temple, built an
+edifice of hope far overtopping the dream of the Macedonian. His but
+covered the earth; theirs covered the earth and filled the skies; that
+is to say, in their bold, boundless fantasy of blasphemous egotism, God
+the Almighty was in effect to suffer them for their uses to nail him by
+the ear to a door in sign of eternal servitude.
+
+Returning directly to Ben-Hur, it is to be observed now that there were
+two circumstances in his life the result of which had been to keep him
+in a state comparatively free from the influence and hard effects of
+the audacious faith of his Separatist countrymen.
+
+In the first place, his father followed the faith of the Sadducees, who
+may, in a general way, be termed the Liberals of their time. They had
+some loose opinions in denial of the soul. They were strict
+constructionists and rigorous observers of the Law as found in the
+books of Moses; but they held the vast mass of Rabbinical addenda to
+those books in derisive contempt. They were unquestionably a sect, yet
+their religion was more a philosophy than a creed; they did not deny
+themselves the enjoyments of life, and saw many admirable methods and
+productions among the Gentile divisions of the race. In politics they
+were the active opposition of the Separatists. In the natural order of
+things, these circumstances and conditions, opinions and peculiarities,
+would have descended to the son as certainly and really as any portion
+of his father’s estate; and, as we have seen, he was actually in course
+of acquiring them, when the second saving event overtook him.
+
+Upon a youth of Ben-Hur’s mind and temperament the influence of five
+years of affluent life in Rome can be appreciated best by recalling
+that the great city was then, in fact, the meeting-place of the
+nations—their meeting-place politically and commercially, as well as
+for the indulgence of pleasure without restraint. Round and round the
+golden mile-stone in front of the Forum—now in gloom of eclipse, now in
+unapproachable splendor—flowed all the active currents of humanity. If
+excellences of manner, refinements of society, attainments of
+intellect, and glory of achievement made no impression upon him, how
+could he, as the son of Arrius, pass day after day, through a period so
+long, from the beautiful villa near Misenum into the receptions of
+Cæsar, and be wholly uninfluenced by what he saw there of kings,
+princes, ambassadors, hostages, and delegates, suitors all of them from
+every known land, waiting humbly the yes or no which was to make or
+unmake them? As mere assemblages, to be sure, there was nothing to
+compare with the gatherings at Jerusalem in celebration of the
+Passover; yet when he sat under the purple velaria of the Circus
+Maximus one of three hundred and fifty thousand spectators, he must
+have been visited by the thought that possibly there might be some
+branches of the family of man worthy divine consideration, if not
+mercy, though they were of the uncircumcised—some, by their sorrows,
+and, yet worse, by their hopelessness in the midst of sorrows, fitted
+for brotherhood in the promises to his countrymen.
+
+That he should have had such a thought under such circumstances was but
+natural; we think so much, at least, will be admitted: but when the
+reflection came to him, and he gave himself up to it, he could not have
+been blind to a certain distinction. The wretchedness of the masses,
+and their hopeless condition, had no relation whatever to religion;
+their murmurs and groans were not against their gods or for want of
+gods. In the oak-woods of Britain the Druids held their followers; Odin
+and Freya maintained their godships in Gaul and Germany and among the
+Hyperboreans; Egypt was satisfied with her crocodiles and Anubis; the
+Persians were yet devoted to Ormuzd and Ahriman, holding them in equal
+honor; in hope of the Nirvana, the Hindoos moved on patient as ever in
+the rayless paths of Brahm; the beautiful Greek mind, in pauses of
+philosophy, still sang the heroic gods of Homer; while in Rome nothing
+was so common and cheap as gods. According to whim, the masters of the
+world, because they were masters, carried their worship and offerings
+indifferently from altar to altar, delighted in the pandemonium they
+had erected. Their discontent, if they were discontented, was with the
+number of gods; for, after borrowing all the divinities of the earth
+they proceeded to deify their Cæsars, and vote them altars and holy
+service. No, the unhappy condition was not from religion, but
+misgovernment and usurpations and countless tyrannies. The Avernus men
+had been tumbled into, and were praying to be relieved from, was
+terribly but essentially political. The supplication—everywhere alike,
+in Lodinum, Alexandria, Athens, Jerusalem—was for a king to conquer
+with, not a god to worship.
+
+Studying the situation after two thousand years, we can see and say
+that religiously there was no relief from the universal confusion
+except some God could prove himself a true God, and a masterful one,
+and come to the rescue; but the people of the time, even the discerning
+and philosophical, discovered no hope except in crushing Rome; that
+done, the relief would follow in restorations and reorganizations;
+therefore they prayed, conspired, rebelled, fought, and died, drenching
+the soil to-day with blood, to-morrow with tears—and always with the
+same result.
+
+It remains to be said now that Ben-Hur was in agreement with the mass
+of men of his time not Romans. The five years’ residence in the capital
+served him with opportunity to see and study the miseries of the
+subjugated world; and in full belief that the evils which afflicted it
+were political, and to be cured only by the sword, he was going forth
+to fit himself for a part in the day of resort to the heroic remedy. By
+practice of arms he was a perfect soldier; but war has its higher
+fields, and he who would move successfully in them must know more than
+to defend with shield and thrust with spear. In those fields the
+general finds his tasks, the greatest of which is the reduction of the
+many into one, and that one himself; the consummate captain is a
+fighting-man armed with an army. This conception entered into the
+scheme of life to which he was further swayed by the reflection that
+the vengeance he dreamed of, in connection with his individual wrongs,
+would be more surely found in some of the ways of war than in any
+pursuit of peace.
+
+The feelings with which he listened to Balthasar can be now understood.
+The story touched two of the most sensitive points of his being so they
+rang within him. His heart beat fast—and faster still when, searching
+himself, he found not a doubt either that the recital was true in every
+particular, or that the Child so miraculously found was the Messiah.
+Marvelling much that Israel rested so dead to the revelation, and that
+he had never heard of it before that day, two questions presented
+themselves to him as centring all it was at that moment further
+desirable to know:
+
+Where was the Child then?
+
+And what was his mission?
+
+With apologies for the interruptions, he proceeded to draw out the
+opinions of Balthasar, who was in nowise loath to speak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+“If I could answer you,” Balthasar said, in his simple, earnest, devout
+way—“oh, if I knew where he is, how quickly I would go to him! The seas
+should not stay me, nor the mountains.”
+
+“You have tried to find him, then?” asked Ben-Hur.
+
+A smile flitted across the face of the Egyptian.
+
+“The first task I charged myself with after leaving the shelter given
+me in the desert”—Balthasar cast a grateful look at Ilderim—“was to
+learn what became of the Child. But a year had passed, and I dared not
+go up to Judea in person, for Herod still held the throne bloody-minded
+as ever. In Egypt, upon my return, there were a few friends to believe
+the wonderful things I told them of what I had seen and heard—a few who
+rejoiced with me that a Redeemer was born—a few who never tired of the
+story. Some of them came up for me looking after the Child. They went
+first to Bethlehem, and found there the khan and the cave; but the
+steward—he who sat at the gate the night of the birth, and the night we
+came following the star—was gone. The king had taken him away, and he
+was no more seen.”
+
+“But they found some proofs, surely,” said Ben-Hur, eagerly.
+
+“Yes, proofs written in blood—a village in mourning; mothers yet crying
+for their little ones. You must know, when Herod heard of our flight,
+he sent down and slew the youngest-born of the children of Bethlehem.
+Not one escaped. The faith of my messengers was confirmed; but they
+came to me saying the Child was dead, slain with the other innocents.”
+
+“Dead!” exclaimed Ben-Hur, aghast. “Dead, sayest thou?”
+
+“Nay, my son, I did not say so. I said they, my messengers, told me the
+Child was dead. I did not believe the report then; I do not believe it
+now.”
+
+“I see—thou hast some special knowledge.”
+
+“Not so, not so,” said Balthasar, dropping his gaze. “The Spirit was to
+go with us no farther than to the Child. When we came out of the cave,
+after our presents were given and we had seen the babe, we looked first
+thing for the star; but it was gone, and we knew we were left to
+ourselves. The last inspiration of the Holy One—the last I can
+recall—was that which sent us to Ilderim for safety.”
+
+“Yes,” said the sheik, fingering his beard nervously. “You told me you
+were sent to me by a Spirit—I remember it.”
+
+“I have no special knowledge,” Balthasar continued, observing the
+dejection which had fallen upon Ben-Hur; “but, my son, I have given the
+matter much thought—thought continuing through years, inspired by
+faith, which, I assure you, calling God for witness, is as strong in me
+now as in the hour I heard the voice of the Spirit calling me by the
+shore of the lake. If you will listen, I will tell you why I believe
+the Child is living.”
+
+Both Ilderim and Ben-Hur looked assent, and appeared to summon their
+faculties that they might understand as well as hear. The interest
+reached the servants, who drew near to the divan, and stood listening.
+Throughout the tent there was the profoundest silence.
+
+“We three believe in God.”
+
+Balthasar bowed his head as he spoke.
+
+“And he is the Truth,” he resumed. “His word is God. The hills may turn
+to dust, and the seas be drunk dry by south winds; but his word shall
+stand, because it is the Truth.”
+
+The utterance was in a manner inexpressibly solemn.
+
+“The voice, which was his, speaking to me by the lake, said, ‘Blessed
+art thou, O son of Mizraim! The Redemption cometh. With two others from
+the remotenesses of the earth, thou shalt see the Savior.’ I have seen
+the Savior—blessed be his name!—but the Redemption, which was the
+second part of the promise, is yet to come. Seest thou now? If the
+Child be dead, there is no agent to bring the Redemption about, and the
+word is naught, and God—nay, I dare not say it!”
+
+He threw up both hands in horror.
+
+“The Redemption was the work for which the Child was born; and so long
+as the promise abides, not even death can separate him from his work
+until it is fulfilled, or at least in the way of fulfilment. Take you
+that now as one reason for my belief; then give me further attention.”
+
+The good man paused.
+
+“Wilt thou not taste the wine? It is at thy hand—see,” said Ilderim,
+respectfully.
+
+Balthasar drank, and, seeming refreshed, continued:
+
+“The Savior I saw was born of woman, in nature like us, and subject to
+all our ills—even death. Let that stand as the first proposition.
+Consider next the work set apart to him. Was it not a performance for
+which only a man is fitted?—a man wise, firm, discreet—a man, not a
+child? To become such he had to grow as we grow. Bethink you now of the
+dangers his life was subject to in the interval—the long interval
+between childhood and maturity. The existing powers were his enemies;
+Herod was his enemy; and what would Rome have been? And as for
+Israel—that he should not be accepted by Israel was the motive for
+cutting him off. See you now. What better way was there to take care of
+his life in the helpless growing time than by passing him into
+obscurity? Wherefore I say to myself, and to my listening faith, which
+is never moved except by yearning of love—I say he is not dead, but
+lost; and, his work remaining undone, he will come again. There you
+have the reasons for my belief. Are they not good?”
+
+Ilderim’s small Arab eyes were bright with understanding, and Ben-Hur,
+lifted from his dejection, said heartily, “I, at least, may not gainsay
+them. What further, pray?”
+
+“Hast thou not enough, my son? Well,” he began, in calmer tone, “seeing
+that the reasons were good—more plainly, seeing it was God’s will that
+the Child should not be found—I settled my faith into the keeping of
+patience, and took to waiting.” He raised his eyes, full of holy trust,
+and broke off abstractedly—“I am waiting now. He lives, keeping well
+his mighty secret. What though I cannot go to him, or name the hill or
+the vale of his abiding-place? He lives—it may be as the fruit in
+blossom, it may be as the fruit just ripening; but by the certainty
+there is in the promise and reason of God, I know he lives.”
+
+A thrill of awe struck Ben-Hur—a thrill which was but the dying of his
+half-formed doubt.
+
+“Where thinkest thou he is?” he asked, in a low voice, and hesitating,
+like one who feels upon his lips the pressure of a sacred silence.
+
+Balthasar looked at him kindly, and replied, his mind not entirely
+freed from its abstraction,
+
+“In my house on the Nile, so close to the river that the passers-by in
+boats see it and its reflection in the water at the same time—in my
+house, a few weeks ago, I sat thinking. A man thirty years old, I said
+to myself, should have his fields of life all ploughed, and his
+planting well done; for after that it is summer-time, with space scarce
+enough to ripen his sowing. The Child, I said further, is now
+twenty-seven—his time to plant must be at hand. I asked myself, as you
+here asked me, my son, and answered by coming hither, as to a good
+resting-place close by the land thy fathers had from God. Where else
+should he appear, if not in Judea? In what city should he begin his
+work, if not in Jerusalem? Who should be first to receive the blessings
+he is to bring, if not the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; in
+love, at least, the children of the Lord? If I were bidden go seek him,
+I would search well the hamlets and villages on the slopes of the
+mountains of Judea and Galilee falling eastwardly into the valley of
+the Jordan. He is there now. Standing in a door or on a hill-top, only
+this evening he saw the sun set one day nearer the time when he himself
+shall become the light of the world.”
+
+Balthasar ceased, with his hand raised and finger pointing as if at
+Judea. All the listeners, even the dull servants outside the divan,
+affected by his fervor, were startled as if by a majestic presence
+suddenly apparent within the tent. Nor did the sensation die away at
+once: of those at the table, each sat awhile thinking. The spell was
+finally broken by Ben-Hur.
+
+“I see, good Balthasar,” he said, “that thou hast been much and
+strangely favored. I see, also, that thou art a wise man indeed. It is
+not in my power to tell how grateful I am for the things thou hast told
+me. I am warned of the coming of great events, and borrow somewhat from
+thy faith. Complete the obligation, I pray thee, by telling further of
+the mission of him for whom thou art waiting, and for whom from this
+night I too shall wait as becomes a believing son of Judah. He is to be
+a Savior, thou saidst; is he not to be King of the Jews also?”
+
+“My son,” said Balthasar, in his benignant way, “the mission is yet a
+purpose in the bosom of God. All I think about it is wrung from the
+words of the Voice in connection with the prayer to which they were in
+answer. Shall we refer to them again?”
+
+“Thou art the teacher.”
+
+“The cause of my disquiet,” Balthasar began, calmly—“that which made me
+a preacher in Alexandria and in the villages of the Nile; that which
+drove me at last into the solitude where the Spirit found me—was the
+fallen condition of men, occasioned, as I believed, by loss of the
+knowledge of God. I sorrowed for the sorrows of my kind—not of one
+class, but all of them. So utterly were they fallen it seemed to me
+there could be no Redemption unless God himself would make it his work;
+and I prayed him to come, and that I might see him. ‘Thy good works
+have conquered. The Redemption cometh; thou shalt see the Savior’—thus
+the Voice spake; and with the answer I went up to Jerusalem rejoicing.
+Now, to whom is the Redemption? To all the world. And how shall it be?
+Strengthen thy faith, my son! Men say, I know, that there will be no
+happiness until Rome is razed from her hills. That is to say, the ills
+of the time are not, as I thought them, from ignorance of God, but from
+the misgovernment of rulers. Do we need to be told that human
+governments are never for the sake of religion? How many kings have you
+heard of who were better than their subjects? Oh no, no! The Redemption
+cannot be for a political purpose—to pull down rulers and powers, and
+vacate their places merely that others may take and enjoy them. If that
+were all of it, the wisdom of God would cease to be surpassing. I tell
+you, though it be but the saying of blind to blind, he that comes is to
+be a Savior of souls; and the Redemption means God once more on earth,
+and righteousness, that his stay here may be tolerable to himself.”
+
+Disappointment showed plainly on Ben-Hur’s face—his head drooped; and
+if he was not convinced, he yet felt himself incapable that moment of
+disputing the opinion of the Egyptian. Not so Ilderim.
+
+“By the splendor of God!” he cried, impulsively, “the judgment does
+away with all custom. The ways of the world are fixed, and cannot be
+changed. There must be a leader in every community clothed with power,
+else there is no reform.”
+
+Balthasar received the burst gravely.
+
+“Thy wisdom, good sheik, is of the world; and thou dost forget that it
+is from the ways of the world we are to be redeemed. Man as a subject
+is the ambition of a king; the soul of a man for its salvation is the
+desire of a God.”
+
+Ilderim, though silenced, shook his head, unwilling to believe. Ben-Hur
+took up the argument for him.
+
+“Father—I call thee such by permission,” he said—“for whom wert thou
+required to ask at the gates of Jerusalem?”
+
+The sheik threw him a grateful look.
+
+“I was to ask of the people,” said Balthasar, quietly, “‘Where is he
+that is born King of the Jews?’”
+
+“And you saw him in the cave by Bethlehem?”
+
+“We saw and worshipped him, and gave him presents—Melchior, gold;
+Gaspar, frankincense; and I, myrrh.”
+
+“When thou dost speak of fact, O father, to hear thee is to believe,”
+said Ben-Hur; “but in the matter of opinion, I cannot understand the
+kind of king thou wouldst make of the Child—I cannot separate the ruler
+from his powers and duties.”
+
+“Son,” said Balthasar, “we have the habit of studying closely the
+things which chance to lie at our feet, giving but a look at the
+greater objects in the distance. Thou seest now but the title—KING OF
+THE JEWS; wilt thou lift thine eyes to the mystery beyond it, the
+stumbling-block will disappear. Of the title, a word. Thy Israel hath
+seen better days—days in which God called thy people endearingly his
+people, and dealt with them through prophets. Now, if in those days he
+promised them the Savior I saw—promised him as KING OF THE JEWS—the
+appearance must be according to the promise, if only for the word’s
+sake. Ah, thou seest the reason of my question at the gate!—thou seest,
+and I will no more of it, but pass on. It may be, next, thou art
+regarding the dignity of the Child; if so, bethink thee—what is it to
+be a successor of Herod?—by the world’s standard of honor, what? Could
+not God better by his beloved? If thou canst think of the Almighty
+Father in want of a title, and stooping to borrow the inventions of
+men, why was I not bidden ask for a Cæsar at once? Oh, for the
+substance of that whereof we speak, look higher, I pray thee! Ask
+rather of what he whom we await shall be king; for I do tell, my son,
+that is the key to the mystery, which no man shall understand without
+the key.”
+
+Balthasar raised his eyes devoutly.
+
+“There is a kingdom on the earth, though it is not of it—a kingdom of
+wider bounds than the earth—wider than the sea and the earth, though
+they were rolled together as finest gold and spread by the beating of
+hammers. Its existence is a fact as our hearts are facts, and we
+journey through it from birth to death without seeing it; nor shall any
+man see it until he hath first known his own soul; for the kingdom is
+not for him, but for his soul. And in its dominion there is glory such
+as hath not entered imagination—original, incomparable, impossible of
+increase.”
+
+“What thou sayest, father, is a riddle to me,” said Ben-Hur. “I never
+heard of such a kingdom.”
+
+“Nor did I,” said Ilderim.
+
+“And I may not tell more of it,” Balthasar added, humbly dropping his
+eyes. “What it is, what it is for, how it may be reached, none can know
+until the Child comes to take possession of it as his own. He brings
+the key of the viewless gate, which he will open for his beloved, among
+whom will be all who love him, for of such only the redeemed will be.”
+
+After that there was a long silence, which Balthasar accepted as the
+end of the conversation.
+
+“Good sheik,” he said, in his placid way, “to-morrow or the next day I
+will go up to the city for a time. My daughter wishes to see the
+preparations for the games. I will speak further about the time of our
+going. And, my son, I will see you again. To you both, peace and
+good-night.”
+
+They all arose from the table. The sheik and Ben-Hur remained looking
+after the Egyptian until he was conducted out of the tent.
+
+“Sheik Ilderim,” said Ben-Hur then, “I have heard strange things
+tonight. Give me leave, I pray, to walk by the lake that I may think of
+them.”
+
+“Go; and I will come after you.”
+
+They washed their hands again; after which, at a sign from the master,
+a servant brought Ben-Hur his shoes, and directly he went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Up a little way from the dower there was a cluster of palms, which
+threw its shade half in the water, half on the land. A bulbul sang from
+the branches a song of invitation. Ben-Hur stopped beneath to listen.
+At any other time the notes of the bird would have driven thought away;
+but the story of the Egyptian was a burden of wonder, and he was a
+laborer carrying it, and, like other laborers, there was to him no
+music in the sweetest music until mind and body were happily attuned by
+rest.
+
+The night was quiet. Not a ripple broke upon the shore. The old stars
+of the old East were all out, each in its accustomed place; and there
+was summer everywhere—on land, on lake, in the sky.
+
+Ben-Hur’s imagination was heated, his feelings aroused, his will all
+unsettled.
+
+So the palms, the sky, the air, seemed to him of the far south zone
+into which Balthasar had been driven by despair for men; the lake, with
+its motionless surface, was a suggestion of the Nilotic mother by which
+the good man stood praying when the Spirit made its radiant appearance.
+Had all these accessories of the miracle come to Ben-Hur? or had he
+been transferred to them? And what if the miracle should be
+repeated—and to him? He feared, yet wished, and even waited for the
+vision. When at last his feverish mood was cooled, permitting him to
+become himself, he was able to think.
+
+His scheme of life has been explained. In all reflection about it
+heretofore there had been one hiatus which he had not been able to
+bridge or fill up—one so broad he could see but vaguely to the other
+side of it. When, finally, he was graduated a captain as well as a
+soldier, to what object should he address his efforts? Revolution he
+contemplated, of course; but the processes of revolution have always
+been the same, and to lead men into them there have always been
+required, first, a cause or presence to enlist adherents; second, an
+end, or something as a practical achievement. As a rule he fights well
+who has wrongs to redress; but vastly better fights he who, with wrongs
+as a spur, has also steadily before him a glorious result in prospect—a
+result in which he can discern balm for wounds, compensation for valor,
+remembrance and gratitude in the event of death.
+
+To determine the sufficiency of either the cause or the end, it was
+needful that Ben-Hur should study the adherents to whom he looked when
+all was ready for action. Very naturally, they were his countrymen. The
+wrongs of Israel were to every son of Abraham, and each one was a cause
+vastly holy, vastly inspiring.
+
+Ay, the cause was there; but the end—what should it be?
+
+The hours and days he had given this branch of his scheme were past
+calculation—all with the same conclusion—a dim, uncertain, general idea
+of national liberty. Was it sufficient? He could not say no, for that
+would have been the death of his hope; he shrank from saying yes,
+because his judgment taught him better. He could not assure himself
+even that Israel was able single-handed to successfully combat Rome. He
+knew the resources of that great enemy; he knew her art was superior to
+her resources. A universal alliance might suffice, but, alas! that was
+impossible, except—and upon the exception how long and earnestly he had
+dwelt!—except a hero would come from one of the suffering nations, and
+by martial successes accomplish a renown to fill the whole earth. What
+glory to Judea could she prove the Macedonia of the new Alexander!
+Alas, again! Under the rabbis valor was possible, but not discipline.
+And then the taunt of Messala in the garden of Herod—“All you conquer
+in the six days, you lose on the seventh.”
+
+So it happened he never approached the chasm thinking to surmount it,
+but he was beaten back; and so incessantly had he failed in the object
+that he had about given it over, except as a thing of chance. The hero
+might be discovered in his day, or he might not. God only knew. Such
+his state of mind, there need be no lingering upon the effect of
+Malluch’s skeleton recital of the story of Balthasar. He heard it with
+a bewildering satisfaction—a feeling that here was the solution of the
+trouble—here was the requisite hero found at last; and he a son of the
+Lion tribe, and King of the Jews! Behind the hero, lo! the world in
+arms.
+
+The king implied a kingdom; he was to be a warrior glorious as David, a
+ruler wise and magnificent as Solomon; the kingdom was to be a power
+against which Rome was to dash itself to pieces. There would be
+colossal war, and the agonies of death and birth—then peace, meaning,
+of course, Judean dominion forever.
+
+Ben-Hur’s heart beat hard as for an instant he had a vision of
+Jerusalem the capital of the world, and Zion, the site of the throne of
+the Universal Master.
+
+It seemed to the enthusiast rare fortune that the man who had seen the
+king was at the tent to which he was going. He could see him there, and
+hear him, and learn of him what all he knew of the coming change,
+especially all he knew of the time of its happening. If it were at
+hand, the campaign with Maxentius should be abandoned; and he would go
+and set about organizing and arming the tribes, that Israel might be
+ready when the great day of the restoration began to break.
+
+Now, as we have seen, from Balthasar himself Ben-Hur had the marvelous
+story. Was he satisfied?
+
+There was a shadow upon him deeper than that of the cluster of
+palms—the shadow of a great uncertainty, which—take note, O reader!
+which pertained more to the kingdom than the king.
+
+“What of this kingdom? And what is it to be?” Ben-Hur asked himself in
+thought.
+
+Thus early arose the questions which were to follow the Child to his
+end, and survive him on earth—incomprehensible in his day, a dispute in
+this—an enigma to all who do not or cannot understand that every man is
+two in one—a deathless Soul and a mortal Body.
+
+“What is it to be?” he asked.
+
+For us, O reader, the Child himself has answered; but for Ben-Hur there
+were only the words of Balthasar, “On the earth, yet not of it—not for
+men, but for their souls—a dominion, nevertheless, of unimaginable
+glory.”
+
+What wonder the hapless youth found the phrases but the darkening of a
+riddle?
+
+“The hand of man is not in it,” he said, despairingly. “Nor has the
+king of such a kingdom use for men; neither toilers, nor councillors,
+nor soldiers. The earth must die or be made anew, and for government
+new principles must be discovered—something besides armed
+hands—something in place of Force. But what?”
+
+Again, O reader!
+
+That which we will not see, he could not. The power there is in Love
+had not yet occurred to any man; much less had one come saying directly
+that for government and its objects—peace and order—Love is better and
+mightier than Force.
+
+In the midst of his reverie a hand was laid upon his shoulder.
+
+“I have a word to say, O son of Arrius,” said Ilderim, stopping by his
+side—“a word, and then I must return, for the night is going.”
+
+“I give you welcome, sheik.”
+
+“As to the things you have heard but now,” said Ilderim, almost without
+pause, “take in belief all save that relating to the kind of kingdom
+the Child will set up when he comes; as to so much keep virgin mind
+until you hear Simonides the merchant—a good man here in Antioch, to
+whom I will make you known. The Egyptian gives you coinage of his
+dreams which are too good for the earth; Simonides is wiser; he will
+ring you the sayings of your prophets, giving book and page, so you
+cannot deny that the Child will be King of the Jews in fact—ay, by the
+splendor of God! a king as Herod was, only better and far more
+magnificent. And then, see you, we will taste the sweetness of
+vengeance. I have said. Peace to you!”
+
+“Stay—sheik!”
+
+If Ilderim heard his call, he did not stay.
+
+“Simonides again!” said Ben-Hur, bitterly. “Simonides here, Simonides
+there; from this one now, then from that! I am like to be well ridden
+by my father’s servant, who knows at least to hold fast that which is
+mine; wherefore he is richer, if indeed he be not wiser, than the
+Egyptian. By the covenant! it is not to the faithless a man should go
+to find a faith to keep—and I will not. But, hark! singing—and the
+voice a woman’s—or an angel’s! It comes this way.”
+
+Down the lake towards the dower came a woman singing. Her voice floated
+along the hushed water melodious as a flute, and louder growing each
+instant. Directly the dipping of oars was heard in slow measure; a
+little later the words were distinguishable—words in purest Greek, best
+fitted of all the tongues of the day for the expression of passionate
+grief.
+
+THE LAMENT.
+(Egyptian.)
+
+
+I sigh as I sing for the story land
+     Across the Syrian sea.
+The odorous winds from the musky sand
+     Were breaths of life to me.
+They play with the plumes of the whispering palm
+     For me, alas! no more;
+Nor more does the Nile in the moonlit calm
+     Moan past the Memphian shore.
+
+O Nilus! thou god of my fainting soul!
+     In dreams thou comest to me;
+And, dreaming, I play with the lotus bowl,
+     And sing old songs to thee;
+And hear from afar the Memnonian strain,
+     And calls from dear Simbel;
+And wake to a passion of grief and pain
+     That e’er I said—Farewell!
+
+
+At the conclusion of the song the singer was past the cluster of palms.
+The last word—farewell—floated past Ben-Hur weighted with all the sweet
+sorrow of parting. The passing of the boat was as the passing of a
+deeper shadow into the deeper night.
+
+Ben-Hur drew a long breath hardly distinguishable from a sigh.
+
+“I know her by the song—the daughter of Balthasar. How beautiful it
+was! And how beautiful is she!”
+
+He recalled her large eyes curtained slightly by the drooping lids, the
+cheeks oval and rosy rich, the lips full and deep with dimpling in the
+corners, and all the grace of the tall lithe figure.
+
+“How beautiful she is!” he repeated.
+
+And his heart made answer by a quickening of its movement.
+
+Then, almost the same instant, another face, younger and quite as
+beautiful—more childlike and tender, if not so passionate—appeared as
+if held up to him out of the lake.
+
+“Esther!” he said, smiling. “As I wished, a star has been sent to me.”
+
+He turned, and passed slowly back to the tent.
+
+His life had been crowded with griefs and with vengeful
+preparations—too much crowded for love. Was this the beginning of a
+happy change?
+
+And if the influence went with him into the tent, whose was it? Esther
+had given him a cup. So had the Egyptian. And both had come to him at
+the same time under the palms.
+
+Which?
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIFTH
+
+
+“Only the actions of the just
+Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.”
+                    SHIRLEY.
+
+“And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law,
+In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.”
+                    WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The morning after the bacchanalia in the saloon of the palace, the
+divan was covered with young patricians. Maxentius might come, and the
+city throng to receive him; the legion might descend from Mount Sulpius
+in glory of arms and armor; from Nymphaeum to Omphalus there might be
+ceremonial splendors to shame the most notable ever before seen or
+heard of in the gorgeous East; yet would the many continue to sleep
+ignominiously on the divan where they had fallen or been carelessly
+tumbled by the indifferent slaves; that they would be able to take part
+in the reception that day was about as possible as for the lay-figures
+in the studio of a modern artist to rise and go bonneted and plumed
+through the one, two, three of a waltz.
+
+Not all, however, who participated in the orgy were in the shameful
+condition. When dawn began to peer through the skylights of the saloon,
+Messala arose, and took the chaplet from his head, in sign that the
+revel was at end; then he gathered his robe about him, gave a last look
+at the scene, and, without a word, departed for his quarters. Cicero
+could not have retired with more gravity from a night-long senatorial
+debate.
+
+Three hours afterwards two couriers entered his room, and from his own
+hand received each a despatch, sealed and in duplicate, and consisting
+chiefly of a letter to Valerius Gratus, the procurator, still resident
+in Cæsarea. The importance attached to the speedy and certain delivery
+of the paper may be inferred. One courier was to proceed overland, the
+other by sea; both were to make the utmost haste.
+
+It is of great concern now that the reader should be fully informed of
+the contents of the letter thus forwarded, and it is accordingly given:
+
+“ANTIOCH, XII. Kal. Jul.
+
+“Messala to Gratus.
+
+“O my Midas!
+
+“I pray thou take no offense at the address, seeing it is one of love
+and gratitude, and an admission that thou art most fortunate among men;
+seeing, also, that thy ears are as they were derived from thy mother,
+only proportionate to thy matured condition.
+
+“O my Midas!
+
+“I have to relate to thee an astonishing event, which, though as yet
+somewhat in the field of conjecture, will, I doubt not, justify thy
+instant consideration.
+
+“Allow me first to revive thy recollection. Remember, a good many years
+ago, a family of a prince of Jerusalem, incredibly ancient and vastly
+rich—by name Ben-Hur. If thy memory have a limp or ailment of any kind,
+there is, if I mistake not, a wound on thy head which may help thee to
+a revival of the circumstance.
+
+“Next, to arouse thy interest. In punishment of the attempt upon thy
+life—for dear repose of conscience, may all the gods forbid it should
+ever prove to have been an accident!—the family were seized and
+summarily disposed of, and their property confiscated. And inasmuch, O
+my Midas! as the action had the approval of our Cæsar, who was as just
+as he was wise—be there flowers upon his altars forever!—there should
+be no shame in referring to the sums which were realized to us
+respectively from that source, for which it is not possible I can ever
+cease to be grateful to thee, certainly not while I continue, as at
+present, in the uninterrupted enjoyment of the part which fell to me.
+
+“In vindication of thy wisdom—a quality for which, as I am now advised,
+the son of Gordius, to whom I have boldly likened thee, was never
+distinguished among men or gods—I recall further that thou didst make
+disposition of the family of Hur, both of us at the time supposing the
+plan hit upon to be the most effective possible for the purposes in
+view, which were silence and delivery over to inevitable but natural
+death. Thou wilt remember what thou didst with the mother and sister of
+the malefactor; yet, if now I yield to a desire to learn whether they
+be living or dead, I know, from knowing the amiability of thy nature, O
+my Gratus, that thou wilt pardon me as one scarcely less amiable than
+thyself.
+
+“As more immediately essential to the present business, however, I take
+the liberty of inviting to thy remembrance that the actual criminal was
+sent to the galleys a slave for life—so the precept ran; and it may
+serve to make the event which I am about to relate the more astonishing
+by saying here that I saw and read the receipt for his body delivered
+in course to the tribune commanding a galley.
+
+“Thou mayst begin now to give me more especial heed, O my most
+excellent Phrygian!
+
+“Referring to the limit of life at the oar, the outlaw thus justly
+disposed of should be dead, or, better speaking, some one of the three
+thousand Oceanides should have taken him to husband at least five years
+ago. And if thou wilt excuse a momentary weakness, O most virtuous and
+tender of men! inasmuch as I loved him in childhood, and also because
+he was very handsome—I used in much admiration to call him my
+Ganymede—he ought in right to have fallen into the arms of the most
+beautiful daughter of the family. Of opinion, however, that he was
+certainly dead, I have lived quite five years in calm and innocent
+enjoyment of the fortune for which I am in a degree indebted to him. I
+make the admission of indebtedness without intending it to diminish my
+obligation to thee.
+
+“Now I am at the very point of interest.
+
+“Last night, while acting as master of the feast for a party just from
+Rome—their extreme youth and inexperience appealed to my compassion—I
+heard a singular story. Maxentius, the consul, as you know, comes
+to-day to conduct a campaign against the Parthians. Of the ambitious
+who are to accompany him there is one, a son of the late duumvir
+Quintus Arrius. I had occasion to inquire about him particularly. When
+Arrius set out in pursuit of the pirates, whose defeat gained him his
+final honors, he had no family; when he returned from the expedition,
+he brought back with him an heir. Now be thou composed as becomes the
+owner of so many talents in ready sestertii! The son and heir of whom I
+speak is he whom thou didst send to the galleys—the very Ben-Hur who
+should have died at his oar five years ago—returned now with fortune
+and rank, and possibly as a Roman citizen, to— Well, thou art too
+firmly seated to be alarmed, but I, O my Midas! I am in danger—no need
+to tell thee of what. Who should know, if thou dost not?
+
+“Sayst thou to all this, tut-tut?
+
+“When Arrius, the father, by adoption, of this apparition from the arms
+of the most beautiful of the Oceanides (see above my opinion of what
+she should be), joined battle with the pirates, his vessel was sunk,
+and but two of all her crew escaped drowning—Arrius himself and this
+one, his heir.
+
+“The officers who took them from the plank on which they were floating
+say the associate of the fortunate tribune was a young man who, when
+lifted to the deck, was in the dress of a galley slave.
+
+“This should be convincing, to say least; but lest thou say tut-tut
+again, I tell thee, O my Midas! that yesterday, by good chance—I have a
+vow to Fortune in consequence—I met the mysterious son of Arrius face
+to face; and I declare now that, though I did not then recognize him,
+he is the very Ben-Hur who was for years my playmate; the very Ben-Hur
+who, if he be a man, though of the commonest grade, must this very
+moment of my writing be thinking of vengeance—for so would I were I
+he—vengeance not to be satisfied short of life; vengeance for country,
+mother, sister, self, and—I say it last, though thou mayst think it
+would be first—for fortune lost.
+
+“By this time, O good my benefactor and friend! my Gratus! in
+consideration of thy sestertii in peril, their loss being the worst
+which could befall one of thy high estate—I quit calling thee after the
+foolish old King of Phrygia—by this time, I say (meaning after having
+read me so far), I have faith to believe thou hast ceased saying
+tut-tut, and art ready to think what ought to be done in such
+emergency.
+
+“It were vulgar to ask thee now what shall be done. Rather let me say I
+am thy client; or, better yet, thou art my Ulysses whose part it is to
+give me sound direction.
+
+“And I please myself thinking I see thee when this letter is put into
+thy hand. I see thee read it once; thy countenance all gravity, and
+then again with a smile; then, hesitation ended, and thy judgment
+formed, it is this, or it is that; wisdom like Mercury’s, promptitude
+like Cæsar’s.
+
+“The sun is now fairly risen. An hour hence two messengers will depart
+from my door, each with a sealed copy hereof; one of them will go by
+land, the other by sea, so important do I regard it that thou shouldst
+be early and particularly informed of the appearance of our enemy in
+this part of our Roman world.
+
+“I will await thy answer here.
+
+“Ben-Hur’s going and coming will of course be regulated by his master,
+the consul, who, though he exert himself without rest day and night,
+cannot get away under a month. Thou knowest what work it is to assemble
+and provide for an army destined to operate in a desolate, townless
+country.
+
+“I saw the Jew yesterday in the Grove of Daphne; and if he be not there
+now, he is certainly in the neighborhood, making it easy for me to keep
+him in eye. Indeed, wert thou to ask me where he is now, I should say,
+with the most positive assurance, he is to be found at the old Orchard
+of Palms, under the tent of the traitor Sheik Ilderim, who cannot long
+escape our strong hand. Be not surprised if Maxentius, as his first
+measure, places the Arab on ship for forwarding to Rome.
+
+“I am so particular about the whereabouts of the Jew because it will be
+important to thee, O illustrious! when thou comest to consider what is
+to be done; for already I know, and by the knowledge I flatter myself I
+am growing in wisdom, that in every scheme involving human action there
+are three elements always to be taken into account—time, place, and
+agency.
+
+“If thou sayest this is the place, have thou then no hesitancy in
+trusting the business to thy most loving friend, who would be thy
+aptest scholar as well.
+
+MESSALA.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+About the time the couriers departed from Messala’s door with the
+despatches (it being yet the early morning hour), Ben-Hur entered
+Ilderim’s tent. He had taken a plunge into the lake, and breakfasted,
+and appeared now in an under-tunic, sleeveless, and with skirt scarcely
+reaching to the knee.
+
+The sheik saluted him from the divan.
+
+“I give thee peace, son of Arrius,” he said, with admiration, for, in
+truth, he had never seen a more perfect illustration of glowing,
+powerful, confident manhood. “I give thee peace and good-will. The
+horses are ready, I am ready. And thou?”
+
+“The peace thou givest me, good sheik, I give thee in return. I thank
+thee for so much good-will. I am ready.”
+
+Ilderim clapped his hands.
+
+“I will have the horses brought. Be seated.”
+
+“Are they yoked?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then suffer me to serve myself,” said Ben-Hur. “It is needful that I
+make the acquaintance of thy Arabs. I must know them by name, O sheik,
+that I may speak to them singly; nor less must I know their temper, for
+they are like men: if bold, the better of scolding; if timid, the
+better of praise and flattery. Let the servants bring me the harness.”
+
+“And the chariot?” asked the sheik.
+
+“I will let the chariot alone to-day. In its place, let them bring me a
+fifth horse, if thou hast it; he should be barebacked, and fleet as the
+others.”
+
+Ilderim’s wonder was aroused, and he summoned a servant immediately.
+
+“Bid them bring the harness for the four,” he said—“the harness for the
+four, and the bridle for Sirius.”
+
+Ilderim then arose.
+
+“Sirius is my love, and I am his, O son of Arrius. We have been
+comrades for twenty years—in tent, in battle, in all stages of the
+desert we have been comrades. I will show him to you.”
+
+Going to the division curtain, he held it, while Ben-Hur passed under.
+The horses came to him in a body. One with a small head, luminous eyes,
+neck like the segment of a bended bow, and mighty chest, curtained
+thickly by a profusion of mane soft and wavy as a damsel’s locks,
+nickered low and gladly at sight of him.
+
+“Good horse,” said the sheik, patting the dark-brown cheek. “Good
+horse, good-morning.” Turning then to Ben-Hur, he added, “This is
+Sirius, father of the four here. Mira, the mother, awaits our return,
+being too precious to be hazarded in a region where there is a stronger
+hand than mine. And much I doubt,” he laughed as he spoke—“much I
+doubt, O son of Arrius, if the tribe could endure her absence. She is
+their glory; they worship her; did she gallop over them, they would
+laugh. Ten thousand horsemen, sons of the desert, will ask to-day,
+‘Have you heard of Mira?’ And to the answer, ‘She is well,’ they will
+say, ‘God is good! blessed be God!’”
+
+“Mira—Sirius—names of stars, are they not, O sheik?” asked Ben-Hur,
+going to each of the four, and to the sire, offering his hand.
+
+“And why not?” replied Ilderim. “Wert thou ever abroad on the desert at
+night?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then thou canst not know how much we Arabs depend upon the stars. We
+borrow their names in gratitude, and give them in love. My fathers all
+had their Miras, as I have mine; and these children are stars no less.
+There, see thou, is Rigel, and there Antares; that one is Atair, and he
+whom thou goest to now is Aldebaran, the youngest of the brood, but
+none the worse of that—no, not he! Against the wind he will carry thee
+till it roar in thy ears like Akaba; and he will go where thou sayest,
+son of Arrius—ay, by the glory of Solomon! he will take thee to the
+lion’s jaws, if thou darest so much.”
+
+The harness was brought. With his own hands Ben-Hur equipped the
+horses; with his own hands he led them out of the tent, and there
+attached the reins.
+
+“Bring me Sirius,” he said.
+
+An Arab could not have better sprung to seat on the courser’s back.
+
+“And now the reins.”
+
+They were given him, and carefully separated.
+
+“Good sheik,” he said, “I am ready. Let a guide go before me to the
+field, and send some of thy men with water.”
+
+There was no trouble at starting. The horses were not afraid. Already
+there seemed a tacit understanding between them and the new driver, who
+had performed his part calmly, and with the confidence which always
+begets confidence. The order of going was precisely that of driving,
+except that Ben-Hur sat upon Sirius instead of standing in the chariot.
+Ilderim’s spirit arose. He combed his beard, and smiled with
+satisfaction as he muttered, “He is not a Roman, no, by the splendor of
+God!” He followed on foot, the entire tenantry of the dowar—men, women,
+and children—pouring after him, participants all in his solicitude, if
+not in his confidence.
+
+The field, when reached, proved ample and well fitted for the training,
+which Ben-Hur began immediately by driving the four at first slowly,
+and in perpendicular lines, and then in wide circles. Advancing a step
+in the course, he put them next into a trot; again progressing, he
+pushed into a gallop; at length he contracted the circles, and yet
+later drove eccentrically here and there, right, left, forward, and
+without a break. An hour was thus occupied. Slowing the gait to a walk,
+he drove up to Ilderim.
+
+“The work is done, nothing now but practice,” he said. “I give you joy,
+Sheik Ilderim, that you have such servants as these. See,” he
+continued, dismounting and going to the horses, “see, the gloss of
+their red coats is without spot; they breathe lightly as when I began.
+I give thee great joy, and it will go hard if”—he turned his flashing
+eyes upon the old man’s face—“if we have not the victory and our—”
+
+He stopped, colored, bowed. At the sheik’s side he observed, for the
+first time, Balthasar, leaning upon his staff, and two women closely
+veiled. At one of the latter he looked a second time, saying to
+himself, with a flutter about his heart, “’Tis she—’tis the Egyptian!”
+Ilderim picked up his broken sentence—
+
+“The victory, and our revenge!” Then he said aloud, “I am not afraid; I
+am glad. Son of Arrius, thou art the man. Be the end like the
+beginning, and thou shalt see of what stuff is the lining of the hand
+of an Arab who is able to give.”
+
+“I thank thee, good sheik,” Ben-Hur returned, modestly. “Let the
+servants bring drink for the horses.”
+
+With his own hands he gave the water.
+
+Remounting Sirius, he renewed the training, going as before from walk
+to trot, from trot to gallop; finally, he pushed the steady racers into
+the run, gradually quickening it to full speed. The performance then
+became exciting; and there were applause for the dainty handling of the
+reins, and admiration for the four, which were the same, whether they
+flew forward or wheeled in varying curvature. In their action there
+were unity, power, grace, pleasure, all without effort or sign of
+labor. The admiration was unmixed with pity or reproach, which would
+have been as well bestowed upon swallows in their evening flight.
+
+In the midst of the exercises, and the attention they received from all
+the bystanders, Malluch came upon the ground, seeking the sheik.
+
+“I have a message for you, O sheik,” he said, availing himself of a
+moment he supposed favorable for the speech—“a message from Simonides,
+the merchant.”
+
+“Simonides!” ejaculated the Arab. “Ah! ’tis well. May Abaddon take all
+his enemies!”
+
+“He bade me give thee first the holy peace of God,” Malluch continued;
+“and then this despatch, with prayer that thou read it the instant of
+receipt.”
+
+Ilderim, standing in his place, broke the sealing of the package
+delivered to him, and from a wrapping of fine linen took two letters,
+which he proceeded to read.
+
+[No. 1.]
+
+“Simonides to Sheik Ilderim.
+
+“O friend!
+
+“Assure thyself first of a place in my inner heart.
+
+“Then—
+
+“There is in thy dowar a youth of fair presence, calling himself the
+son of Arrius; and such he is by adoption.
+
+“He is very dear to me.
+
+“He hath a wonderful history, which I will tell thee; come thou to-day
+or to-morrow, that I may tell thee the history, and have thy counsel.
+
+“Meantime, favor all his requests, so they be not against honor. Should
+there be need of reparation, I am bound to thee for it.
+
+“That I have interest in this youth, keep thou private.
+
+“Remember me to thy other guest. He, his daughter, thyself, and all
+whom thou mayst choose to be of thy company, must depend upon me at the
+Circus the day of the games. I have seats already engaged.
+
+“To thee and all thine, peace.
+
+“What should I be, O my friend, but thy friend?
+
+“SIMONIDES.”
+
+[No. 2.]
+
+“Simonides to Sheik Ilderim.
+
+“O friend!
+
+“Out of the abundance of my experience, I send you a word.
+
+“There is a sign which all persons not Romans, and who have moneys or
+goods subject to despoilment, accept as warning—that is, the arrival at
+a seat of power of some high Roman official charged with authority.
+
+“To-day comes the Consul Maxentius.
+
+“Be thou warned!
+
+“Another word of advice.
+
+“A conspiracy, to be of effect against thee, O friend, must include the
+Herods as parties; thou hast great properties in their dominions.
+
+“Wherefore keep thou watch.
+
+“Send this morning to thy trusty keepers of the roads leading south
+from Antioch, and bid them search every courier going and coming; if
+they find private despatches relating to thee or thine affairs, THOU
+SHOULDST SEE THEM.
+
+“You should have received this yesterday, though it is not too late, if
+you act promptly.
+
+“If couriers left Antioch this morning, your messengers know the
+byways, and can get before them with your orders.
+
+“Do not hesitate.
+
+“Burn this after reading.
+
+“O my friend! thy friend,
+
+“SIMONIDES.”
+
+Ilderim read the letters a second time, and refolded them in the linen
+wrap, and put the package under his girdle.
+
+The exercises in the field continued but a little longer—in all about
+two hours. At their conclusion, Ben-Hur brought the four to a walk, and
+drove to Ilderim.
+
+“With leave, O sheik,” he said, “I will return thy Arabs to the tent,
+and bring them out again this afternoon.”
+
+Ilderim walked to him as he sat on Sirius, and said, “I give them to
+you, son of Arrius, to do with as you will until after the games. You
+have done with them in two hours what the Roman—may jackals gnaw his
+bones fleshless!—could not in as many weeks. We will win—by the
+splendor of God, we will win!”
+
+At the tent Ben-Hur remained with the horses while they were being
+cared for; then, after a plunge in the lake and a cup of arrack with
+the sheik, whose flow of spirits was royally exuberant, he dressed
+himself in his Jewish garb again, and walked with Malluch on into the
+Orchard.
+
+There was much conversation between the two, not all of it important.
+One part, however, must not be overlooked. Ben-Hur was speaking.
+
+“I will give you,” he said, “an order for my property stored in the
+khan this side the river by the Seleucian Bridge. Bring it to me
+to-day, if you can. And, good Malluch—if I do not overtask you—”
+
+Malluch protested heartily his willingness to be of service.
+
+“Thank you, Malluch, thank you,” said Ben-Hur. “I will take you at your
+word, remembering that we are brethren of the old tribe, and that the
+enemy is a Roman. First, then—as you are a man of business, which I
+much fear Sheik Ilderim is not—”
+
+“Arabs seldom are,” said Malluch, gravely.
+
+“Nay, I do not impeach their shrewdness, Malluch. It is well, however,
+to look after them. To save all forfeit or hindrance in connection with
+the race, you would put me perfectly at rest by going to the office of
+the Circus, and seeing that he has complied with every preliminary
+rule; and if you can get a copy of the rules, the service may be of
+great avail to me. I would like to know the colors I am to wear, and
+particularly the number of the crypt I am to occupy at the starting; if
+it be next Messala’s on the right or left, it is well; if not, and you
+can have it changed so as to bring me next the Roman, do so. Have you
+good memory, Malluch?”
+
+“It has failed me, but never, son of Arrius, where the heart helped it
+as now.”
+
+“I will venture, then, to charge you with one further service. I saw
+yesterday that Messala was proud of his chariot, as he might be, for
+the best of Cæsar’s scarcely surpass it. Can you not make its display
+an excuse which will enable you to find if it be light or heavy? I
+would like to have its exact weight and measurements—and, Malluch,
+though you fail in all else, bring me exactly the height his axle
+stands above the ground. You understand, Malluch? I do not wish him to
+have any actual advantage of me. I do not care for his splendor; if I
+beat him, it will make his fall the harder, and my triumph the more
+complete. If there are advantages really important, I want them.”
+
+“I see, I see!” said Malluch. “A line dropped from the centre of the
+axle is what you want.”
+
+“Thou hast it; and be glad, Malluch—it is the last of my commissions.
+Let us return to the dowar.”
+
+At the door of the tent they found a servant replenishing the
+smoke-stained bottles of leben freshly made, and stopped to refresh
+themselves. Shortly afterwards Malluch returned to the city.
+
+During their absence, a messenger well mounted had been despatched with
+orders as suggested by Simonides. He was an Arab, and carried nothing
+written.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+“Iras, the daughter of Balthasar, sends me with salutation and a
+message,” said a servant to Ben-Hur, who was taking his ease in the
+tent.
+
+“Give me the message.”
+
+“Would it please you to accompany her upon the lake?”
+
+“I will carry the answer myself. Tell her so.”
+
+His shoes were brought him, and in a few minutes Ben-Hur sallied out to
+find the fair Egyptian. The shadow of the mountains was creeping over
+the Orchard of Palms in advance of night. Afar through the trees came
+the tinkling of sheep bells, the lowing of cattle, and the voices of
+the herdsmen bringing their charges home. Life at the Orchard, it
+should be remembered, was in all respects as pastoral as life on the
+scantier meadows of the desert.
+
+Sheik Ilderim had witnessed the exercises of the afternoon, being a
+repetition of those of the morning; after which he had gone to the city
+in answer to the invitation of Simonides; he might return in the night;
+but, considering the immensity of the field to be talked over with his
+friend, it was hardly possible. Ben-Hur, thus left alone, had seen his
+horses cared for; cooled and purified himself in the lake; exchanged
+the field garb for his customary vestments, all white, as became a
+Sadducean of the pure blood; supped early; and, thanks to the strength
+of youth, was well recovered from the violent exertion he had
+undergone.
+
+It is neither wise nor honest to detract from beauty as a quality.
+There cannot be a refined soul insensible to its influence. The story
+of Pygmalion and his statue is as natural as it is poetical. Beauty is
+of itself a power; and it was now drawing Ben-Hur.
+
+The Egyptian was to him a wonderfully beautiful woman—beautiful of
+face, beautiful of form. In his thought she always appeared to him as
+he saw her at the fountain; and he felt the influence of her voice,
+sweeter because in tearful expression of gratitude to him, and of her
+eyes—the large, soft, black, almond-shaped eyes declarative of her
+race—eyes which looked more than lies in the supremest wealth of words
+to utter; and recurrences of the thought of her were returns just so
+frequent of a figure tall, slender, graceful, refined, wrapped in rich
+and floating drapery, wanting nothing but a fitting mind to make her,
+like the Shulamite, and in the same sense, terrible as an army with
+banners. In other words, as she returned to his fancy, the whole
+passionate Song of Solomon came with her, inspired by her presence.
+With this sentiment and that feeling, he was going to see if she
+actually justified them. It was not love that was taking him, but
+admiration and curiosity, which might be the heralds of love.
+
+The landing was a simple affair, consisting of a short stairway, and a
+platform garnished by some lamp-posts; yet at the top of the steps he
+paused, arrested by what he beheld.
+
+There was a shallop resting upon the clear water lightly as an
+egg-shell. An Ethiop—the camel-driver at the Castalian fount—occupied
+the rower’s place, his blackness intensified by a livery of shining
+white. All the boat aft was cushioned and carpeted with stuffs
+brilliant with Tyrian red. On the rudder seat sat the Egyptian herself,
+sunk in Indian shawls and a very vapor of most delicate veils and
+scarfs. Her arms were bare to the shoulders; and, not merely faultless
+in shape, they had the effect of compelling attention to them—their
+pose, their action, their expression; the hands, the fingers even,
+seemed endowed with graces and meaning; each was an object of beauty.
+The shoulders and neck were protected from the evening air by an ample
+scarf, which yet did not hide them.
+
+In the glance he gave her, Ben-Hur paid no attention to these details.
+There was simply an impression made upon him; and, like strong light,
+it was a sensation, not a thing of sight or enumeration. Thy lips are
+like a thread of scarlet; thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate
+within thy locks. Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away; for,
+lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear
+on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice
+of the turtle is heard in the land—such was the impression she made
+upon him translated into words.
+
+“Come,” she said, observing him stop, “come, or I shall think you a
+poor sailor.”
+
+The red of his cheek deepened. Did she know anything of his life upon
+the sea? He descended to the platform at once.
+
+“I was afraid,” he said, as he took the vacant seat before her.
+
+“Of what?”
+
+“Of sinking the boat,” he replied, smiling.
+
+“Wait until we are in deeper water,” she said, giving a signal to the
+black, who dipped the oars, and they were off.
+
+If love and Ben-Hur were enemies, the latter was never more at mercy.
+The Egyptian sat where he could not but see her; she, whom he had
+already engrossed in memory as his ideal of the Shulamite. With her
+eyes giving light to his, the stars might come out, and he not see
+them; and so they did. The night might fall with unrelieved darkness
+everywhere else; her look would make illumination for him. And then, as
+everybody knows, given youth and such companionship, there is no
+situation in which the fancy takes such complete control as upon
+tranquil waters under a calm night sky, warm with summer. It is so easy
+at such time to glide imperceptibly out of the commonplace into the
+ideal.
+
+“Give me the rudder,” he said.
+
+“No,” she replied, “that were to reverse the relation. Did I not ask
+you to ride with me? I am indebted to you, and would begin payment. You
+may talk and I will listen, or I will talk and you will listen: that
+choice is yours; but it shall be mine to choose where we go, and the
+way thither.”
+
+“And where may that be?”
+
+“You are alarmed again.”
+
+“O fair Egyptian, I but asked you the first question of every captive.”
+
+“Call me Egypt.”
+
+“I would rather call you Iras.”
+
+“You may think of me by that name, but call me Egypt.”
+
+“Egypt is a country, and means many people.”
+
+“Yes, yes! And such a country!”
+
+“I see; it is to Egypt we are going.”
+
+“Would we were! I would be so glad.”
+
+She sighed as she spoke.
+
+“You have no care for me, then,” he said.
+
+“Ah, by that I know you were never there.”
+
+“I never was.”
+
+“Oh, it is the land where there are no unhappy people, the desired of
+all the rest of the earth, the mother of all the gods, and therefore
+supremely blest. There, O son of Arrius, there the happy find increase
+of happiness, and the wretched, going, drink once of the sweet water of
+the sacred river, and laugh and sing, rejoicing like children.”
+
+“Are not the very poor with you there as elsewhere?”
+
+“The very poor in Egypt are the very simple in wants and ways,” she
+replied. “They have no wish beyond enough, and how little that is, a
+Greek or a Roman cannot know.”
+
+“But I am neither Greek nor Roman.”
+
+She laughed.
+
+“I have a garden of roses, and in the midst of it is a tree, and its
+bloom is the richest of all. Whence came it, think you?”
+
+“From Persia, the home of the rose.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“From India, then.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Ah! one of the isles of Greece.”
+
+“I will tell you,” she said: “a traveller found it perishing by the
+roadside on the plain of Rephaim.”
+
+“Oh, in Judea!”
+
+“I put it in the earth left bare by the receding Nile, and the soft
+south wind blew over the desert and nursed it, and the sun kissed it in
+pity; after which it could not else than grow and flourish. I stand in
+its shade now, and it thanks me with much perfume. As with the roses,
+so with the men of Israel. Where shall they reach perfection but in
+Egypt?”
+
+“Moses was but one of millions.”
+
+“Nay, there was a reader of dreams. Will you forget him?”
+
+“The friendly Pharaohs are dead.”
+
+“Ah, yes! The river by which they dwelt sings to them in their tombs;
+yet the same sun tempers the same air to the same people.”
+
+“Alexandria is but a Roman town.”
+
+“She has but exchanged sceptres. Cæsar took from her that of the
+sword, and in its place left that of learning. Go with me to the
+Brucheium, and I will show you the college of nations; to the
+Serapeion, and see the perfection of architecture; to the Library, and
+read the immortals; to the theatre, and hear the heroics of the Greeks
+and Hindoos; to the quay, and count the triumphs of commerce; descend
+with me into the streets, O son of Arrius, and, when the philosophers
+have dispersed, and taken with them the masters of all the arts, and
+all the gods have home their votaries, and nothing remains of the day
+but its pleasures, you shall hear the stories that have amused men from
+the beginning, and the songs which will never, never die.”
+
+As he listened, Ben-Hur was carried back to the night when, in the
+summer-house in Jerusalem, his mother, in much the same poetry of
+patriotism, declaimed the departed glories of Israel.
+
+“I see now why you wish to be called Egypt. Will you sing me a song if
+I call you by that name? I heard you last night.”
+
+“That was a hymn of the Nile,” she answered, “a lament which I sing
+when I would fancy I smell the breath of the desert, and hear the surge
+of the dear old river; let me rather give you a piece of the Indian
+mind. When we get to Alexandria, I will take you to the corner of the
+street where you can hear it from the daughter of the Ganga, who taught
+it to me. Kapila, you should know, was one of the most revered of the
+Hindoo sages.”
+
+Then, as if it were a natural mode of expression, she began the song.
+
+KAPILA.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+“Kapila, Kapila, so young and true,
+    I yearn for a glory like thine,
+And hail thee from battle to ask anew,
+    Can ever thy Valor be mine?
+
+
+“Kapila sat on his charger dun,
+    A hero never so grave:
+‘Who loveth all things hath fear of none,
+    ’Tis love that maketh me brave.
+A woman gave me her soul one day,
+The soul of my soul to be alway;
+    Thence came my Valor to me,
+    Go try it—try it—and see.’
+
+
+II.
+
+
+“Kapila, Kapila, so old and gray,
+    The queen is calling for me;
+But ere I go hence, I wish thou wouldst say,
+    How Wisdom first came to thee.
+
+
+“Kapila stood in his temple door,
+    A priest in eremite guise:
+‘It did not come as men get their lore,
+    ’Tis faith that maketh me wise.
+A woman gave me her heart one day,
+The heart of my heart to be alway;
+    Thence came my Wisdom to me,
+    Go try it—try it—and see.’”
+
+
+Ben-Hur had not time to express his thanks for the song before the keel
+of the boat grated upon the underlying sand, and, next moment, the bow
+ran upon the shore.
+
+“A quick voyage, O Egypt!” he cried.
+
+“And a briefer stay!” she replied, as, with a strong push, the black
+sent them shooting into the open water again.
+
+“You will give me the rudder now.”
+
+“Oh no,” said she, laughing. “To you, the chariot; to me, the boat. We
+are merely at the lake’s end, and the lesson is that I must not sing
+any more. Having been to Egypt, let us now to the Grove of Daphne.”
+
+“Without a song on the way?” he said, in deprecation.
+
+“Tell me something of the Roman from whom you saved us to-day,” she
+asked.
+
+The request struck Ben-Hur unpleasantly.
+
+“I wish this were the Nile,” he said, evasively. “The kings and queens,
+having slept so long, might come down from their tombs, and ride with
+us.”
+
+“They were of the colossi, and would sink our boat. The pygmies would
+be preferable. But tell me of the Roman. He is very wicked, is he not?”
+
+“I cannot say.”
+
+“Is he of noble family, and rich?”
+
+“I cannot speak of his riches.”
+
+“How beautiful his horses were! and the bed of his chariot was gold,
+and the wheels ivory. And his audacity! The bystanders laughed as he
+rode away; they, who were so nearly under his wheels!”
+
+She laughed at the recollection.
+
+“They were rabble,” said Ben-Hur, bitterly.
+
+“He must be one of the monsters who are said to be growing up in
+Rome—Apollos ravenous as Cerberus. Does he reside in Antioch?”
+
+“He is of the East somewhere.”
+
+“Egypt would suit him better than Syria.”
+
+“Hardly,” Ben-Hur replied. “Cleopatra is dead.”
+
+That instant the lamps burning before the door of the tent came into
+view.
+
+“The dowar!” she cried.
+
+“Ah, then, we have not been to Egypt. I have not seen Karnak or Philae
+or Abydos. This is not the Nile. I have but heard a song of India, and
+been boating in a dream.”
+
+“Philae—Karnak. Mourn rather that you have not seen the Rameses at Aboo
+Simbel, looking at which makes it so easy to think of God, the maker of
+the heavens and earth. Or why should you mourn at all? Let us go on to
+the river; and if I cannot sing”—she laughed—“because I have said I
+would not, yet I can tell you stories of Egypt.”
+
+“Go on! Ay, till morning comes, and the evening, and the next morning!”
+he said, vehemently.
+
+“Of what shall my stories be? Of the mathematicians?”
+
+“Oh no.”
+
+“Of the philosophers?”
+
+“No, no.”
+
+“Of the magicians and genii?”
+
+“If you will.”
+
+“Of war?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Of love?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I will tell you a cure for love. It is the story of a queen. Listen
+reverently. The papyrus from which it was taken by the priests of
+Philae was wrested from the hand of the heroine herself. It is correct
+in form, and must be true:
+
+NE-NE-HOFRA.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+“There is no parallelism in human lives.
+
+“No life runs a straight line.
+
+“The most perfect life develops as a circle, and terminates in its
+beginning, making it impossible to say, This is the commencement, that
+the end.
+
+“Perfect lives are the treasures of God; of great days he wears them on
+the ring-finger of his heart hand.”
+
+II.
+
+
+“Ne-ne-hofra dwelt in a house close by Essouan, yet closer to the first
+cataract—so close, indeed, that the sound of the eternal battle waged
+there between river and rocks was of the place a part.
+
+“She grew in beauty day by day, so that it was said of her, as of the
+poppies in her father’s garden, What will she not be in the time of
+blooming?
+
+“Each year of her life was the beginning of a new song more delightful
+than any of those which went before.
+
+“Child was she of a marriage between the North, bounded by the sea, and
+the South, bounded by the desert beyond the Luna mountains; and one
+gave her its passion, the other its genius; so when they beheld her,
+both laughed, saying, not meanly, ‘She is mine,’ but generously, ‘Ha,
+ha! she is ours.’
+
+“All excellences in nature contributed to her perfection and rejoiced
+in her presence. Did she come or go, the birds ruffled their wings in
+greeting; the unruly winds sank to cooling zephyrs; the white lotus
+rose from the water’s depth to look at her; the solemn river loitered
+on its way; the palm-trees, nodding, shook all their plumes; and they
+seemed to say, this one, I gave her of my grace; that, I gave her of my
+brightness; the other, I gave her of my purity: and so each as it had a
+virtue to give.
+
+“At twelve, Ne-ne-hofra was the delight of Essouan; at sixteen, the
+fame of her beauty was universal; at twenty, there was never a day
+which did not bring to her door princes of the desert on swift camels,
+and lords of Egypt in gilded barges; and, going away disconsolate, they
+reported everywhere, ‘I have seen her, and she is not a woman, but
+Athor herself.’”
+
+III.
+
+
+“Now of the three hundred and thirty successors of good King Menes,
+eighteen were Ethiopians, of whom Oraetes was one hundred and ten years
+old. He had reigned seventy-six years. Under him the people thrived,
+and the land groaned with fatness of plenty. He practised wisdom
+because, having seen so much, he knew what it was. He dwelt in Memphis,
+having there his principal palace, his arsenals, and his
+treasure-house. Frequently he went down to Butos to talk with Latona.
+
+“The wife of the good king died. Too old was she for perfect
+embalmment; yet he loved her, and mourned as the inconsolable; seeing
+which, a colchyte presumed one day to speak to him.
+
+“‘O Oraetes, I am astonished that one so wise and great should not know
+how to cure a sorrow like this.’
+
+“‘Tell me a cure,’ said the king.
+
+“Three times the colchyte kissed the floor, and then he replied,
+knowing the dead could not hear him, ‘At Essouan lives Ne-ne-hofra,
+beautiful as Athor the beautiful. Send for her. She has refused all the
+lords and princes, and I know not how many kings; but who can say no to
+Oraetes?’”
+
+IV.
+
+
+“Ne-ne-hofra descended the Nile in a barge richer than any ever before
+seen, attended by an army in barges each but a little less fine. All
+Nubia and Egypt, and a myriad from Libya, and a host of Troglodytes,
+and not a few Macrobii from beyond the Mountains of the Moon, lined the
+tented shores to see the cortege pass, wafted by perfumed winds and
+golden oars.
+
+“Through a dromos of sphinxes and couchant double-winged lions she was
+borne, and set down before Oraetes sitting on a throne specially
+erected at the sculptured pylon of the palace. He raised her up, gave
+her place by his side, clasped the uraeus upon her arm, kissed her, and
+Ne-ne-hofra was queen of all queens.
+
+“That was not enough for the wise Oraetes; he wanted love, and a queen
+happy in his love. So he dealt with her tenderly, showing her his
+possessions, cities, palaces, people; his armies, his ships: and with
+his own hand he led her through his treasure-house, saying, ‘O.
+Ne-ne-hofra! but kiss me in love, and they are all thine.’
+
+“And, thinking she could be happy, if she was not then, she kissed him
+once, twice, thrice—kissed him thrice, his hundred and ten years
+notwithstanding.
+
+“The first year she was happy, and it was very short; the third year
+she was wretched, and it was very long; then she was enlightened: that
+which she thought love of Oraetes was only daze of his power. Well for
+her had the daze endured! Her spirits deserted her; she had long spells
+of tears, and her women could not remember when they heard her laugh;
+of the roses on her cheeks only ashes remained; she languished and
+faded gradually, but certainly. Some said she was haunted by the
+Erinnyes for cruelty to a lover; others, that she was stricken by some
+god envious of Oraetes. Whatever the cause of her decline, the charms
+of the magicians availed not to restore her, and the prescript of the
+doctor was equally without virtue. Ne-ne-hofra was given over to die.
+
+“Oraetes chose a crypt for her up in the tombs of the queens; and,
+calling the master sculptors and painters to Memphis, he set them to
+work upon designs more elaborate than any even in the great galleries
+of the dead kings.
+
+“‘O thou beautiful as Athor herself, my queen!’ said the king, whose
+hundred and thirteen years did not lessen his ardor as a lover, ‘Tell
+me, I pray, the ailment of which, alas! thou art so certainly perishing
+before my eyes.’
+
+“‘You will not love me any more if I tell you,’ she said, in doubt and
+fear.
+
+“‘Not love you! I will love you the more. I swear it, by the genii of
+Amente! by the eye of Osiris, I swear it! Speak!’ he cried, passionate
+as a lover, authoritative as a king.
+
+“‘Hear, then,’ she said. ‘There is an anchorite, the oldest and holiest
+of his class, in a cave near Essouan. His name is Menopha. He was my
+teacher and guardian. Send for him, O Oraetes, and he will tell you
+that you seek to know; he will also help you find the cure for my
+affliction.’
+
+“Oraetes arose rejoicing. He went away in spirit a hundred years
+younger than when he came.”
+
+V.
+
+
+“‘Speak!’ said Oraetes to Menopha, in the palace at Memphis.
+
+“And Menopha replied, ‘Most mighty king, if you were young, I should
+not answer, because I am yet pleased with life; as it is, I will say
+the queen, like any other mortal, is paying the penalty of a crime.’
+
+“‘A crime!’ exclaimed Oraetes, angrily.
+
+“Menopha bowed very low.
+
+“‘Yes; to herself.’
+
+“‘I am not in mood for riddles,’ said the king.
+
+“‘What I say is not a riddle, as you shall hear. Ne-ne-hofra grew up
+under my eyes, and confided every incident of her life to me; among
+others, that she loved the son of her father’s gardener, Barbec by
+name.’
+
+“Oraetes’s frown, strangely enough, began to dissipate.
+
+“‘With that love in her heart, O king, she came to you; of that love
+she is dying.’
+
+“‘Where is the gardener’s son now?’ asked Oraetes.
+
+“‘In Essouan.’
+
+“The king went out and gave two orders. To one oeris he said, ‘Go to
+Essouan and bring hither a youth named Barbec. You will find him in the
+garden of the queen’s father;’ to another, ‘Assemble workmen and cattle
+and tools, and construct for me in Lake Chemmis an island, which,
+though laden with a temple, a palace, and a garden, and all manner of
+trees bearing fruit, and all manner of vines, shall nevertheless float
+about as the winds may blow it. Make the island, and let it be fully
+furnished by the time the moon begins to wane.’
+
+“Then to the queen he said,
+
+“‘Be of cheer. I know all, and have sent for Barbec.’
+
+“Ne-ne-hofra kissed his hands.
+
+“‘You shall have him to yourself, and he you to himself; nor shall any
+disturb your loves for a year.’
+
+“She kissed his feet; he raised her, and kissed her in return; and the
+rose came back to her cheek, the scarlet to her lips, and the laughter
+to her heart.”
+
+VI.
+
+
+“For one year Ne-ne-hofra and Barbec the gardener floated as the winds
+blew on the island of Chemmis, which became one of the wonders of the
+world; never a home of love more beautiful; one year, seeing no one and
+existing for no one but themselves. Then she returned in state to the
+palace in Memphis.
+
+“‘Now whom lovest thou best?’ asked the king.
+
+“She kissed his cheek and said, ‘Take me back, O good king, for I am
+cured.’
+
+“Oraetes laughed, none the worse, that moment, of his hundred and
+fourteen years.
+
+“‘Then it is true, as Menopha said: ha, ha, ha! it is true, the cure of
+love is love.’
+
+“‘Even so,’ she replied.
+
+“Suddenly his manner changed, and his look became terrible.
+
+“‘I did not find it so,’ he said.
+
+“She shrank affrighted.
+
+“‘Thou guilty!’ he continued. ‘Thy offense to Oraetes the man he
+forgives; but thy offence to Oraetes the king remains to be punished.’
+
+“She cast herself at his feet.
+
+“‘Hush!’ he cried. ‘Thou art dead!’
+
+“He clapped his hands, and a terrible procession came in—a procession
+of parachistes, or embalmers, each with some implement or material of
+his loathsome art.
+
+“The King pointed to Ne-ne-hofra.
+
+“‘She is dead. Do thy work well.’”
+
+VII.
+
+
+“Ne-ne-hofra the beautiful, after seventy-two days, was carried to the
+crypt chosen for her the year before, and laid with her queenly
+predecessors; yet there was no funeral procession in her honor across
+the sacred lake.”
+
+At the conclusion of the story, Ben-Hur was sitting at the Egyptian’s
+feet, and her hand upon the tiller was covered by his hand.
+
+“Menopha was wrong,” he said.
+
+“How?”
+
+“Love lives by loving.”
+
+“Then there is no cure for it?”
+
+“Yes. Oraetes found the cure.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+“Death.”
+
+“You are a good listener, O son of Arrius.”
+
+And so with conversation and stories, they whiled the hours away. As
+they stepped ashore, she said,
+
+“To-morrow we go to the city.”
+
+“But you will be at the games?” he asked.
+
+“Oh yes.”
+
+“I will send you my colors.”
+
+With that they separated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Ilderim returned to the dowar next day about the third hour. As he
+dismounted, a man whom he recognized as of his own tribe came to him
+and said, “O sheik, I was bidden give thee this package, with request
+that thou read it at once. If there be answer, I was to wait thy
+pleasure.”
+
+Ilderim gave the package immediate attention. The seal was already
+broken. The address ran, _To Valerius Gratus at Cæsarea_.
+
+“Abaddon take him!” growled the sheik, at discovering a letter in
+Latin.
+
+Had the missive been in Greek or Arabic, he could have read it; as it
+was, the utmost he could make out was the signature in bold Roman
+letters—MESSALA—whereat his eyes twinkled.
+
+“Where is the young Jew?” he asked.
+
+“In the field with the horses,” a servant replied.
+
+The sheik replaced the papyrus in its envelopes, and, tucking the
+package under his girdle, remounted the horse. That moment a stranger
+made his appearance, coming, apparently, from the city.
+
+“I am looking for Sheik Ilderim, surnamed the Generous,” the stranger
+said.
+
+His language and attire bespoke him a Roman.
+
+What he could not read, he yet could speak; so the old Arab answered,
+with dignity, “I am Sheik Ilderim.”
+
+The man’s eyes fell; he raised them again, and said, with forced
+composure, “I heard you had need of a driver for the games.”
+
+Ilderim’s lip under the white mustache curled contemptuously.
+
+“Go thy way,” he said. “I have a driver.”
+
+He turned to ride away, but the man, lingering, spoke again.
+
+“Sheik, I am a lover of horses, and they say you have the most
+beautiful in the world.”
+
+The old man was touched; he drew rein, as if on the point of yielding
+to the flattery, but finally replied, “Not to-day, not to-day; some
+other time I will show them to you. I am too busy just now.”
+
+He rode to the field, while the stranger betook himself to town again
+with a smiling countenance. He had accomplished his mission.
+
+And every day thereafter, down to the great day of the games, a
+man—sometimes two or three men—came to the sheik at the Orchard,
+pretending to seek an engagement as driver.
+
+In such manner Messala kept watch over Ben-Hur.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The sheik waited, well satisfied, until Ben-Hur drew his horses off the
+field for the forenoon—well satisfied, for he had seen them, after
+being put through all the other paces, run full speed in such manner
+that it did not seem there were one the slowest and another the
+fastest—run in other words, as if the four were one.
+
+“This afternoon, O sheik, I will give Sirius back to you.” Ben-Hur
+patted the neck of the old horse as he spoke. “I will give him back,
+and take to the chariot.”
+
+“So soon?” Ilderim asked.
+
+“With such as these, good sheik, one day suffices. They are not afraid;
+they have a man’s intelligence, and they love the exercise. This one,”
+he shook a rein over the back of the youngest of the four—“you called
+him Aldebaran, I believe—is the swiftest; in once round a stadium he
+would lead the others thrice his length.”
+
+Ilderim pulled his beard, and said, with twinkling eyes, “Aldebaran is
+the swiftest; but what of the slowest?”
+
+“This is he.” Ben-Hur shook the rein over Antares. “This is he: but he
+will win, for, look you, sheik, he will run his utmost all day—all day;
+and, as the sun goes down, he will reach his swiftest.”
+
+“Right again,” said Ilderim.
+
+“I have but one fear, O sheik.”
+
+The sheik became doubly serious.
+
+“In his greed of triumph, a Roman cannot keep honor pure. In the
+games—all of them, mark you—their tricks are infinite; in chariot
+racing their knavery extends to everything—from horse to driver, from
+driver to master. Wherefore, good sheik, look well to all thou hast;
+from this till the trial is over, let no stranger so much as see the
+horses. Would you be perfectly safe, do more—keep watch over them with
+armed hand as well as sleepless eye; then I will have no fear of the
+end.”
+
+At the door of the tent they dismounted.
+
+“What you say shall be attended to. By the splendor of God, no hand
+shall come near them except it belong to one of the faithful. To-night
+I will set watches. But, son of Arrius”—Ilderim drew forth the package,
+and opened it slowly, while they walked to the divan and seated
+themselves—“son of Arrius, see thou here, and help me with thy Latin.”
+
+He passed the despatch to Ben-Hur.
+
+“There; read—and read aloud, rendering what thou findest into the
+tongue of thy fathers. Latin is an abomination.”
+
+Ben-Hur was in good spirits, and began the reading carelessly.
+“‘MESSALA TO GRATUS!’” He paused. A premonition drove the blood to his
+heart. Ilderim observed his agitation.
+
+“Well; I am waiting.”
+
+Ben-Hur prayed pardon, and recommenced the paper, which, it is
+sufficient to say, was one of the duplicates of the letter despatched
+so carefully to Gratus by Messala the morning after the revel in the
+palace.
+
+The paragraphs in the beginning were remarkable only as proof that the
+writer had not outgrown his habit of mockery; when they were passed,
+and the reader came to the parts intended to refresh the memory of
+Gratus, his voice trembled, and twice he stopped to regain his
+self-control. By a strong effort he continued. “‘I recall further,’” he
+read, “‘that thou didst make disposition of the family of Hur’”—there
+the reader again paused and drew a long breath—“‘both of us at the time
+supposing the plan hit upon to be the most effective possible for the
+purposes in view, which were silence and delivery over to inevitable
+but natural death.’”
+
+Here Ben-Hur broke down utterly. The paper fell from his hands, and he
+covered his face.
+
+“They are dead—dead. I alone am left.”
+
+The sheik had been a silent, but not unsympathetic, witness of the
+young man’s suffering; now he arose and said, “Son of Arrius, it is for
+me to beg thy pardon. Read the paper by thyself. When thou art strong
+enough to give the rest of it to me, send word, and I will return.”
+
+He went out of the tent, and nothing in all his life became him better.
+
+Ben-Hur flung himself on the divan and gave way to his feelings. When
+somewhat recovered, he recollected that a portion of the letter
+remained unread, and, taking it up, he resumed the reading. “Thou wilt
+remember,” the missive ran, “what thou didst with the mother and sister
+of the malefactor; yet, if now I yield to a desire to learn if they be
+living or dead”—Ben-Hur started, and read again, and then again, and at
+last broke into exclamation. “He does not know they are dead; he does
+not know it! Blessed be the name of the Lord! there is yet hope.” He
+finished the sentence, and was strengthened by it, and went on bravely
+to the end of the letter.
+
+“They are not dead,” he said, after reflection; “they are not dead, or
+he would have heard of it.”
+
+A second reading, more careful than the first, confirmed him in the
+opinion. Then he sent for the sheik.
+
+“In coming to your hospitable tent, O sheik,” he said, calmly, when the
+Arab was seated and they were alone, “it was not in my mind to speak of
+myself further than to assure you I had sufficient training to be
+intrusted with your horses. I declined to tell you my history. But the
+chances which have sent this paper to my hand and given it to me to be
+read are so strange that I feel bidden to trust you with everything.
+And I am the more inclined to do so by knowledge here conveyed that we
+are both of us threatened by the same enemy, against whom it is needful
+that we make common cause. I will read the letter and give you
+explanation; after which you will not wonder I was so moved. If you
+thought me weak or childish, you will then excuse me.”
+
+The sheik held his peace, listening closely, until Ben-Hur came to the
+paragraph in which he was particularly mentioned: “‘I saw the Jew
+yesterday in the Grove of Daphne;’” so ran the part, “‘and if he be not
+there now, he is certainly in the neighborhood, making it easy for me
+to keep him in eye. Indeed, wert thou to ask me where he is now, I
+should say, with the most positive assurance, he is to be found at the
+old Orchard of Palms.’”
+
+“A—h!” exclaimed Ilderim, in such a tone one might hardly say he was
+more surprised than angry; at the same time, he clutched his beard.
+
+“‘At the old Orchard of Palms,’” Ben-Hur repeated, “‘under the tent of
+the traitor Shiek Ilderim.’”
+
+“Traitor!—I?” the old man cried, in his shrillest tone, while lip and
+beard curled with ire, and on his forehead and neck the veins swelled
+and beat as they would burst.
+
+“Yet a moment, sheik,” said Ben-Hur, with a deprecatory gesture. “Such
+is Messala’s opinion of you. Hear his threat.” And he read on—“‘under
+the tent of the traitor Sheik Ilderim, who cannot long escape our
+strong hand. Be not surprised if Maxentius, as his first measure,
+places the Arab on ship for forwarding to Rome.’”
+
+“To Rome! Me—Ilderim—sheik of ten thousand horsemen with spears—me to
+Rome!”
+
+He leaped rather than rose to his feet, his arms outstretched, his
+fingers spread and curved like claws, his eyes glittering like a
+serpent’s.
+
+“O God!—nay, by all the gods except of Rome!—when shall this insolence
+end? A freeman am I; free are my people. Must we die slaves? Or, worse,
+must I live a dog, crawling to a master’s feet? Must I lick his hand,
+lest he lash me? What is mine is not mine; I am not my own; for breath
+of body I must be beholden to a Roman. Oh, if I were young again! Oh,
+could I shake off twenty years—or ten—or five!”
+
+He ground his teeth and shook his hands overhead; then, under the
+impulse of another idea, he walked away and back again to Ben-Hur
+swiftly, and caught his shoulder with a strong grasp.
+
+“If I were as thou, son of Arrius—as young, as strong, as practised in
+arms; if I had a motive hissing me to revenge—a motive, like thine,
+great enough to make hate holy— Away with disguise on thy part and on
+mine! Son of Hur, son of Hur, I say—”
+
+At that name all the currents of Ben-Hur’s blood stopped; surprised,
+bewildered, he gazed into the Arab’s eyes, now close to his, and
+fiercely bright.
+
+“Son of Hur, I say, were I as thou, with half thy wrongs, bearing about
+with me memories like thine, I would not, I could not, rest.” Never
+pausing, his words following each other torrent-like, the old man swept
+on. “To all my grievances, I would add those of the world, and devote
+myself to vengeance. From land to land I would go firing all mankind.
+No war for freedom but should find me engaged; no battle against Rome
+in which I would not bear a part. I would turn Parthian, if I could not
+better. If men failed me, still I would not give over the effort—ha,
+ha, ha! By the splendor of God! I would herd with wolves, and make
+friends of lions and tigers, in hope of marshalling them against the
+common enemy. I would use every weapon. So my victims were Romans, I
+would rejoice in slaughter. Quarter I would not ask; quarter I would
+not give. To the flames everything Roman; to the sword every Roman
+born. Of nights I would pray the gods, the good and the bad alike, to
+lend me their special terrors—tempests, drought, heat, cold, and all
+the nameless poisons they let loose in air, all the thousand things of
+which men die on sea and on land. Oh, I could not sleep. I—I—”
+
+The sheik stopped for want of breath, panting, wringing his hands. And,
+sooth to say, of all the passionate burst Ben-Hur retained but a vague
+impression wrought by fiery eyes, a piercing voice, and a rage too
+intense for coherent expression.
+
+For the first time in years, the desolate youth heard himself addressed
+by his proper name. One man at least knew him, and acknowledged it
+without demand of identity; and he an Arab fresh from the desert!
+
+How came the man by his knowledge? The letter? No. It told the
+cruelties from which his family had suffered; it told the story of his
+own misfortunes, but it did not say he was the very victim whose escape
+from doom was the theme of the heartless narrative. That was the point
+of explanation he had notified the sheik would follow the reading of
+the letter. He was pleased, and thrilled with hope restored, yet kept
+an air of calmness.
+
+“Good sheik, tell me how you came by this letter.”
+
+“My people keep the roads between cities,” Ilderim answered, bluntly.
+“They took it from a courier.”
+
+“Are they known to be thy people?”
+
+“No. To the world they are robbers, whom it is mine to catch and slay.”
+
+“Again, sheik. You call me son of Hur—my father’s name. I did not think
+myself known to a person on earth. How came you by the knowledge?”
+
+Ilderim hesitated; but, rallying, he answered, “I know you, yet I am
+not free to tell you more.”
+
+“Some one holds you in restraint?”
+
+The sheik closed his mouth, and walked away; but, observing Ben-Hur’s
+disappointment, he came back, and said, “Let us say no more about the
+matter now. I will go to town; when I return, I may talk to you fully.
+Give me the letter.”
+
+Ilderim rolled the papyrus carefully, restored it to its envelopes, and
+became once more all energy.
+
+“What sayest thou?” he asked, while waiting for his horse and retinue.
+“I told what I would do, were I thou, and thou hast made no answer.”
+
+“I intended to answer, sheik, and I will.” Ben-Hur’s countenance and
+voice changed with the feeling invoked. “All thou hast said, I will
+do—all at least in the power of a man. I devoted myself to vengeance
+long ago. Every hour of the five years passed, I have lived with no
+other thought. I have taken no respite. I have had no pleasures of
+youth. The blandishments of Rome were not for me. I wanted her to
+educate me for revenge. I resorted to her most famous masters and
+professors—not those of rhetoric or philosophy: alas! I had no time for
+them. The arts essential to a fighting-man were my desire. I associated
+with gladiators, and with winners of prizes in the Circus; and they
+were my teachers. The drill-masters in the great camp accepted me as a
+scholar, and were proud of my attainments in their line. O sheik, I am
+a soldier; but the things of which I dream require me to be a captain.
+With that thought, I have taken part in the campaign against the
+Parthians; when it is over, then, if the Lord spare my life and
+strength—then”—he raised his clenched hands, and spoke vehemently—“then
+I will be an enemy Roman-taught in all things; then Rome shall account
+to me in Roman lives for her ills. You have my answer, sheik.”
+
+Ilderim put an arm over his shoulder, and kissed him, saying,
+passionately, “If thy God favor thee not, son of Hur, it is because he
+is dead. Take thou this from me—sworn to, if so thy preference run:
+thou shalt have my hands, and their fulness—men, horses, camels, and
+the desert for preparation. I swear it! For the present, enough. Thou
+shalt see or hear from me before night.”
+
+Turning abruptly off, the sheik was speedily on the road to the city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The intercepted letter was conclusive upon a number of points of great
+interest to Ben-Hur. It had all the effect of a confession that the
+writer was a party to the putting-away of the family with murderous
+intent; that he had sanctioned the plan adopted for the purpose; that
+he had received a portion of the proceeds of the confiscation, and was
+yet in enjoyment of his part; that he dreaded the unexpected appearance
+of what he was pleased to call the chief malefactor, and accepted it as
+a menace; that he contemplated such further action as would secure him
+in the future, and was ready to do whatever his accomplice in Cæsarea
+might advise.
+
+And, now that the letter had reached the hand of him really its
+subject, it was notice of danger to come, as well as a confession of
+guilt. So when Ilderim left the tent, Ben-Hur had much to think about,
+requiring immediate action. His enemies were as adroit and powerful as
+any in the East. If they were afraid of him, he had greater reason to
+be afraid of them. He strove earnestly to reflect upon the situation,
+but could not; his feelings constantly overwhelmed him. There was a
+certain qualified pleasure in the assurance that his mother and sister
+were alive; and it mattered little that the foundation of the assurance
+was a mere inference. That there was one person who could tell him
+where they were seemed to his hope so long deferred as if discovery
+were now close at hand. These were mere causes of feeling; underlying
+them, it must be confessed he had a superstitious fancy that God was
+about to make ordination in his behalf, in which event faith whispered
+him to stand still.
+
+Occasionally, referring to the words of Ilderim, he wondered whence the
+Arab derived his information about him; not from Malluch certainly; nor
+from Simonides, whose interests, all adverse, would hold him dumb.
+Could Messala have been the informant? No, no: disclosure might be
+dangerous in that quarter. Conjecture was vain; at the same time, often
+as Ben-Hur was beaten back from the solution, he was consoled with the
+thought that whoever the person with the knowledge might be, he was a
+friend, and, being such, would reveal himself in good time. A little
+more waiting—a little more patience. Possibly the errand of the sheik
+was to see the worthy; possibly the letter might precipitate a full
+disclosure.
+
+And patient he would have been if only he could have believed Tirzah
+and his mother were waiting for him under circumstances permitting hope
+on their part strong as his; if, in other words, conscience had not
+stung him with accusations respecting them.
+
+To escape such accusations, he wandered far through the Orchard,
+pausing now where the date-gatherers were busy, yet not too busy to
+offer him of their fruit and talk with him; then, under the great
+trees, to watch the nesting birds, or hear the bees swarming about the
+berries bursting with honeyed sweetness, and filling all the green and
+golden spaces with the music of their beating wings.
+
+By the lake, however, he lingered longest. He might not look upon the
+water and its sparkling ripples, so like sensuous life, without
+thinking of the Egyptian and her marvellous beauty, and of floating
+with her here and there through the night, made brilliant by her songs
+and stories; he might not forget the charm of her manner, the lightness
+of her laugh, the flattery of her attention, the warmth of her little
+hand under his upon the tiller of the boat. From her it was for his
+thought but a short way to Balthasar, and the strange things of which
+he had been witness, unaccountable by any law of nature; and from him,
+again, to the King of the Jews, whom the good man, with such pathos of
+patience, was holding in holy promise, the distance was even nearer.
+And there his mind stayed, finding in the mysteries of that personage a
+satisfaction answering well for the rest he was seeking. Because, it
+may have been, nothing is so easy as denial of an idea not agreeable to
+our wishes, he rejected the definition given by Balthasar of the
+kingdom the king was coming to establish. A kingdom of souls, if not
+intolerable to his Sadducean faith, seemed to him but an abstraction
+drawn from the depths of a devotion too fond and dreamy. A kingdom of
+Judea, on the other hand, was more than comprehensible: such had been,
+and, if only for that reason, might be again. And it suited his pride
+to think of a new kingdom broader of domain, richer in power, and of a
+more unapproachable splendor than the old one; of a new king wiser and
+mightier than Solomon—a new king under whom, especially, he could find
+both service and revenge. In that mood he resumed to the dowar.
+
+The mid-day meal disposed of, still further to occupy himself, Ben-Hur
+had the chariot rolled out into the sunlight for inspection. The word
+but poorly conveys the careful study the vehicle underwent. No point or
+part of it escaped him. With a pleasure which will be better understood
+hereafter, he saw the pattern was Greek, in his judgment preferable to
+the Roman in many respects; it was wider between the wheels, and lower
+and stronger, and the disadvantage of greater weight would be more than
+compensated by the greater endurance of his Arabs. Speaking generally,
+the carriage-makers of Rome built for the games almost solely,
+sacrificing safety to beauty, and durability to grace; while the
+chariots of Achilles and “the king of men,” designed for war and all
+its extreme tests, still ruled the tastes of those who met and
+struggled for the crowns Isthmian and Olympic.
+
+Next he brought the horses, and, hitching them to the chariot, drove to
+the field of exercise, where, hour after hour, he practised them in
+movement under the yoke. When he came away in the evening, it was with
+restored spirit, and a fixed purpose to defer action in the matter of
+Messala until the race was won or lost. He could not forego the
+pleasure of meeting his adversary under the eyes of the East; that
+there might be other competitors seemed not to enter his thought. His
+confidence in the result was absolute; no doubt of his own skill; and
+as to the four, they were his full partners in the glorious game.
+
+“Let him look to it, let him look to it! Ha, Antares—Aldebaran! Shall
+he not, O honest Rigel? and thou, Atair, king among coursers, shall he
+not beware of us? Ha, ha! good hearts!”
+
+So in rests he passed from horse to horse, speaking, not as a master,
+but the senior of as many brethren.
+
+After nightfall, Ben-Hur sat by the door of the tent waiting for
+Ilderim, not yet returned from the city. He was not impatient, or
+vexed, or doubtful. The sheik would be heard from, at least. Indeed,
+whether it was from satisfaction with the performance of the four, or
+the refreshment there is in cold water succeeding bodily exercise, or
+supper partaken with royal appetite, or the reaction which, as a kindly
+provision of nature, always follows depression, the young man was in
+good-humor verging upon elation. He felt himself in the hands of
+Providence no longer his enemy. At last there was a sound of horse’s
+feet coming rapidly, and Malluch rode up.
+
+“Son of Arrius,” he said, cheerily, after salutation, “I salute you for
+Sheik Ilderim, who requests you to mount and go to the city. He is
+waiting for you.”
+
+Ben-Hur asked no questions, but went in where the horses were feeding.
+Aldebaran came to him, as if offering his service. He played with him
+lovingly, but passed on, and chose another, not of the four—they were
+sacred to the race. Very shortly the two were on the road, going
+swiftly and in silence.
+
+Some distance below the Seleucian Bridge, they crossed the river by a
+ferry, and, riding far round on the right bank, and recrossing by
+another ferry, entered the city from the west. The detour was long, but
+Ben-Hur accepted it as a precaution for which there was good reason.
+
+Down to Simonides’ landing they rode, and in front of the great
+warehouse, under the bridge, Malluch drew rein.
+
+“We are come,” he said. “Dismount.”
+
+Ben-Hur recognized the place.
+
+“Where is the sheik?” he asked.
+
+“Come with me. I will show you.”
+
+A watchman took the horses, and almost before he realized it Ben-Hur
+stood once more at the door of the house up on the greater one,
+listening to the response from within—“In God’s name, enter.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Malluch stopped at the door; Ben-Hur entered alone.
+
+The room was the same in which he had formerly interviewed Simonides,
+and it had been in nowise changed, except now, close by the arm-chair,
+a polished brazen rod, set on a broad wooden pedestal, arose higher
+than a tall man, holding lamps of silver on sliding arms, half-a-dozen
+or more in number, and all burning. The light was clear, bringing into
+view the panelling on the walls, the cornice with its row of gilded
+balls, and the dome dully tinted with violet mica.
+
+Within a few steps, Ben-Hur stopped.
+
+Three persons were present, looking at him—Simonides, Ilderim, and
+Esther.
+
+He glanced hurriedly from one to another, as if to find answer to the
+question half formed in his mind, What business can these have with me?
+He became calm, with every sense on the alert, for the question was
+succeeded by another, Are they friends or enemies?
+
+At length, his eyes rested upon Esther.
+
+The men returned his look kindly; in her face there was something more
+than kindness—something too _spirituel_ for definition, which yet went
+to his inner consciousness without definition.
+
+Shall it be said, good reader? Back of his gaze there was a comparison
+in which the Egyptian arose and set herself over against the gentle
+Jewess; but it lived an instant, and, as is the habit of such
+comparisons, passed away without a conclusion.
+
+“Son of Hur—”
+
+The guest turned to the speaker.
+
+“Son of Hur,” said Simonides, repeating the address slowly, and with
+distinct emphasis, as if to impress all its meaning upon him most
+interested in understanding it, “take thou the peace of the Lord God of
+our fathers—take it from me.” He paused, then added, “From me and
+mine.”
+
+The speaker sat in his chair; there were the royal head, the bloodless
+face, the masterful air, under the influence of which visitors forgot
+the broken limbs and distorted body of the man. The full black eyes
+gazed out under the white brows steadily, but not sternly. A moment
+thus, then he crossed his hands upon his breast.
+
+The action, taken with the salutation, could not be misunderstood, and
+was not.
+
+“Simonides,” Ben-Hur answered, much moved, “the holy peace you tender
+is accepted. As son to father, I return it to you. Only let there be
+perfect understanding between us.”
+
+Thus delicately he sought to put aside the submission of the merchant,
+and, in place of the relation of master and servant, substitute one
+higher and holier.
+
+Simonides let fall his hands, and, turning to Esther, said, “A seat for
+the master, daughter.”
+
+She hastened, and brought a stool, and stood, with suffused face,
+looking from one to the other—from Ben-Hur to Simonides, from Simonides
+to Ben-Hur; and they waited, each declining the superiority direction
+would imply. When at length the pause began to be embarrassing, Ben-Hur
+advanced, and gently took the stool from her, and, going to the chair,
+placed it at the merchant’s feet.
+
+“I will sit here,” he said.
+
+His eyes met hers—an instant only; but both were better of the look. He
+recognized her gratitude, she his generosity and forbearance.
+
+Simonides bowed his acknowledgment.
+
+“Esther, child, bring me the paper,” he said, with a breath of relief.
+
+She went to a panel in the wall, opened it, took out a roll of papyri,
+and brought and gave it to him.
+
+“Thou saidst well, son of Hur,” Simonides began, while unrolling the
+sheets. “Let us understand each other. In anticipation of the
+demand—which I would have made hadst thou waived it—I have here a
+statement covering everything necessary to the understanding required.
+I could see but two points involved—the property first, and then our
+relation. The statement is explicit as to both. Will it please thee to
+read it now?”
+
+Ben-Hur received the papers, but glanced at Ilderim.
+
+“Nay,” said Simonides, “the sheik shall not deter thee from reading.
+The account—such thou wilt find it—is of a nature requiring a witness.
+In the attesting place at the end thou wilt find, when thou comest to
+it, the name—Ilderim, Sheik. He knows all. He is thy friend. All he has
+been to me, that will he be to thee also.”
+
+Simonides looked at the Arab, nodding pleasantly, and the latter
+gravely returned the nod, saying, “Thou hast said.”
+
+Ben-Hur replied, “I know already the excellence of his friendship, and
+have yet to prove myself worthy of it.” Immediately he continued,
+“Later, O Simonides, I will read the papers carefully; for the present,
+do thou take them, and if thou be not too weary, give me their
+substance.”
+
+Simonides took back the roll.
+
+“Here, Esther, stand by me and receive the sheets, lest they fall into
+confusion.”
+
+She took place by his chair, letting her right arm fall lightly across
+his shoulder, so, when he spoke, the account seemed to have rendition
+from both of them jointly.
+
+“This,” said Simonides, drawing out the first leaf, “shows the money I
+had of thy father’s, being the amount saved from the Romans; there was
+no property saved, only money, and that the robbers would have secured
+but for our Jewish custom of bills of exchange. The amount saved, being
+sums I drew from Rome, Alexandria, Damascus, Carthage, Valentia, and
+elsewhere within the circle of trade, was one hundred and twenty
+talents Jewish money.”
+
+He gave the sheet to Esther, and took the next one.
+
+“With that amount—one hundred and twenty talents—I charged myself. Hear
+now my credits. I use the word, as thou wilt see, with reference rather
+to the proceeds gained from the use of the money.”
+
+From separate sheets he then read footings, which, fractions omitted,
+were as follows:
+
+By ships    60 talents ” goods in store    110   ” ” cargoes in
+transit    75   ” ” camels, horses, etc.    20   ” ” warehouses    10
+” ” bills due	54   ” ” money on hand and subject to draft	224   ”
+—— Total	553   ”
+
+“To these now, to the five hundred and fifty-three talents gained, add
+the original capital I had from thy father, and thou hast SIX HUNDRED
+AND SEVENTY THREE TALENTS!—and all thine—making thee, O son of Hur, the
+richest subject in the world.”
+
+He took the papyri from Esther, and, reserving one, rolled them and
+offered them to Ben-Hur. The pride perceptible in his manner was not
+offensive; it might have been from a sense of duty well done; it might
+have been for Ben-Hur without reference to himself.
+
+“And there is nothing,” he added, dropping his voice, but not his
+eyes—“there is nothing now thou mayst not do.”
+
+The moment was one of absorbing interest to all present. Simonides
+crossed his hands upon his breast again; Esther was anxious; Ilderim
+nervous. A man is never so on trial as in the moment of excessive
+good-fortune.
+
+Taking the roll, Ben-Hur arose, struggling with emotion.
+
+“All this is to me as a light from heaven, sent to drive away a night
+which has been so long I feared it would never end, and so dark I had
+lost the hope of seeing,” he said, with a husky voice. “I give first
+thanks to the Lord, who has not abandoned me, and my next to thee, O
+Simonides. Thy faithfulness outweighs the cruelty of others, and
+redeems our human nature. ‘There is nothing I cannot do:’ be it so.
+Shall any man in this my hour of such mighty privilege be more generous
+than I? Serve me as a witness now, Sheik Ilderim. Hear thou my words as
+I shall speak them—hear and remember. And thou, Esther, good angel of
+this good man! hear thou also.”
+
+He stretched his hand with the roll to Simonides.
+
+“The things these papers take into account—all of them: ships, houses,
+goods, camels, horses, money; the least as well as the greatest—give I
+back to thee, O Simonides, making them all thine, and sealing them to
+thee and thine forever.”
+
+Esther smiled through her tears; Ilderim pulled his beard with rapid
+motion, his eyes glistening like beads of jet. Simonides alone was
+calm.
+
+“Sealing them to thee and thine forever,” Ben-Hur continued, with
+better control of himself, “with one exception, and upon one
+condition.”
+
+The breath of the listeners waited upon his words.
+
+“The hundred and twenty talents which were my father’s thou shalt
+return to me.”
+
+Ilderim’s countenance brightened.
+
+“And thou shalt join me in search of my mother and sister, holding all
+thine subject to the expense of discovery, even as I will hold mine.”
+
+Simonides was much affected. Stretching out his hand, he said, “I see
+thy spirit, son of Hur, and I am grateful to the Lord that he hath sent
+thee to me such as thou art. If I served well thy father in life, and
+his memory afterwards, be not afraid of default to thee; yet must I say
+the exception cannot stand.”
+
+Exhibiting, then, the reserved sheet, he continued,
+
+“Thou hast not all the account. Take this and read—read aloud.”
+
+Ben-Hur took the supplement, and read it.
+
+“Statement of the servants of Hur, rendered by Simonides, steward of
+the estate.
+
+1. Amrah, Egyptian, keeping the palace in Jerusalem.
+2. Simonides, the steward, in Antioch.
+3. Esther, daughter of Simonides.”
+
+Now, in all his thoughts of Simonides, not once had it entered
+Ben-Hur’s mind that, by the law, a daughter followed the parent’s
+condition. In all his visions of her, the sweet-faced Esther had
+figured as the rival of the Egyptian, and an object of possible love.
+He shrank from the revelation so suddenly brought him, and looked at
+her blushing; and, blushing, she dropped her eyes before him. Then he
+said, while the papyrus rolled itself together,
+
+“A man with six hundred talents is indeed rich, and may do what he
+pleases; but, rarer than the money, more priceless than the property,
+is the mind which amassed the wealth, and the heart it could not
+corrupt when amassed. O Simonides—and thou, fair Esther—fear not. Sheik
+Ilderim here shall be witness that in the same moment ye were declared
+my servants, that moment I declared ye free; and what I declare, that
+will I put in writing. Is it not enough? Can I do more?”
+
+“Son of Hur,” said Simonides, “verily thou dost make servitude
+lightsome. I was wrong; there are some things thou canst not do; thou
+canst not make us free in law. I am thy servant forever, because I went
+to the door with thy father one day, and in my ear the awl-marks yet
+abide.”
+
+“Did my father that?”
+
+“Judge him not,” cried Simonides, quickly. “He accepted me a servant of
+that class because I prayed him to do so. I never repented the step. It
+was the price I paid for Rachel, the mother of my child here; for
+Rachel, who would not be my wife unless I became what she was.”
+
+“Was she a servant forever?”
+
+“Even so.”
+
+Ben-Hur walked the floor in pain of impotent wish.
+
+“I was rich before,” he said, stopping suddenly. “I was rich with the
+gifts of the generous Arrius; now comes this greater fortune, and the
+mind which achieved it. Is there not a purpose of God in it all?
+Counsel me, O Simonides! Help me to see the right and do it. Help me to
+be worthy my name, and what thou art in law to me, that will I be to
+thee in fact and deed. I will be thy servant forever.”
+
+Simonides’ face actually glowed.
+
+“O son of my dead master! I will do better than help; I will serve thee
+with all my might of mind and heart. Body, I have not; it perished in
+thy cause; but with mind and heart I will serve thee. I swear it, by
+the altar of our God, and the gifts upon the altar! Only make me
+formally what I have assumed to be.”
+
+“Name it,” said Ben-Hur, eagerly.
+
+“As steward the care of the property will be mine.”
+
+“Count thyself steward now; or wilt thou have it in writing?”
+
+“Thy word simply is enough; it was so with the father, and I will not
+more from the son. And now, if the understanding be perfect”—Simonides
+paused.
+
+“It is with me,” said Ben-Hur.
+
+“And thou, daughter of Rachel, speak!” said Simonides, lifting her arm
+from his shoulder.
+
+Esther, left thus alone, stood a moment abashed, her color coming and
+going; then she went to Ben-Hur, and said, with a womanliness
+singularly sweet, “I am not better than my mother was; and, as she is
+gone, I pray you, O my master, let me care for my father.”
+
+Ben-Hur took her hand, and led her back to the chair, saying, “Thou art
+a good child. Have thy will.”
+
+Simonides replaced her arm upon his neck, and there was silence for a
+time in the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Simonides looked up, none the less a master.
+
+“Esther,” he said, quietly, “the night is going fast; and, lest we
+become too weary for that which is before us, let the refreshments be
+brought.”
+
+She rang a bell. A servant answered with wine and bread, which she bore
+round.
+
+“The understanding, good my master,” continued Simonides, when all were
+served, “is not perfect in my sight. Henceforth our lives will run on
+together like rivers which have met and joined their waters. I think
+their flowing will be better if every cloud is blown from the sky above
+them. You left my door the other day with what seemed a denial of the
+claims which I have just allowed in the broadest terms; but it was not
+so, indeed it was not. Esther is witness that I recognized you; and
+that I did not abandon you, let Malluch say.”
+
+“Malluch!” exclaimed Ben-Hur.
+
+“One bound to a chair, like me, must have many hands far-reaching, if
+he would move the world from which he is so cruelly barred. I have many
+such, and Malluch is one of the best of them. And, sometimes”—he cast a
+grateful glance at the sheik—“sometimes I borrow from others good of
+heart, like Ilderim the Generous—good and brave. Let him say if I
+either denied or forgot you.”
+
+Ben-Hur looked at the Arab.
+
+“This is he, good Ilderim, this is he who told you of me?”
+
+Ilderim’s eyes twinkled as he nodded his answer.
+
+“How, O my master,” said Simonides, “may we without trial tell what a
+man is? I knew you; I saw your father in you; but the kind of man you
+were I did not know. There are people to whom fortune is a curse in
+disguise. Were you of them? I sent Malluch to find out for me, and in
+the service he was my eyes and ears. Do not blame him. He brought me
+report of you which was all good.”
+
+“I do not,” said Ben-Hur, heartily. “There was wisdom in your
+goodness.”
+
+“The words are very pleasant to me,” said the merchant, with feeling,
+“very pleasant. My fear of misunderstanding is laid. Let the rivers run
+on now as God may give them direction.”
+
+After an interval he continued:
+
+“I am compelled now by truth. The weaver sits weaving, and, as the
+shuttle flies, the cloth increases, and the figures grow, and he dreams
+dreams meanwhile; so to my hands the fortune grew, and I wondered at
+the increase, and asked myself about it many times. I could see a care
+not my own went with the enterprises I set going. The simooms which
+smote others on the desert jumped over the things which were mine. The
+storms which heaped the seashore with wrecks did but blow my ships the
+sooner into port. Strangest of all, I, so dependent upon others, fixed
+to a place like a dead thing, had never a loss by an agent—never. The
+elements stooped to serve me, and all my servants, in fact, were
+faithful.”
+
+“It is very strange,” said Ben-Hur.
+
+“So I said, and kept saying. Finally, O my master, finally I came to be
+of your opinion—God was in it—and, like you, I asked, What can his
+purpose be? Intelligence is never wasted; intelligence like God’s never
+stirs except with design. I have held the question in heart, lo! these
+many years, watching for an answer. I felt sure, if God were in it,
+some day, in his own good time, in his own way, he would show me his
+purpose, making it clear as a whited house upon a hill. And I believe
+he has done so.”
+
+Ben-Hur listened with every faculty intent.
+
+“Many years ago, with my people—thy mother was with me, Esther,
+beautiful as morning over old Olivet—I sat by the wayside out north of
+Jerusalem, near the Tombs of the Kings, when three men passed by riding
+great white camels, such as had never been seen in the Holy City. The
+men were strangers, and from far countries. The first one stopped and
+asked me a question. ‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews?’ As if
+to allay my wonder, he went on to say, ‘We have seen his star in the
+east, and have come to worship him.’ I could not understand, but
+followed them to the Damascus Gate; and of every person they met on the
+way—of the guard at the Gate, even—they asked the question. All who
+heard it were amazed like me. In time I forgot the circumstance, though
+there was much talk of it as a presage of the Messiah. Alas, alas! What
+children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps
+are often centuries apart. You have seen Balthasar?”
+
+“And heard him tell his story,” said Ben-Hur.
+
+“A miracle!—a very miracle!” cried Simonides. “As he told it to me,
+good my master, I seemed to hear the answer I had so long waited; God’s
+purpose burst upon me. Poor will the King be when he comes—poor and
+friendless; without following, without armies, without cities or
+castles; a kingdom to be set up, and Rome reduced and blotted out. See,
+see, O my master! thou flushed with strength, thou trained to arms,
+thou burdened with riches; behold the opportunity the Lord hath sent
+thee! Shall not his purpose be thine? Could a man be born to a more
+perfect glory?”
+
+Simonides put his whole force in the appeal.
+
+“But the kingdom, the kingdom!” Ben-Hur answered, eagerly. “Balthasar
+says it is to be of souls.”
+
+The pride of the Jew was strong in Simonides, and therefore the
+slightly contemptuous curl of the lip with which he began his reply:
+
+“Balthasar has been a witness of wonderful things—of miracles, O my
+master; and when he speaks of them, I bow with belief, for they are of
+sight and sound personal to him. But he is a son of Mizraim, and not
+even a proselyte. Hardly may he be supposed to have special knowledge
+by virtue of which we must bow to him in a matter of God’s dealing with
+our Israel. The prophets had their light from Heaven directly, even as
+he had his—many to one, and Jehovah the same forever. I must believe
+the prophets.—Bring me the Torah, Esther.”
+
+He proceeded without waiting for her.
+
+“May the testimony of a whole people be slighted, my master? Though you
+travel from Tyre, which is by the sea in the north, to the capital of
+Edom, which is in the desert south, you will not find a lisper of the
+Shema, an alms-giver in the Temple, or any one who has ever eaten of
+the lamb of the Passover, to tell you the kingdom the King is coming to
+build for us, the children of the covenant, is other than of this
+world, like our father David’s. Now where got they the faith, ask you!
+We will see presently.”
+
+Esther here returned, bringing a number of rolls carefully enveloped in
+dark-brown linen lettered quaintly in gold.
+
+“Keep them, daughter, to give to me as I call for them,” the father
+said, in the tender voice he always used in speaking to her, and
+continued his argument:
+
+“It were long, good my master—too long, indeed—for me to repeat to you
+the names of the holy men who, in the providence of God, succeeded the
+prophets, only a little less favored than they—the seers who have
+written and the preachers who have taught since the Captivity; the very
+wise who borrowed their lights from the lamp of Malachi, the last of
+his line, and whose great names Hillel and Shammai never tired of
+repeating in the colleges. Will you ask them of the kingdom? Thus, the
+Lord of the sheep in the Book of Enoch—who is he? Who but the King of
+whom we are speaking? A throne is set up for him; he smites the earth,
+and the other kings are shaken from their thrones, and the scourges of
+Israel flung into a cavern of fire flaming with pillars of fire. So
+also the singer of the Psalms of Solomon—‘Behold, O Lord, and raise up
+to Israel their king, the son of David, at the time thou knowest, O
+God, to rule Israel, thy children.... And he will bring the peoples of
+the heathen under his yoke to serve him.... And he shall be a righteous
+king taught of God, ... for he shall rule all the earth by the word of
+his mouth forever.’ And last, though not least, hear Ezra, the second
+Moses, in his visions of the night, and ask him who is the lion with
+human voice that says to the eagle—which is Rome—‘Thou hast loved
+liars, and overthrown the cities of the industrious, and razed their
+walls, though they did thee no harm. Therefore, begone, that the earth
+may be refreshed, and recover itself, and hope in the justice and piety
+of him who made her.’ Whereat the eagle was seen no more. Surely, O my
+master, the testimony of these should be enough! But the way to the
+fountain’s head is open. Let us go up to it at once.—Some wine, Esther,
+and then the Torah.”
+
+“Dost thou believe the prophets, master?” he asked, after drinking. “I
+know thou dost, for of such was the faith of all thy kindred.—Give me,
+Esther, the book which hath in it the visions of Isaiah.”
+
+He took one of the rolls which she had unwrapped for him, and read,
+“‘The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that
+dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light
+shined.... For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the
+government shall be upon his shoulder.... Of the increase of his
+government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David,
+and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment
+and with justice from henceforth even forever.’—Believest thou the
+prophets, O my master?—Now, Esther, the word of the Lord that came to
+Micah.”
+
+She gave him the roll he asked.
+
+“‘But thou,’” he began reading—“‘but thou, Bethlehem Ephrath, though
+thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he
+come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel.’—This was he, the
+very child Balthasar saw and worshipped in the cave. Believest thou the
+prophets, O my master?—Give me, Esther, the words of Jeremiah.”
+
+Receiving that roll, he read as before, “‘Behold, the days come, saith
+the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king
+shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the
+earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell
+safely.’ As a king he shall reign—as a king, O my master! Believest
+thou the prophets?—Now, daughter, the roll of the sayings of that son
+of Judah in whom there was no blemish.”
+
+She gave him the Book of Daniel.
+
+“Hear, my master,” he said: “‘I saw in the night visions, and behold,
+one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven.... And there
+was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people,
+nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting
+dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall
+not be destroyed.’—Believest thou the prophets, O my master?”
+
+“It is enough. I believe,” cried Ben-Hur.
+
+“What then?” asked Simonides. “If the King come poor, will not my
+master, of his abundance, give him help?”
+
+“Help him? To the last shekel and the last breath. But why speak of his
+coming poor?”
+
+“Give me, Esther, the word of the Lord as it came to Zechariah,” said
+Simonides.
+
+She gave him one of the rolls.
+
+“Hear how the King will enter Jerusalem.” Then he read, “‘Rejoice
+greatly, O daughter of Zion.... Behold, thy King cometh unto thee with
+justice and salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt,
+the foal of an ass.’”
+
+Ben-Hur looked away.
+
+“What see you, O my master?”
+
+“Rome!” he answered, gloomily—“Rome, and her legions. I have dwelt with
+them in their camps. I know them.”
+
+“Ah!” said Simonides. “Thou shalt be a master of legions for the King,
+with millions to choose from.”
+
+“Millions!” cried Ben-Hur.
+
+Simonides sat a moment thinking.
+
+“The question of power should not trouble you,” he next said.
+
+Ben-Hur looked at him inquiringly.
+
+“You were seeing the lowly King in the act of coming to his own,”
+Simonides answered—“seeing him on the right hand, as it were, and on
+the left the brassy legions of Cæsar, and you were asking, What can he
+do?”
+
+“It was my very thought.”
+
+“O my master!” Simonides continued. “You do not know how strong our
+Israel is. You think of him as a sorrowful old man weeping by the
+rivers of Babylon. But go up to Jerusalem next Passover, and stand on
+the Xystus or in the Street of Barter, and see him as he is. The
+promise of the Lord to father Jacob coming out of Padan-Aram was a law
+under which our people have not ceased multiplying—not even in
+captivity; they grew under foot of the Egyptian; the clench of the
+Roman has been but wholesome nurture to them; now they are indeed ‘a
+nation and a company of nations.’ Nor that only, my master; in fact, to
+measure the strength of Israel—which is, in fact, measuring what the
+King can do—you shall not bide solely by the rule of natural increase,
+but add thereto the other—I mean the spread of the faith, which will
+carry you to the far and near of the whole known earth. Further, the
+habit is, I know, to think and speak of Jerusalem as Israel, which may
+be likened to our finding an embroidered shred, and holding it up as a
+magisterial robe of Cæsar’s. Jerusalem is but a stone of the Temple,
+or the heart in the body. Turn from beholding the legions, strong
+though they be, and count the hosts of the faithful waiting the old
+alarm, ‘To your tents, O Israel!’—count the many in Persia, children of
+those who chose not to return with the returning; count the brethren
+who swarm the marts of Egypt and Farther Africa; count the Hebrew
+colonists eking profit in the West—in Lodinum and the trade-courts of
+Spain; count the pure of blood and the proselytes in Greece and in the
+isles of the sea, and over in Pontus, and here in Antioch, and, for
+that matter, those of that city lying accursed in the shadow of the
+unclean walls of Rome herself; count the worshippers of the Lord
+dwelling in tents along the deserts next us, as well as in the deserts
+beyond the Nile: and in the regions across the Caspian, and up in the
+old lands of Gog and Magog even, separate those who annually send gifts
+to the Holy Temple in acknowledgment of God—separate them, that they
+may be counted also. And when you have done counting, lo! my master, a
+census of the sword hands that await you; lo! a kingdom ready fashioned
+for him who is to do ‘judgment and justice in the whole earth’—in Rome
+not less than in Zion. Have then the answer, What Israel can do, that
+can the King.”
+
+The picture was fervently given.
+
+Upon Ilderim it operated like the blowing of a trumpet. “Oh that I had
+back my youth!” he cried, starting to his feet.
+
+Ben-Hur sat still. The speech, he saw, was an invitation to devote his
+life and fortune to the mysterious Being who was palpably as much the
+centre of a great hope with Simonides as with the devout Egyptian. The
+idea, as we have seen, was not a new one, but had come to him
+repeatedly; once while listening to Malluch in the Grove of Daphne;
+afterwards more distinctly while Balthasar was giving his conception of
+what the kingdom was to be; still later, in the walk through the old
+Orchard, it had risen almost, if not quite, into a resolve. At such
+times it had come and gone only an idea, attended with feelings more or
+less acute. Not so now. A master had it in charge, a master was working
+it up; already he had exalted it into a _cause_ brilliant with
+possibilities and infinitely holy. The effect was as if a door
+theretofore unseen had suddenly opened flooding Ben-Hur with light, and
+admitting him to a service which had been his one perfect dream—a
+service reaching far into the future, and rich with the rewards of duty
+done, and prizes to sweeten and soothe his ambition. One touch more was
+needed.
+
+“Let us concede all you say, O Simonides,” said Ben-Hur—“that the King
+will come, and his kingdom be as Solomon’s; say also I am ready to give
+myself and all I have to him and his cause; yet more, say that I should
+do as was God’s purpose in the ordering of my life and in your quick
+amassment of astonishing fortune; then what? Shall we proceed like
+blind men building? Shall we wait till the King comes? Or until he
+sends for me? You have age and experience on your side. Answer.”
+
+Simonides answered at once.
+
+“We have no choice; none. This letter”—he produced Messala’s despatch
+as he spoke—“this letter is the signal for action. The alliance
+proposed between Messala and Gratus we are not strong enough to resist;
+we have not the influence at Rome nor the force here. They will kill
+you if we wait. How merciful they are, look at me and judge.”
+
+He shuddered at the terrible recollection.
+
+“O good my master,” he continued, recovering himself; “how strong are
+you—in purpose, I mean?”
+
+Ben-Hur did not understand him.
+
+“I remember how pleasant the world was to me in my youth,” Simonides
+proceeded.
+
+“Yet,” said Ben-Hur, “you were capable of a great sacrifice.”
+
+“Yes; for love.”
+
+“Has not life other motives as strong?”
+
+Simonides shook his head.
+
+“There is ambition.”
+
+“Ambition is forbidden a son of Israel.”
+
+“What, then, of revenge?”
+
+The spark dropped upon the inflammable passion; the man’s eyes gleamed;
+his hands shook; he answered, quickly, “Revenge is a Jew’s of right; it
+is the law.”
+
+“A camel, even a dog, will remember a wrong,” cried Ilderim.
+
+Directly Simonides picked up the broken thread of his thought.
+
+“There is a work, a work for the King, which should be done in advance
+of his coming. We may not doubt that Israel is to be his right hand;
+but, alas! it is a hand of peace, without cunning in war. Of the
+millions, there is not one trained band, not a captain. The mercenaries
+of the Herods I do not count, for they are kept to crush us. The
+condition is as the Roman would have it; his policy has fruited well
+for his tyranny; but the time of change is at hand, when the shepherd
+shall put on armor, and take to spear and sword, and the feeding flocks
+be turned to fighting lions. Some one, my son, must have place next the
+King at his right hand. Who shall it be if not he who does this work
+well?”
+
+Ben-Hur’s face flushed at the prospect, though he said, “I see; but
+speak plainly. A deed to be done is one thing; how to do it is
+another.”
+
+Simonides sipped the wine Esther brought him, and replied,
+
+“The sheik, and thou, my master, shall be principals, each with a part.
+I will remain here, carrying on as now, and watchful that the spring go
+not dry. Thou shalt betake thee to Jerusalem, and thence to the
+wilderness, and begin numbering the fighting-men of Israel, and telling
+them into tens and hundreds, and choosing captains and training them,
+and in secret places hoarding arms, for which I shall keep thee
+supplied. Commencing over in Perea, thou shalt go then to Galilee,
+whence it is but a step to Jerusalem. In Perea, the desert will be at
+thy back, and Ilderim in reach of thy hand. He will keep the roads, so
+that nothing shall pass without thy knowledge. He will help thee in
+many ways. Until the ripening time no one shall know what is here
+contracted. Mine is but a servant’s part. I have spoken to Ilderim.
+What sayest thou?”
+
+Ben-Hur looked at the sheik.
+
+“It is as he says, son of Hur,” the Arab responded. “I have given my
+word, and he is content with it; but thou shalt have my oath, binding
+me, and the ready hands of my tribe, and whatever serviceable thing I
+have.”
+
+The three—Simonides, Ilderim, Esther—gazed at Ben-Hur fixedly.
+
+“Every man,” he answered, at first sadly, “has a cup of pleasure poured
+for him, and soon or late it comes to his hand, and he tastes and
+drinks—every man but me. I see, Simonides, and thou, O generous
+sheik!—I see whither the proposal tends. If I accept, and enter upon
+the course, farewell peace, and the hopes which cluster around it. The
+doors I might enter and the gates of quiet life will shut behind me,
+never to open again, for Rome keeps them all; and her outlawry will
+follow me, and her hunters; and in the tombs near cities and the dismal
+caverns of remotest hills, I must eat my crust and take my rest.”
+
+The speech was broken by a sob. All turned to Esther, who hid her face
+upon her father’s shoulder.
+
+“I did not think of you, Esther,” said Simonides, gently, for he was
+himself deeply moved.
+
+“It is well enough, Simonides,” said Ben-Hur. “A man bears a hard doom
+better, knowing there is pity for him. Let me go on.”
+
+They gave him ear again.
+
+“I was about to say,” he continued, “I have no choice, but take the
+part you assign me; and as remaining here is to meet an ignoble death,
+I will to the work at once.”
+
+“Shall we have writings?” asked Simonides, moved by his habit of
+business.
+
+“I rest upon your word,” said Ben-Hur.
+
+“And I,” Ilderim answered.
+
+Thus simply was effected the treaty which was to alter Ben-Hur’s life.
+And almost immediately the latter added,
+
+“It is done, then.”
+
+“May the God of Abraham help us!” Simonides exclaimed.
+
+“One word now, my friends,” Ben-Hur said, more cheerfully. “By your
+leave, I will be my own until after the games. It is not probable
+Messala will set peril on foot for me until he has given the procurator
+time to answer him; and that cannot be in less than seven days from the
+despatch of his letter. The meeting him in the Circus is a pleasure I
+would buy at whatever risk.”
+
+Ilderim, well pleased, assented readily, and Simonides, intent on
+business, added, “It is well; for look you, my master, the delay will
+give me time to do you a good part. I understood you to speak of an
+inheritance derived from Arrius. Is it in property?”
+
+“A villa near Misenum, and houses in Rome.”
+
+“I suggest, then, the sale of the property, and safe deposit of the
+proceeds. Give me an account of it, and I will have authorities drawn,
+and despatch an agent on the mission forthwith. We will forestall the
+imperial robbers at least this once.”
+
+“You shall have the account to-morrow.”
+
+“Then, if there be nothing more, the work of the night is done,” said
+Simonides.
+
+Ilderim combed his beard complacently, saying, “And well done.”
+
+“The bread and wine again, Esther. Sheik Ilderim will make us happy by
+staying with us till to-morrow, or at his pleasure; and thou, my
+master—”
+
+“Let the horses be brought,” said Ben-Hur. “I will return to the
+Orchard. The enemy will not discover me if I go now, and”—he glanced at
+Ilderim—“the four will be glad to see me.”
+
+As the day dawned, he and Malluch dismounted at the door of the tent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Next night, about the fourth hour, Ben-Hur stood on the terrace of the
+great warehouse with Esther. Below them, on the landing, there was much
+running about, and shifting of packages and boxes, and shouting of men,
+whose figures, stooping, heaving, hauling, looked, in the light of the
+crackling torches kindled in their aid, like the laboring genii of the
+fantastic Eastern tales. A galley was being laden for instant
+departure. Simonides had not yet come from his office, in which, at the
+last moment, he would deliver to the captain of the vessel instructions
+to proceed without stop to Ostia, the seaport of Rome, and, after
+landing a passenger there, continue more leisurely to Valentia, on the
+coast of Spain.
+
+The passenger is the agent going to dispose of the estate derived from
+Arrius the duumvir. When the lines of the vessel are cast off, and she
+is put about, and her voyage begun, Ben-Hur will be committed
+irrevocably to the work undertaken the night before. If he is disposed
+to repent the agreement with Ilderim, a little time is allowed him to
+give notice and break it off. He is master, and has only to say the
+word.
+
+Such may have been the thought at the moment in his mind. He was
+standing with folded arms, looking upon the scene in the manner of a
+man debating with himself. Young, handsome, rich, but recently from the
+patrician circles of Roman society, it is easy to think of the world
+besetting him with appeals not to give more to onerous duty or ambition
+attended with outlawry and danger. We can even imagine the arguments
+with which he was pressed; the hopelessness of contention with Cæsar;
+the uncertainty veiling everything connected with the King and his
+coming; the ease, honors, state, purchasable like goods in market; and,
+strongest of all, the sense newly acquired of home, with friends to
+make it delightful. Only those who have been wanderers long desolate
+can know the power there was in the latter appeal.
+
+Let us add now, the world—always cunning enough of itself; always
+whispering to the weak, Stay, take thine ease; always presenting the
+sunny side of life—the world was in this instance helped by Ben-Hur’s
+companion.
+
+“Were you ever at Rome?” he asked.
+
+“No,” Esther replied.
+
+“Would you like to go?”
+
+“I think not.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“I am afraid of Rome,” she answered, with a perceptible tremor of the
+voice.
+
+He looked at her then—or rather down upon her, for at his side she
+appeared little more than a child. In the dim light he could not see
+her face distinctly; even the form was shadowy. But again he was
+reminded of Tirzah, and a sudden tenderness fell upon him—just so the
+lost sister stood with him on the house-top the calamitous morning of
+the accident to Gratus. Poor Tirzah! Where was she now? Esther had the
+benefit of the feeling evoked. If not his sister, he could never look
+upon her as his servant; and that she was his servant in fact would
+make him always the more considerate and gentle towards her.
+
+“I cannot think of Rome,” she continued, recovering her voice, and
+speaking in her quiet womanly way—“I cannot think of Rome as a city of
+palaces and temples, and crowded with people; she is to me a monster
+which has possession of one of the beautiful lands, and lies there
+luring men to ruin and death—a monster which it is not possible to
+resist—a ravenous beast gorging with blood. Why—”
+
+She faltered, looked down, stopped.
+
+“Go on,” said Ben-Hur, reassuringly.
+
+She drew closer to him, looked up again, and said, “Why must you make
+her your enemy? Why not rather make peace with her, and be at rest? You
+have had many ills, and borne them; you have survived the snares laid
+for you by foes. Sorrow has consumed your youth; is it well to give it
+the remainder of your days?”
+
+The girlish face under his eyes seemed to come nearer and get whiter as
+the pleading went on; he stooped towards it, and asked, softly, “What
+would you have me do, Esther?”
+
+She hesitated a moment, then asked, in return, “Is the property near
+Rome a residence?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And pretty?”
+
+“It is beautiful—a palace in the midst of gardens and shell-strewn
+walks; fountains without and within; statuary in the shady nooks; hills
+around covered with vines, and so high that Neapolis and Vesuvius are
+in sight, and the sea an expanse of purpling blue dotted with restless
+sails. Cæsar has a country-seat near-by, but in Rome they say the old
+Arrian villa is the prettiest.”
+
+“And the life there, is it quiet?”
+
+“There was never a summer day, never a moonlit night, more quiet, save
+when visitors come. Now that the old owner is gone, and I am here,
+there is nothing to break its silence—nothing, unless it be the
+whispering of servants, or the whistling of happy birds, or the noise
+of fountains at play; it is changeless, except as day by day old
+flowers fade and fall, and new ones bud and bloom, and the sunlight
+gives place to the shadow of a passing cloud. The life, Esther, was all
+too quiet for me. It made me restless by keeping always present a
+feeling that I, who have so much to do, was dropping into idle habits,
+and tying myself with silken chains, and after a while—and not a long
+while either—would end with nothing done.”
+
+She looked off over the river.
+
+“Why did you ask?” he said.
+
+“Good my master—”
+
+“No, no, Esther—not that. Call me friend—brother, if you will; I am not
+your master, and will not be. Call me brother.”
+
+He could not see the flush of pleasure which reddened her face, and the
+glow of the eyes that went out lost in the void above the river.
+
+“I cannot understand,” she said, “the nature which prefers the life you
+are going to—a life of—”
+
+“Of violence, and it may be of blood,” he said, completing the
+sentence.
+
+“Yes,” she added, “the nature which could prefer that life to such as
+might be in the beautiful villa.”
+
+“Esther, you mistake. There is no preference. Alas! the Roman is not so
+kind. I am going of necessity. To stay here is to die; and if I go
+there, the end will be the same—a poisoned cup, a bravo’s blow, or a
+judge’s sentence obtained by perjury. Messala and the procurator Gratus
+are rich with plunder of my father’s estate, and it is more important
+to them to keep their gains now than was their getting in the first
+instance. A peaceable settlement is out of reach, because of the
+confession it would imply. And then—then— Ah, Esther, if I could buy
+them, I do not know that I would. I do not believe peace possible to
+me; no, not even in the sleepy shade and sweet air of the marble
+porches of the old villa—no matter who might be there to help me bear
+the burden of the days, nor by what patience of love she made the
+effort. Peace is not possible to me while my people are lost, for I
+must be watchful to find them. If I find them, and they have suffered
+wrong, shall not the guilty suffer for it? If they are dead by
+violence, shall the murderers escape? Oh, I could not sleep for dreams!
+Nor could the holiest love, by any stratagem, lull me to a rest which
+conscience would not strangle.”
+
+“Is it so bad then?” she asked, her voice tremulous with feeling. “Can
+nothing, nothing, be done?”
+
+Ben-Hur took her hand.
+
+“Do you care so much for me?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, simply.
+
+The hand was warm, and in the palm of his it was lost. He felt it
+tremble. Then the Egyptian came, so the opposite of this little one; so
+tall, so audacious, with a flattery so cunning, a wit so ready, a
+beauty so wonderful, a manner so bewitching. He carried the hand to his
+lips, and gave it back.
+
+“You shall be another Tirzah to me, Esther.”
+
+“Who is Tirzah?”
+
+“The little sister the Roman stole from me, and whom I must find before
+I can rest or be happy.”
+
+Just then a gleam of light flashed athwart the terrace and fell upon
+the two; and, looking round, they saw a servant roll Simonides in his
+chair out of the door. They went to the merchant, and in the after-talk
+he was principal.
+
+Immediately the lines of the galley were cast off, and she swung round,
+and, midst the flashing of torches and the shouting of joyous sailors,
+hurried off to the sea—leaving Ben-Hur committed to the cause of the
+KING WHO WAS TO COME.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The day before the games, in the afternoon, all Ilderim’s racing
+property was taken to the city, and put in quarters adjoining the
+Circus. Along with it the good man carried a great deal of property not
+of that class; so with servants, retainers mounted and armed, horses in
+leading, cattle driven, camels laden with baggage, his outgoing from
+the Orchard was not unlike a tribal migration. The people along the
+road failed not to laugh at his motley procession; on the other side,
+it was observed that, with all his irascibility, he was not in the
+least offended by their rudeness. If he was under surveillance, as he
+had reason to believe, the informer would describe the semi-barbarous
+show with which he came up to the races. The Romans would laugh; the
+city would be amused; but what cared he? Next morning the pageant would
+be far on the road to the desert, and going with it would be every
+movable thing of value belonging to the Orchard—everything save such as
+were essential to the success of his four. He was, in fact, started
+home; his tents were all folded; the dowar was no more; in twelve hours
+all would be out of reach, pursue who might. A man is never safer than
+when he is under the laugh; and the shrewd old Arab knew it.
+
+Neither he nor Ben-Hur overestimated the influence of Messala; it was
+their opinion, however, that he would not begin active measures against
+them until after the meeting in the Circus; if defeated there,
+especially if defeated by Ben-Hur, they might instantly look for the
+worst he could do; he might not even wait for advices from Gratus. With
+this view, they shaped their course, and were prepared to betake
+themselves out of harm’s way. They rode together now in good spirits,
+calmly confident of success on the morrow.
+
+On the way, they came upon Malluch in waiting for them. The faithful
+fellow gave no sign by which it was possible to infer any knowledge on
+his part of the relationship so recently admitted between Ben-Hur and
+Simonides, or of the treaty between them and Ilderim. He exchanged
+salutations as usual, and produced a paper, saying to the sheik, “I
+have here the notice of the editor of the games, just issued, in which
+you will find your horses published for the race. You will find in it
+also the order of exercises. Without waiting, good sheik, I
+congratulate you upon your victory.”
+
+He gave the paper over, and, leaving the worthy to master it, turned to
+Ben-Hur.
+
+“To you also, son of Arrius, my congratulations. There is nothing now
+to prevent your meeting Messala. Every condition preliminary to the
+race is complied with. I have the assurance from the editor himself.”
+
+“I thank you, Malluch,” said Ben-Hur.
+
+Malluch proceeded:
+
+“Your color is white, and Messala’s mixed scarlet and gold. The good
+effects of the choice are visible already. Boys are now hawking white
+ribbons along the streets; tomorrow every Arab and Jew in the city will
+wear them. In the Circus you will see the white fairly divide the
+galleries with the red.”
+
+“The galleries—but not the tribunal over the Porta Pompae.”
+
+“No; the scarlet and gold will rule there. But if we win”—Malluch
+chuckled with the pleasure of the thought—“if we win, how the
+dignitaries will tremble! They will bet, of course, according to their
+scorn of everything not Roman—two, three, five to one on Messala,
+because he is Roman.” Dropping his voice yet lower, he added, “It ill
+becomes a Jew of good standing in the Temple to put his money at such a
+hazard; yet, in confidence, I will have a friend next behind the
+consul’s seat to accept offers of three to one, or five, or ten—the
+madness may go to such height. I have put to his order six thousand
+shekels for the purpose.”
+
+“Nay, Malluch,” said Ben-Hur, “a Roman will wager only in his Roman
+coin. Suppose you find your friend to-night, and place to his order
+sestertii in such amount as you choose. And look you, Malluch—let him
+be instructed to seek wagers with Messala and his supporters; Ilderim’s
+four against Messala’s.”
+
+Malluch reflected a moment.
+
+“The effect will be to centre interest upon your contest.”
+
+“The very thing I seek, Malluch.”
+
+“I see, I see.”
+
+“Ay, Malluch; would you serve me perfectly, help me to fix the public
+eye upon our race—Messala’s and mine.”
+
+Malluch spoke quickly—“It can be done.”
+
+“Then let it be done,” said Ben-Hur.
+
+“Enormous wagers offered will answer; if the offers are accepted, all
+the better.”
+
+Malluch turned his eyes watchfully upon Ben-Hur.
+
+“Shall I not have back the equivalent of his robbery?” said Ben-Hur,
+partly to himself. “Another opportunity may not come. And if I could
+break him in fortune as well as in pride! Our father Jacob could take
+no offence.”
+
+A look of determined will knit his handsome face, giving emphasis to
+his further speech.
+
+“Yes, it shall be. Hark, Malluch! Stop not in thy offer of sestertii.
+Advance them to talents, if any there be who dare so high. Five, ten,
+twenty talents; ay, fifty, so the wager be with Messala himself.”
+
+“It is a mighty sum,” said Malluch. “I must have security.”
+
+“So thou shalt. Go to Simonides, and tell him I wish the matter
+arranged. Tell him my heart is set on the ruin of my enemy, and that
+the opportunity hath such excellent promise that I choose such hazards.
+On our side be the God of our fathers. Go, good Malluch. Let this not
+slip.”
+
+And Malluch, greatly delighted, gave him parting salutation, and
+started to ride away, but returned presently.
+
+“Your pardon,” he said to Ben-Hur. “There was another matter. I could
+not get near Messala’s chariot myself, but I had another measure it;
+and, from his report, its hub stands quite a palm higher from the
+ground than yours.”
+
+“A palm! So much?” cried Ben-Hur, joyfully.
+
+Then he leaned over to Malluch.
+
+“As thou art a son of Judah, Malluch, and faithful to thy kin, get thee
+a seat in the gallery over the Gate of Triumph, down close to the
+balcony in front of the pillars, and watch well when we make the turns
+there; watch well, for if I have favor at all, I will— Nay, Malluch,
+let it go unsaid! Only get thee there, and watch well.”
+
+At that moment a cry burst from Ilderim.
+
+“Ha! By the splendor of God! what is this?”
+
+He drew near Ben-Hur with a finger pointing on the face of the notice.
+
+“Read,” said Ben-Hur.
+
+“No; better thou.”
+
+Ben-Hur took the paper, which, signed by the prefect of the province as
+editor, performed the office of a modern programme, giving particularly
+the several divertisements provided for the occasion. It informed the
+public that there would be first a procession of extraordinary
+splendor; that the procession would be succeeded by the customary
+honors to the god Consus, whereupon the games would begin; running,
+leaping, wrestling, boxing, each in the order stated. The names of the
+competitors were given, with their several nationalities and schools of
+training, the trials in which they had been engaged, the prizes won,
+and the prizes now offered; under the latter head the sums of money
+were stated in illuminated letters, telling of the departure of the day
+when the simple chaplet of pine or laurel was fully enough for the
+victor, hungering for glory as something better than riches, and
+content with it.
+
+Over these parts of the programme Ben-Hur sped with rapid eyes. At last
+he came to the announcement of the race. He read it slowly. Attending
+lovers of the heroic sports were assured they would certainly be
+gratified by an Orestean struggle unparalleled in Antioch. The city
+offered the spectacle in honor of the consul. One hundred thousand
+sestertii and a crown of laurel were the prizes. Then followed the
+particulars. The entries were six in all—fours only permitted; and, to
+further interest in the performance, the competitors would be turned
+into the course together. Each four then received description.
+
+“I. A four of Lysippus the Corinthian—two grays, a bay, and a black;
+entered at Alexandria last year, and again at Corinth, where they were
+winners. Lysippus, driver. Color, yellow.
+
+“II. A four of Messala of Rome—two white, two black; victors of the
+Circensian as exhibited in the Circus Maximus last year. Messala,
+driver. Colors, scarlet and gold.
+
+“III. A four of Cleanthes the Athenian—three gray, one bay; winners at
+the Isthmian last year. Cleanthes, driver. Color, green.
+
+“IV. A four of Dicaeus the Byzantine—two black, one gray, one bay;
+winners this year at Byzantium. Dicaeus, driver. Color, black.
+
+“V. A four of Admetus the Sidonian—all grays. Thrice entered at
+Cæsarea, and thrice victors. Admetus, driver. Color, blue.
+
+“VI. A four of Ilderim, sheik of the Desert. All bays; first race.
+Ben-Hur, a Jew, driver. Color, white.”
+
+BEN-HUR, A JEW, DRIVER!
+
+Why that name instead of Arrius?
+
+Ben-Hur raised his eyes to Ilderim. He had found the cause of the
+Arab’s outcry. Both rushed to the same conclusion.
+
+The hand was the hand of Messala!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Evening was hardly come upon Antioch, when the Omphalus, nearly in the
+centre of the city, became a troubled fountain from which in every
+direction, but chiefly down to the Nymphaeum and east and west along
+the Colonnade of Herod, flowed currents of people, for the time given
+up to Bacchus and Apollo.
+
+For such indulgence anything more fitting cannot be imagined than the
+great roofed streets, which were literally miles on miles of porticos
+wrought of marble, polished to the last degree of finish, and all gifts
+to the voluptuous city by princes careless of expenditure where, as in
+this instance, they thought they were eternizing themselves. Darkness
+was not permitted anywhere; and the singing, the laughter, the
+shouting, were incessant, and in compound like the roar of waters
+dashing through hollow grots, confused by a multitude of echoes.
+
+The many nationalities represented, though they might have amazed a
+stranger, were not peculiar to Antioch. Of the various missions of the
+great empire, one seems to have been the fusion of men and the
+introduction of strangers to each other; accordingly, whole peoples
+rose up and went at pleasure, taking with them their costumes, customs,
+speech, and gods; and where they chose, they stopped, engaged in
+business, built houses, erected altars, and were what they had been at
+home.
+
+There was a peculiarity, however, which could not have failed the
+notice of a looker-on this night in Antioch. Nearly everybody wore the
+colors of one or other of the charioteers announced for the morrow’s
+race. Sometimes it was in form of a scarf, sometimes a badge; often a
+ribbon or a feather. Whatever the form, it signified merely the
+wearer’s partiality; thus, green published a friend of Cleanthes the
+Athenian, and black an adherent of the Byzantine. This was according to
+a custom, old probably as the day of the race of Orestes—a custom, by
+the way, worthy of study as a marvel of history, illustrative of the
+absurd yet appalling extremities to which men frequently suffer their
+follies to drag them.
+
+The observer abroad on this occasion, once attracted to the wearing of
+colors, would have very shortly decided that there were three in
+predominance—green, white, and the mixed scarlet and gold.
+
+But let us from the streets to the palace on the island.
+
+The five great chandeliers in the saloon are freshly lighted. The
+assemblage is much the same as that already noticed in connection with
+the place. The divan has its corps of sleepers and burden of garments,
+and the tables yet resound with the rattle and clash of dice. Yet the
+greater part of the company are not doing anything. They walk about, or
+yawn tremendously, or pause as they pass each other to exchange idle
+nothings. Will the weather be fair to-morrow? Are the preparations for
+the games complete? Do the laws of the Circus in Antioch differ from
+the laws of the Circus in Rome? Truth is, the young fellows are
+suffering from ennui. Their heavy work is done; that is, we would find
+their tablets, could we look at them, covered with memoranda of
+wagers—wagers on every contest; on the running, the wrestling, the
+boxing; on everything but the chariot-race.
+
+And why not on that?
+
+Good reader, they cannot find anybody who will hazard so much as a
+denarius with them against Messala.
+
+There are no colors in the saloon but his.
+
+No one thinks of his defeat.
+
+Why, they say, is he not perfect in his training? Did he not graduate
+from an imperial lanista? Were not his horses winners at the Circensian
+in the Circus Maximus? And then—ah, yes! he is a Roman!
+
+In a corner, at ease on the divan, Messala himself may be seen. Around
+him, sitting or standing, are his courtierly admirers, plying him with
+questions. There is, of course, but one topic.
+
+Enter Drusus and Cecilius.
+
+“Ah!” cries the young prince, throwing himself on the divan at
+Messala’s feet, “Ah, by Bacchus, I am tired!”
+
+“Whither away?” asks Messala.
+
+“Up the street; up to the Omphalus, and beyond—who shall say how far?
+Rivers of people; never so many in the city before. They say we will
+see the whole world at the Circus to-morrow.”
+
+Messala laughed scornfully.
+
+“The idiots! Perpol! They never beheld a Circensian with Cæsar for
+editor. But, my Drusus, what found you?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“O—ah! You forget,” said Cecilius.
+
+“What?” asked Drusus.
+
+“The procession of whites.”
+
+“Mirabile!” cried Drusus, half rising. “We met a faction of whites, and
+they had a banner. But—ha, ha, ha!”
+
+He fell back indolently.
+
+“Cruel Drusus—not to go on,” said Messala.
+
+“Scum of the desert were they, my Messala, and garbage-eaters from the
+Jacob’s Temple in Jerusalem. What had I to do with them!”
+
+“Nay,” said Cecilius, “Drusus is afraid of a laugh, but I am not, my
+Messala.”
+
+“Speak thou, then.”
+
+“Well, we stopped the faction, and—”
+
+“Offered them a wager,” said Drusus, relenting, and taking the word
+from the shadow’s mouth. “And—ha, ha, ha!—one fellow with not enough
+skin on his face to make a worm for a carp stepped forth, and—ha, ha,
+ha!—said yes. I drew my tablets. ‘Who is your man?’ I asked. ‘Ben-Hur,
+the Jew,’ said he. Then I: ‘What shall it be? How much?’ He answered,
+‘A—a—’ Excuse me, Messala. By Jove’s thunder, I cannot go on for
+laughter! Ha, ha, ha!”
+
+The listeners leaned forward.
+
+Messala looked to Cecilius.
+
+“A shekel,” said the latter.
+
+“A shekel! A shekel!”
+
+A burst of scornful laughter ran fast upon the repetition.
+
+“And what did Drusus?” asked Messala.
+
+An outcry over about the door just then occasioned a rush to that
+quarter; and, as the noise there continued, and grew louder, even
+Cecilius betook himself off, pausing only to say, “The noble Drusus, my
+Messala, put up his tablets and—lost the shekel.”
+
+“A white! A white!”
+
+“Let him come!”
+
+“This way, this way!”
+
+These and like exclamations filled the saloon, to the stoppage of other
+speech. The dice-players quit their games; the sleepers awoke, rubbed
+their eyes, drew their tablets, and hurried to the common centre.
+
+“I offer you—”
+
+“And I—”
+
+“I—”
+
+The person so warmly received was the respectable Jew, Ben-Hur’s
+fellow-voyager from Cyprus. He entered grave, quiet, observant. His
+robe was spotlessly white; so was the cloth of his turban. Bowing and
+smiling at the welcome, he moved slowly towards the central table.
+Arrived there, he drew his robe about him in a stately manner, took
+seat, and waved his hand. The gleam of a jewel on a finger helped him
+not a little to the silence which ensued.
+
+“Romans—most noble Romans—I salute you!” he said.
+
+“Easy, by Jupiter! Who is he?” asked Drusus.
+
+“A dog of Israel—Sanballat by name—purveyor for the army; residence,
+Rome; vastly rich; grown so as a contractor of furnishments which he
+never furnishes. He spins mischiefs, nevertheless, finer than spiders
+spin their webs. Come—by the girdle of Venus! let us catch him!”
+
+Messala arose as he spoke, and, with Drusus, joined the mass crowded
+about the purveyor.
+
+“It came to me on the street,” said that person, producing his tablets,
+and opening them on the table with an impressive air of business, “that
+there was great discomfort in the palace because offers on Messala were
+going without takers. The gods, you know, must have sacrifices; and
+here am I. You see my color; let us to the matter. Odds first, amounts
+next. What will you give me?”
+
+The audacity seemed to stun his hearers.
+
+“Haste!” he said. “I have an engagement with the consul.”
+
+The spur was effective.
+
+“Two to one,” cried half a dozen in a voice.
+
+“What!” exclaimed the purveyor, astonished. “Only two to one, and yours
+a Roman!”
+
+“Take three, then.”
+
+“Three say you—only three—and mine but a dog of a Jew! Give me four.”
+
+“Four it is,” said a boy, stung by the taunt.
+
+“Five—give me five,” cried the purveyor, instantly.
+
+A profound stillness fell upon the assemblage.
+
+“The consul—your master and mine—is waiting for me.”
+
+The inaction became awkward to the many.
+
+“Give me five—for the honor of Rome, five.”
+
+“Five let it be,” said one in answer.
+
+There was a sharp cheer—a commotion—and Messala himself appeared.
+
+“Five let it be,” he said.
+
+And Sanballat smiled, and made ready to write.
+
+“If Cæsar die to-morrow,” he said, “Rome will not be all bereft. There
+is at least one other with spirit to take his place. Give me six.”
+
+“Six be it,” answered Messala.
+
+There was another shout louder than the first.
+
+“Six be it,” repeated Messala. “Six to one—the difference between a
+Roman and a Jew. And, having found it, now, O redemptor of the flesh of
+swine, let us on. The amount—and quickly. The consul may send for thee,
+and I will then be bereft.”
+
+Sanballat took the laugh against him coolly, and wrote, and offered the
+writing to Messala.
+
+“Read, read!” everybody demanded.
+
+And Messala read:
+
+“Mem.—Chariot-race. Messala of Rome, in wager with Sanballat, also of
+Rome, says he will beat Ben-Hur, the Jew. Amount of wager, twenty
+talents. Odds to Sanballat, six to one.
+
+“Witnesses: SANBALLAT.”
+
+There was no noise, no motion. Each person seemed held in the pose the
+reading found him. Messala stared at the memorandum, while the eyes
+which had him in view opened wide, and stared at him. He felt the gaze,
+and thought rapidly. So lately he stood in the same place, and in the
+same way hectored the countrymen around him. They would remember it. If
+he refused to sign, his hero-ship was lost. And sign he could not; he
+was not worth one hundred talents, nor the fifth part of the sum.
+Suddenly his mind became a blank; he stood speechless; the color fled
+his face. An idea at last came to his relief.
+
+“Thou Jew!” he said, “where hast thou twenty talents? Show me.”
+
+Sanballat’s provoking smile deepened.
+
+“There,” he replied, offering Messala a paper.
+
+“Read, read!” arose all around.
+
+Again Messala read:
+
+“AT ANTIOCH, Tammuz 16th day.
+
+“The bearer, Sanballat of Rome, hath now to his order with me fifty
+talents, coin of Cæsar.
+
+SIMONIDES.”
+
+“Fifty talents, fifty talents!” echoed the throng, in amazement.
+
+Then Drusus came to the rescue.
+
+“By Hercules!” he shouted, “the paper lies, and the Jew is a liar. Who
+but Cæsar hath fifty talents at order? Down with the insolent white!”
+
+The cry was angry, and it was angrily repeated; yet Sanballat kept his
+seat, and his smile grew more exasperating the longer he waited. At
+length Messala spoke.
+
+“Hush! One to one, my countrymen—one to one, for love of our ancient
+Roman name.”
+
+The timely action recovered him his ascendancy.
+
+“O thou circumcised dog!” he continued, to Sanballat, “I gave thee six
+to one, did I not?”
+
+“Yes,” said the Jew, quietly.
+
+“Well, give me now the fixing of the amount.”
+
+“With reserve, if the amount be trifling, have thy will,” answered
+Sanballat.
+
+“Write, then, five in place of twenty.”
+
+“Hast thou so much?”
+
+“By the mother of the gods, I will show you receipts.”
+
+“Nay, the word of so brave a Roman must pass. Only make the sum
+even—six make it, and I will write.”
+
+“Write it so.”
+
+And forthwith they exchanged writings.
+
+Sanballat immediately arose and looked around him, a sneer in place of
+his smile. No man better than he knew those with whom he was dealing.
+
+“Romans,” he said, “another wager, if you dare! Five talents against
+five talents that the white will win. I challenge you collectively.”
+
+They were again surprised.
+
+“What!” he cried, louder. “Shall it be said in the Circus to-morrow
+that a dog of Israel went into the saloon of the palace full of Roman
+nobles—among them the scion of a Cæsar—and laid five talents before
+them in challenge, and they had not the courage to take it up?”
+
+The sting was unendurable.
+
+“Have done, O insolent!” said Drusus, “write the challenge, and leave
+it on the table; and to-morrow, if we find thou hast indeed so much
+money to put at such hopeless hazard, I, Drusus, promise it shall be
+taken.”
+
+Sanballat wrote again, and, rising, said, unmoved as ever, “See,
+Drusus, I leave the offer with you. When it is signed, send it to me
+any time before the race begins. I will be found with the consul in a
+seat over the Porta Pompae. Peace to you; peace to all.”
+
+He bowed, and departed, careless of the shout of derision with which
+they pursued him out of the door.
+
+In the night the story of the prodigious wager flew along the streets
+and over the city; and Ben-Hur, lying with his four, was told of it,
+and also that Messala’s whole fortune was on the hazard.
+
+And he slept never so soundly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The Circus at Antioch stood on the south bank of the river, nearly
+opposite the island, differing in no respect from the plan of such
+buildings in general.
+
+In the purest sense, the games were a gift to the public; consequently,
+everybody was free to attend; and, vast as the holding capacity of the
+structure was, so fearful were the people, on this occasion, lest there
+should not be room for them, that, early the day before the opening of
+the exhibition, they took up all the vacant spaces in the vicinity,
+where their temporary shelter suggested an army in waiting.
+
+At midnight the entrances were thrown wide, and the rabble, surging in,
+occupied the quarters assigned to them, from which nothing less than an
+earthquake or an army with spears could have dislodged them. They dozed
+the night away on the benches, and breakfasted there; and there the
+close of the exercises found them, patient and sight-hungry as in the
+beginning.
+
+The better people, their seats secured, began moving towards the Circus
+about the first hour of the morning, the noble and very rich among them
+distinguished by litters and retinues of liveried servants.
+
+By the second hour, the efflux from the city was a stream unbroken and
+innumerable.
+
+Exactly as the gnomon of the official dial up in the citadel pointed
+the second hour half gone, the legion, in full panoply, and with all
+its standards on exhibit, descended from Mount Sulpius; and when the
+rear of the last cohort disappeared in the bridge, Antioch was
+literally abandoned—not that the Circus could hold the multitude, but
+that the multitude was gone out to it, nevertheless.
+
+A great concourse on the river shore witnessed the consul come over
+from the island in a barge of state. As the great man landed, and was
+received by the legion, the martial show for one brief moment
+transcended the attraction of the Circus.
+
+At the third hour, the audience, if such it may be termed, was
+assembled; at last, a flourish of trumpets called for silence, and
+instantly the gaze of over a hundred thousand persons was directed
+towards a pile forming the eastern section of the building.
+
+There was a basement first, broken in the middle by a broad arched
+passage, called the Porta Pompae, over which, on an elevated tribunal
+magnificently decorated with insignia and legionary standards, the
+consul sat in the place of honor. On both sides of the passage the
+basement was divided into stalls termed carceres, each protected in
+front by massive gates swung to statuesque pilasters. Over the stalls
+next was a cornice crowned by a low balustrade; back of which the seats
+arose in theatre arrangement, all occupied by a throng of dignitaries
+superbly attired. The pile extended the width of the Circus, and was
+flanked on both sides by towers which, besides helping the architects
+give grace to their work, served the velaria, or purple awnings,
+stretched between them so as to throw the whole quarter in a shade that
+became exceedingly grateful as the day advanced.
+
+This structure, it is now thought, can be made useful in helping the
+reader to a sufficient understanding of the arrangement of the rest of
+the interior of the Circus. He has only to fancy himself seated on the
+tribunal with the consul, facing to the west, where everything is under
+his eye.
+
+On the right and left, if he will look, he will see the main entrances,
+very ample, and guarded by gates hinged to the towers.
+
+Directly below him is the arena—a level plane of considerable extent,
+covered with fine white sand. There all the trials will take place
+except the running.
+
+Looking across this sanded arena westwardly still, there is a pedestal
+of marble supporting three low conical pillars of gray stone, much
+carven. Many an eye will hunt for those pillars before the day is done,
+for they are the first goal, and mark the beginning and end of the
+race-course. Behind the pedestal, leaving a passage-way and space for
+an altar, commences a wall ten or twelve feet in breadth and five or
+six in height, extending thence exactly two hundred yards, or one
+Olympic stadium. At the farther, or westward, extremity of the wall
+there is another pedestal, surmounted with pillars which mark the
+second goal.
+
+The racers will enter the course on the right of the first goal, and
+keep the wall all the time to their left. The beginning and ending
+points of the contest lie, consequently, directly in front of the
+consul across the arena; and for that reason his seat was admittedly
+the most desirable in the Circus.
+
+Now if the reader, who is still supposed to be seated on the consular
+tribunal over the Porta Pompae, will look up from the ground
+arrangement of the interior, the first point to attract his notice will
+be the marking of the outer boundary-line of the course—that is, a
+plain-faced, solid wall, fifteen or twenty feet in height, with a
+balustrade on its cope, like that over the carceres, or stalls, in the
+east. This balcony, if followed round the course, will be found broken
+in three places to allow passages of exit and entrance, two in the
+north and one in the west; the latter very ornate, and called the Gate
+of Triumph, because, when all is over, the victors will pass out that
+way, crowned, and with triumphal escort and ceremonies.
+
+At the west end the balcony encloses the course in the form of a half
+circle, and is made to uphold two great galleries.
+
+Directly behind the balustrade on the coping of the balcony is the
+first seat, from which ascend the succeeding benches, each higher than
+the one in front of it; giving to view a spectacle of surpassing
+interest—the spectacle of a vast space ruddy and glistening with human
+faces, and rich with varicolored costumes.
+
+The commonalty occupy quarters over in the west, beginning at the point
+of termination of an awning, stretched, it would seem, for the
+accommodation of the better classes exclusively.
+
+Having thus the whole interior of the Circus under view at the moment
+of the sounding of the trumpets, let the reader next imagine the
+multitude seated and sunk to sudden silence, and motionless in its
+intensity of interest.
+
+Out of the Porta Pompae over in the east rises a sound mixed of voices
+and instruments harmonized. Presently, forth issues the chorus of the
+procession with which the celebration begins; the editor and civic
+authorities of the city, givers of the games, follow in robes and
+garlands; then the gods, some on platforms borne by men, others in
+great four-wheel carriages gorgeously decorated; next them, again, the
+contestants of the day, each in costume exactly as he will run,
+wrestle, leap, box, or drive.
+
+Slowly crossing the arena, the procession proceeds to make circuit of
+the course. The display is beautiful and imposing. Approval runs before
+it in a shout, as the water rises and swells in front of a boat in
+motion. If the dumb, figured gods make no sign of appreciation of the
+welcome, the editor and his associates are not so backward.
+
+The reception of the athletes is even more demonstrative, for there is
+not a man in the assemblage who has not something in wager upon them,
+though but a mite or farthing. And it is noticeable, as the classes
+move by, that the favorites among them are speedily singled out: either
+their names are loudest in the uproar, or they are more profusely
+showered with wreaths and garlands tossed to them from the balcony.
+
+If there is a question as to the popularity with the public of the
+several games, it is now put to rest. To the splendor of the chariots
+and the superexcellent beauty of the horses, the charioteers add the
+personality necessary to perfect the charm of their display. Their
+tunics, short, sleeveless, and of the finest woollen texture, are of
+the assigned colors. A horseman accompanies each one of them except
+Ben-Hur, who, for some reason—possibly distrust—has chosen to go alone;
+so, too, they are all helmeted but him. As they approach, the
+spectators stand upon the benches, and there is a sensible deepening of
+the clamor, in which a sharp listener may detect the shrill piping of
+women and children; at the same time, the things roseate flying from
+the balcony thicken into a storm, and, striking the men, drop into the
+chariot-beds, which are threatened with filling to the tops. Even the
+horses have a share in the ovation; nor may it be said they are less
+conscious than their masters of the honors they receive.
+
+Very soon, as with the other contestants, it is made apparent that some
+of the drivers are more in favor than others; and then the discovery
+follows that nearly every individual on the benches, women and children
+as well as men, wears a color, most frequently a ribbon upon the breast
+or in the hair: now it is green, now yellow, now blue; but, searching
+the great body carefully, it is manifest that there is a preponderance
+of white, and scarlet and gold.
+
+In a modern assemblage called together as this one is, particularly
+where there are sums at hazard upon the race, a preference would be
+decided by the qualities or performance of the horses; here, however,
+nationality was the rule. If the Byzantine and Sidonian found small
+support, it was because their cities were scarcely represented on the
+benches. On their side, the Greeks, though very numerous, were divided
+between the Corinthian and the Athenian, leaving but a scant showing of
+green and yellow. Messala’s scarlet and gold would have been but little
+better had not the citizens of Antioch, proverbially a race of
+courtiers, joined the Romans by adopting the color of their favorite.
+There were left then the country people, or Syrians, the Jews, and the
+Arabs; and they, from faith in the blood of the sheik’s four, blent
+largely with hate of the Romans, whom they desired, above all things,
+to see beaten and humbled, mounted the white, making the most noisy,
+and probably the most numerous, faction of all.
+
+As the charioteers move on in the circuit, the excitement increases; at
+the second goal, where, especially in the galleries, the white is the
+ruling color, the people exhaust their flowers and rive the air with
+screams.
+
+“Messala! Messala!”
+
+“Ben-Hur! Ben-Hur!”
+
+Such are the cries.
+
+Upon the passage of the procession, the factionists take their seats
+and resume conversation.
+
+“Ah, by Bacchus! was he not handsome?” exclaims a woman, whose Romanism
+is betrayed by the colors flying in her hair.
+
+“And how splendid his chariot!” replies a neighbor, of the same
+proclivities. “It is all ivory and gold. Jupiter grant he wins!”
+
+The notes on the bench behind them were entirely different.
+
+“A hundred shekels on the Jew!”
+
+The voice is high and shrill.
+
+“Nay, be thou not rash,” whispers a moderating friend to the speaker.
+“The children of Jacob are not much given to Gentile sports, which are
+too often accursed in the sight of the Lord.”
+
+“True, but saw you ever one more cool and assured? And what an arm he
+has!”
+
+“And what horses!” says a third.
+
+“And for that,” a fourth one adds, “they say he has all the tricks of
+the Romans.”
+
+A woman completes the eulogium:
+
+“Yes, and he is even handsomer than the Roman.”
+
+Thus encouraged, the enthusiast shrieks again, “A hundred shekels on
+the Jew!”
+
+“Thou fool!” answers an Antiochian, from a bench well forward on the
+balcony. “Knowest thou not there are fifty talents laid against him,
+six to one, on Messala? Put up thy shekels, lest Abraham rise and smite
+thee.”
+
+“Ha, ha! thou ass of Antioch! Cease thy bray. Knowest thou not it was
+Messala betting on himself?”
+
+Such the reply.
+
+And so ran the controversy, not always good-natured.
+
+When at length the march was ended and the Porta Pompae received back
+the procession, Ben-Hur knew he had his prayer.
+
+The eyes of the East were upon his contest with Messala.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+About three o’clock, speaking in modern style, the program was
+concluded except the chariot-race. The editor, wisely considerate of
+the comfort of the people, chose that time for a recess. At once the
+vomitoria were thrown open, and all who could hastened to the portico
+outside where the restaurateurs had their quarters. Those who remained
+yawned, talked, gossiped, consulted their tablets, and, all
+distinctions else forgotten, merged into but two classes—the winners,
+who were happy, and the losers, who were grum and captious.
+
+Now, however, a third class of spectators, composed of citizens who
+desired only to witness the chariot-race, availed themselves of the
+recess to come in and take their reserved seats; by so doing they
+thought to attract the least attention and give the least offence.
+Among these were Simonides and his party, whose places were in the
+vicinity of the main entrance on the north side, opposite the consul.
+
+As the four stout servants carried the merchant in his chair up the
+aisle, curiosity was much excited. Presently some one called his name.
+Those about caught it and passed it on along the benches to the west;
+and there was hurried climbing on seats to get sight of the man about
+whom common report had coined and put in circulation a romance so mixed
+of good fortune and bad that the like had never been known or heard of
+before.
+
+Ilderim was also recognized and warmly greeted; but nobody knew
+Balthasar or the two women who followed him closely veiled.
+
+The people made way for the party respectfully, and the ushers seated
+them in easy speaking distance of each other down by the balustrade
+overlooking the arena. In providence of comfort, they sat upon cushions
+and had stools for footrests.
+
+The women were Iras and Esther.
+
+Upon being seated, the latter cast a frightened look over the Circus,
+and drew the veil closer about her face; while the Egyptian, letting
+her veil fall upon her shoulders, gave herself to view, and gazed at
+the scene with the seeming unconsciousness of being stared at, which,
+in a woman, is usually the result of long social habitude.
+
+The new-comers generally were yet making their first examination of the
+great spectacle, beginning with the consul and his attendants, when
+some workmen ran in and commenced to stretch a chalked rope across the
+arena from balcony to balcony in front of the pillars of the first
+goal.
+
+About the same time, also, six men came in through the Porta Pompae and
+took post, one in front of each occupied stall; whereat there was a
+prolonged hum of voices in every quarter.
+
+“See, see! The green goes to number four on the right; the Athenian is
+there.”
+
+“And Messala—yes, he is in number two.”
+
+“The Corinthian—”
+
+“Watch the white! See, he crosses over, he stops; number one it
+is—number one on the left.”
+
+“No, the black stops there, and the white at number two.”
+
+“So it is.”
+
+These gate-keepers, it should be understood, were dressed in tunics
+colored like those of the competing charioteers; so, when they took
+their stations, everybody knew the particular stall in which his
+favorite was that moment waiting.
+
+“Did you ever see Messala?” the Egyptian asked Esther.
+
+The Jewess shuddered as she answered no. If not her father’s enemy, the
+Roman was Ben-Hur’s.
+
+“He is beautiful as Apollo.”
+
+As Iras spoke, her large eyes brightened and she shook her jeweled fan.
+Esther looked at her with the thought, “Is he, then, so much handsomer
+than Ben-Hur?” Next moment she heard Ilderim say to her father, “Yes,
+his stall is number two on the left of the Porta Pompae;” and, thinking
+it was of Ben-Hur he spoke, her eyes turned that way. Taking but the
+briefest glance at the wattled face of the gate, she drew the veil
+close and muttered a little prayer.
+
+Presently Sanballat came to the party.
+
+“I am just from the stalls, O sheik,” he said, bowing gravely to
+Ilderim, who began combing his beard, while his eyes glittered with
+eager inquiry. “The horses are in perfect condition.”
+
+Ilderim replied simply, “If they are beaten, I pray it be by some other
+than Messala.”
+
+Turning then to Simonides, Sanballat drew out a tablet, saying, “I
+bring you also something of interest. I reported, you will remember,
+the wager concluded with Messala last night, and stated that I left
+another which, if taken, was to be delivered to me in writing to-day
+before the race began. Here it is.”
+
+Simonides took the tablet and read the memorandum carefully.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “their emissary came to ask me if you had so much money
+with me. Keep the tablet close. If you lose, you know where to come; if
+you win”—his face knit hard—“if you win—ah, friend, see to it! See the
+signers escape not; hold them to the last shekel. That is what they
+would with us.”
+
+“Trust me,” replied the purveyor.
+
+“Will you not sit with us?” asked Simonides.
+
+“You are very good,” the other returned; “but if I leave the consul,
+young Rome yonder will boil over. Peace to you; peace to all.”
+
+At length the recess came to an end.
+
+The trumpeters blew a call at which the absentees rushed back to their
+places. At the same time, some attendants appeared in the arena, and,
+climbing upon the division wall, went to an entablature near the second
+goal at the west end, and placed upon it seven wooden balls; then
+returning to the first goal, upon an entablature there they set up
+seven other pieces of wood hewn to represent dolphins.
+
+“What shall they do with the balls and fishes, O sheik?” asked
+Balthasar.
+
+“Hast thou never attended a race?”
+
+“Never before; and hardly know I why I am here.”
+
+“Well, they are to keep the count. At the end of each round run thou
+shalt see one ball and one fish taken down.”
+
+The preparations were now complete, and presently a trumpeter in gaudy
+uniform arose by the editor, ready to blow the signal of commencement
+promptly at his order. Straightway the stir of the people and the hum
+of their conversation died away. Every face near-by, and every face in
+the lessening perspective, turned to the east, as all eyes settled upon
+the gates of the six stalls which shut in the competitors.
+
+The unusual flush upon his face gave proof that even Simonides had
+caught the universal excitement. Ilderim pulled his beard fast and
+furious.
+
+“Look now for the Roman,” said the fair Egyptian to Esther, who did not
+hear her, for, with close-drawn veil and beating heart, she sat
+watching for Ben-Hur.
+
+The structure containing the stalls, it should be observed, was in form
+of the segment of a circle, retired on the right so that its central
+point was projected forward, and midway the course, on the starting
+side of the first goal. Every stall, consequently, was equally distant
+from the starting-line or chalked rope above mentioned.
+
+The trumpet sounded short and sharp; whereupon the starters, one for
+each chariot, leaped down from behind the pillars of the goal, ready to
+give assistance if any of the fours proved unmanageable.
+
+Again the trumpet blew, and simultaneously the gate-keepers threw the
+stalls open.
+
+First appeared the mounted attendants of the charioteers, five in all,
+Ben-Hur having rejected the service. The chalked line was lowered to
+let them pass, then raised again. They were beautifully mounted, yet
+scarcely observed as they rode forward; for all the time the trampling
+of eager horses, and the voices of drivers scarcely less eager, were
+heard behind in the stalls, so that one might not look away an instant
+from the gaping doors.
+
+The chalked line up again, the gate-keepers called their men; instantly
+the ushers on the balcony waved their hands, and shouted with all their
+strength, “Down! down!”
+
+As well have whistled to stay a storm.
+
+Forth from each stall, like missiles in a volley from so many great
+guns, rushed the six fours; and up the vast assemblage arose,
+electrified and irrepressible, and, leaping upon the benches, filled
+the Circus and the air above it with yells and screams. This was the
+time for which they had so patiently waited!—this the moment of supreme
+interest treasured up in talk and dreams since the proclamation of the
+games!
+
+“He is come—there—look!” cried Iras, pointing to Messala.
+
+“I see him,” answered Esther, looking at Ben-Hur.
+
+The veil was withdrawn. For an instant the little Jewess was brave. An
+idea of the joy there is in doing an heroic deed under the eyes of a
+multitude came to her, and she understood ever after how, at such
+times, the souls of men, in the frenzy of performance, laugh at death
+or forget it utterly.
+
+The competitors were now under view from nearly every part of the
+Circus, yet the race was not begun; they had first to make the chalked
+line successfully.
+
+The line was stretched for the purpose of equalizing the start. If it
+were dashed upon, discomfiture of man and horses might be apprehended;
+on the other hand, to approach it timidly was to incur the hazard of
+being thrown behind in the beginning of the race; and that was certain
+forfeit of the great advantage always striven for—the position next the
+division wall on the inner line of the course.
+
+This trial, its perils and consequences, the spectators knew
+thoroughly; and if the opinion of old Nestor, uttered that time he
+handed the reins to his son, were true—
+
+“It is not strength, but art, obtained the prize,
+And to be swift is less than to be wise”—
+
+
+all on the benches might well look for warning of the winner to be now
+given, justifying the interest with which they breathlessly watched for
+the result.
+
+The arena swam in a dazzle of light; yet each driver looked first thing
+for the rope, then for the coveted inner line. So, all six aiming at
+the same point and speeding furiously, a collision seemed inevitable;
+nor that merely. What if the editor, at the last moment, dissatisfied
+with the start, should withhold the signal to drop the rope? Or if he
+should not give it in time?
+
+The crossing was about two hundred and fifty feet in width. Quick the
+eye, steady the hand, unerring the judgment required. If now one look
+away! or his mind wander! or a rein slip! And what attraction in the
+ensemble of the thousands over the spreading balcony! Calculating upon
+the natural impulse to give one glance—just one—in sooth of curiosity
+or vanity, malice might be there with an artifice; while friendship and
+love, did they serve the same result, might be as deadly as malice.
+
+The divine last touch in perfecting the beautiful is animation. Can we
+accept the saying, then these latter days, so tame in pastime and dull
+in sports, have scarcely anything to compare to the spectacle offered
+by the six contestants. Let the reader try to fancy it; let him first
+look down upon the arena, and see it glistening in its frame of
+dull-gray granite walls; let him then, in this perfect field, see the
+chariots, light of wheel, very graceful, and ornate as paint and
+burnishing can make them—Messala’s rich with ivory and gold; let him
+see the drivers, erect and statuesque, undisturbed by the motion of the
+cars, their limbs naked, and fresh and ruddy with the healthful polish
+of the baths—in their right hands goads, suggestive of torture dreadful
+to the thought—in their left hands, held in careful separation, and
+high, that they may not interfere with view of the steeds, the reins
+passing taut from the fore ends of the carriage-poles; let him see the
+fours, chosen for beauty as well as speed; let him see them in
+magnificent action, their masters not more conscious of the situation
+and all that is asked and hoped from them—their heads tossing, nostrils
+in play, now distent, now contracted—limbs too dainty for the sand
+which they touch but to spurn—limbs slender, yet with impact crushing
+as hammers—every muscle of the rounded bodies instinct with glorious
+life, swelling, diminishing, justifying the world in taking from them
+its ultimate measure of force; finally, along with chariots, drivers,
+horses, let the reader see the accompanying shadows fly; and, with such
+distinctness as the picture comes, he may share the satisfaction and
+deeper pleasure of those to whom it was a thrilling fact, not a feeble
+fancy. Every age has its plenty of sorrows; Heaven help where there are
+no pleasures!
+
+The competitors having started each on the shortest line for the
+position next the wall, yielding would be like giving up the race; and
+who dared yield? It is not in common nature to change a purpose in
+mid-career; and the cries of encouragement from the balcony were
+indistinguishable and indescribable: a roar which had the same effect
+upon all the drivers.
+
+The fours neared the rope together. Then the trumpeter by the editor’s
+side blew a signal vigorously. Twenty feet away it was not heard.
+Seeing the action, however, the judges dropped the rope, and not an
+instant too soon, for the hoof of one of Messala’s horses struck it as
+it fell. Nothing daunted, the Roman shook out his long lash, loosed the
+reins, leaned forward, and, with a triumphant shout, took the wall.
+
+“Jove with us! Jove with us!” yelled all the Roman faction, in a frenzy
+of delight.
+
+As Messala turned in, the bronze lion’s head at the end of his axle
+caught the fore-leg of the Athenian’s right-hand trace-mate, flinging
+the brute over against its yoke-fellow. Both staggered, struggled, and
+lost their headway. The ushers had their will at least in part. The
+thousands held their breath with horror; only up where the consul sat
+was there shouting.
+
+“Jove with us!” screamed Drusus, frantically.
+
+“He wins! Jove with us!” answered his associates, seeing Messala speed
+on.
+
+Tablet in hand, Sanballat turned to them; a crash from the course below
+stopped his speech, and he could not but look that way.
+
+Messala having passed, the Corinthian was the only contestant on the
+Athenian’s right, and to that side the latter tried to turn his broken
+four; and then; as ill-fortune would have it, the wheel of the
+Byzantine, who was next on the left, struck the tail-piece of his
+chariot, knocking his feet from under him. There was a crash, a scream
+of rage and fear, and the unfortunate Cleanthes fell under the hoofs of
+his own steeds: a terrible sight, against which Esther covered her
+eyes.
+
+On swept the Corinthian, on the Byzantine, on the Sidonian.
+
+Sanballat looked for Ben-Hur, and turned again to Drusus and his
+coterie.
+
+“A hundred sestertii on the Jew!” he cried.
+
+“Taken!” answered Drusus.
+
+“Another hundred on the Jew!” shouted Sanballat.
+
+Nobody appeared to hear him. He called again; the situation below was
+too absorbing, and they were too busy shouting, “Messala! Messala! Jove
+with us!”
+
+When the Jewess ventured to look again, a party of workmen were
+removing the horses and broken car; another party were taking off the
+man himself; and every bench upon which there was a Greek was vocal
+with execrations and prayers for vengeance. Suddenly she dropped her
+hands; Ben-Hur, unhurt, was to the front, coursing freely forward along
+with the Roman! Behind them, in a group, followed the Sidonian, the
+Corinthian, and the Byzantine.
+
+The race was on; the souls of the racers were in it; over them bent the
+myriads.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+When the dash for position began, Ben-Hur, as we have seen, was on the
+extreme left of the six. For a moment, like the others, he was half
+blinded by the light in the arena; yet he managed to catch sight of his
+antagonists and divine their purpose. At Messala, who was more than an
+antagonist to him, he gave one searching look. The air of passionless
+hauteur characteristic of the fine patrician face was there as of old,
+and so was the Italian beauty, which the helmet rather increased; but
+more—it may have been a jealous fancy, or the effect of the brassy
+shadow in which the features were at the moment cast, still the
+Israelite thought he saw the soul of the man as through a glass,
+darkly: cruel, cunning, desperate; not so excited as determined—a soul
+in a tension of watchfulness and fierce resolve.
+
+In a time not longer than was required to turn to his four again,
+Ben-Hur felt his own resolution harden to a like temper. At whatever
+cost, at all hazards, he would humble this enemy! Prize, friends,
+wagers, honor—everything that can be thought of as a possible interest
+in the race was lost in the one deliberate purpose. Regard for life
+even should not hold him back. Yet there was no passion, on his part;
+no blinding rush of heated blood from heart to brain, and back again;
+no impulse to fling himself upon Fortune: he did not believe in
+Fortune; far otherwise. He had his plan, and, confiding in himself, he
+settled to the task never more observant, never more capable. The air
+about him seemed aglow with a renewed and perfect transparency.
+
+When not half-way across the arena, he saw that Messala’s rush would,
+if there was no collision, and the rope fell, give him the wall; that
+the rope would fall, he ceased as soon to doubt; and, further, it came
+to him, a sudden flash-like insight, that Messala knew it was to be let
+drop at the last moment (prearrangement with the editor could safely
+reach that point in the contest); and it suggested, what more
+Roman-like than for the official to lend himself to a countryman who,
+besides being so popular, had also so much at stake? There could be no
+other accounting for the confidence with which Messala pushed his four
+forward the instant his competitors were prudentially checking their
+fours in front of the obstruction—no other except madness.
+
+It is one thing to see a necessity and another to act upon it. Ben-Hur
+yielded the wall for the time.
+
+The rope fell, and all the fours but his sprang into the course under
+urgency of voice and lash. He drew head to the right, and, with all the
+speed of his Arabs, darted across the trails of his opponents, the
+angle of movement being such as to lose the least time and gain the
+greatest possible advance. So, while the spectators were shivering at
+the Athenian’s mishap, and the Sidonian, Byzantine, and Corinthian were
+striving, with such skill as they possessed, to avoid involvement in
+the ruin, Ben-Hur swept around and took the course neck and neck with
+Messala, though on the outside. The marvellous skill shown in making
+the change thus from the extreme left across to the right without
+appreciable loss did not fail the sharp eyes upon the benches; the
+Circus seemed to rock and rock again with prolonged applause. Then
+Esther clasped her hands in glad surprise; then Sanballat, smiling,
+offered his hundred sestertii a second time without a taker; and then
+the Romans began to doubt, thinking Messala might have found an equal,
+if not a master, and that in an Israelite!
+
+And now, racing together side by side, a narrow interval between them,
+the two neared the second goal.
+
+The pedestal of the three pillars there, viewed from the west, was a
+stone wall in the form of a half-circle, around which the course and
+opposite balcony were bent in exact parallelism. Making this turn was
+considered in all respects the most telling test of a charioteer; it
+was, in fact, the very feat in which Oraetes failed. As an involuntary
+admission of interest on the part of the spectators, a hush fell over
+all the Circus, so that for the first time in the race the rattle and
+clang of the cars plunging after the tugging steeds were distinctly
+heard. Then, it would seem, Messala observed Ben-Hur, and recognized
+him; and at once the audacity of the man flamed out in an astonishing
+manner.
+
+“Down Eros, up Mars!” he shouted, whirling his lash with practised
+hand—“Down Eros, up Mars!” he repeated, and caught the well-doing Arabs
+of Ben-Hur a cut the like of which they had never known.
+
+The blow was seen in every quarter, and the amazement was universal.
+The silence deepened; up on the benches behind the consul the boldest
+held his breath, waiting for the outcome. Only a moment thus: then,
+involuntarily, down from the balcony, as thunder falls, burst the
+indignant cry of the people.
+
+The four sprang forward affrighted. No hand had ever been laid upon
+them except in love; they had been nurtured ever so tenderly; and as
+they grew, their confidence in man became a lesson to men beautiful to
+see. What should such dainty natures do under such indignity but leap
+as from death?
+
+Forward they sprang as with one impulse, and forward leaped the car.
+Past question, every experience is serviceable to us. Where got Ben-Hur
+the large hand and mighty grip which helped him now so well? Where but
+from the oar with which so long he fought the sea? And what was this
+spring of the floor under his feet to the dizzy eccentric lurch with
+which in the old time the trembling ship yielded to the beat of
+staggering billows, drunk with their power? So he kept his place, and
+gave the four free rein, and called to them in soothing voice, trying
+merely to guide them round the dangerous turn; and before the fever of
+the people began to abate, he had back the mastery. Nor that only: on
+approaching the first goal, he was again side by side with Messala,
+bearing with him the sympathy and admiration of every one not a Roman.
+So clearly was the feeling shown, so vigorous its manifestation, that
+Messala, with all his boldness, felt it unsafe to trifle further.
+
+As the cars whirled round the goal, Esther caught sight of Ben-Hur’s
+face—a little pale, a little higher raised, otherwise calm, even
+placid.
+
+Immediately a man climbed on the entablature at the west end of the
+division wall, and took down one of the conical wooden balls. A dolphin
+on the east entablature was taken down at the same time.
+
+In like manner, the second ball and second dolphin disappeared.
+
+And then the third ball and third dolphin.
+
+Three rounds concluded: still Messala held the inside position; still
+Ben-Hur moved with him side by side; still the other competitors
+followed as before. The contest began to have the appearance of one of
+the double races which became so popular in Rome during the later
+Cæsarean period—Messala and Ben-Hur in the first, the Corinthian,
+Sidonian, and Byzantine in the second. Meantime the ushers succeeded in
+returning the multitude to their seats, though the clamor continued to
+run the rounds, keeping, as it were, even pace with the rivals in the
+course below.
+
+In the fifth round the Sidonian succeeded in getting a place outside
+Ben-Hur, but lost it directly.
+
+The sixth round was entered upon without change of relative position.
+
+Gradually the speed had been quickened—gradually the blood of the
+competitors warmed with the work. Men and beasts seemed to know alike
+that the final crisis was near, bringing the time for the winner to
+assert himself.
+
+The interest which from the beginning had centred chiefly in the
+struggle between the Roman and the Jew, with an intense and general
+sympathy for the latter, was fast changing to anxiety on his account.
+On all the benches the spectators bent forward motionless, except as
+their faces turned following the contestants. Ilderim quitted combing
+his beard, and Esther forgot her fears.
+
+“A hundred sestertii on the Jew!” cried Sanballat to the Romans under
+the consul’s awning.
+
+There was no reply.
+
+“A talent—or five talents, or ten; choose ye!”
+
+He shook his tablets at them defiantly.
+
+“I will take thy sestertii,” answered a Roman youth, preparing to
+write.
+
+“Do not so,” interposed a friend.
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Messala hath reached his utmost speed. See him lean over his chariot
+rim, the reins loose as flying ribbons. Look then at the Jew.”
+
+The first one looked.
+
+“By Hercules!” he replied, his countenance falling. “The dog throws all
+his weight on the bits. I see, I see! If the gods help not our friend,
+he will be run away with by the Israelite. No, not yet. Look! Jove with
+us, Jove with us!”
+
+The cry, swelled by every Latin tongue, shook the velaria over the
+consul’s head.
+
+If it were true that Messala had attained his utmost speed, the effort
+was with effect; slowly but certainly he was beginning to forge ahead.
+His horses were running with their heads low down; from the balcony
+their bodies appeared actually to skim the earth; their nostrils showed
+blood red in expansion; their eyes seemed straining in their sockets.
+Certainly the good steeds were doing their best! How long could they
+keep the pace? It was but the commencement of the sixth round. On they
+dashed. As they neared the second goal, Ben-Hur turned in behind the
+Roman’s car.
+
+The joy of the Messala faction reached its bound: they screamed and
+howled, and tossed their colors; and Sanballat filled his tablets with
+wagers of their tendering.
+
+Malluch, in the lower gallery over the Gate of Triumph, found it hard
+to keep his cheer. He had cherished the vague hint dropped to him by
+Ben-Hur of something to happen in the turning of the western pillars.
+It was the fifth round, yet the something had not come; and he had said
+to himself, the sixth will bring it; but, lo! Ben-Hur was hardly
+holding a place at the tail of his enemy’s car.
+
+Over in the east end, Simonides’ party held their peace. The merchant’s
+head was bent low. Ilderim tugged at his beard, and dropped his brows
+till there was nothing of his eyes but an occasional sparkle of light.
+Esther scarcely breathed. Iras alone appeared glad.
+
+Along the home-stretch—sixth round—Messala leading, next him Ben-Hur,
+and so close it was the old story:
+
+“First flew Eumelus on Pheretian steeds;
+With those of Tros bold Diomed succeeds;
+Close on Eumelus’ back they puff the wind,
+And seem just mounting on his car behind;
+Full on his neck he feels the sultry breeze,
+And, hovering o’er, their stretching shadow sees.”
+
+
+Thus to the first goal, and round it. Messala, fearful of losing his
+place, hugged the stony wall with perilous clasp; a foot to the left,
+and he had been dashed to pieces; yet, when the turn was finished, no
+man, looking at the wheel-tracks of the two cars, could have said, here
+went Messala, there the Jew. They left but one trace behind them.
+
+As they whirled by, Esther saw Ben-Hur’s face again, and it was whiter
+than before.
+
+Simonides, shrewder than Esther, said to Ilderim, the moment the rivals
+turned into the course, “I am no judge, good sheik, if Ben-Hur be not
+about to execute some design. His face hath that look.”
+
+To which Ilderim answered, “Saw you how clean they were and fresh? By
+the splendor of God, friend, they have not been running! But now
+watch!”
+
+One ball and one dolphin remained on the entablatures; and all the
+people drew a long breath, for the beginning of the end was at hand.
+
+First, the Sidonian gave the scourge to his four, and, smarting with
+fear and pain, they dashed desperately forward, promising for a brief
+time to go to the front. The effort ended in promise. Next, the
+Byzantine and the Corinthian each made the trial with like result,
+after which they were practically out of the race. Thereupon, with a
+readiness perfectly explicable, all the factions except the Romans
+joined hope in Ben-Hur, and openly indulged their feeling.
+
+“Ben-Hur! Ben-Hur!” they shouted, and the blent voices of the many
+rolled overwhelmingly against the consular stand.
+
+From the benches above him as he passed, the favor descended in fierce
+injunctions.
+
+“Speed thee, Jew!”
+
+“Take the wall now!”
+
+“On! loose the Arabs! Give them rein and scourge!”
+
+“Let him not have the turn on thee again. Now or never!”
+
+Over the balustrade they stooped low, stretching their hands
+imploringly to him.
+
+Either he did not hear, or could not do better, for halfway round the
+course and he was still following; at the second goal even still no
+change!
+
+And now, to make the turn, Messala began to draw in his left-hand
+steeds, an act which necessarily slackened their speed. His spirit was
+high; more than one altar was richer of his vows; the Roman genius was
+still president. On the three pillars only six hundred feet away were
+fame, increase of fortune, promotions, and a triumph ineffably
+sweetened by hate, all in store for him! That moment Malluch, in the
+gallery, saw Ben-Hur lean forward over his Arabs, and give them the
+reins. Out flew the many-folded lash in his hand; over the backs of the
+startled steeds it writhed and hissed, and hissed and writhed again and
+again; and though it fell not, there were both sting and menace in its
+quick report; and as the man passed thus from quiet to resistless
+action, his face suffused, his eyes gleaming, along the reins he seemed
+to flash his will; and instantly not one, but the four as one, answered
+with a leap that landed them alongside the Roman’s car. Messala, on the
+perilous edge of the goal, heard, but dared not look to see what the
+awakening portended. From the people he received no sign. Above the
+noises of the race there was but one voice, and that was Ben-Hur’s. In
+the old Aramaic, as the sheik himself, he called to the Arabs,
+
+“On, Atair! On, Rigel! What, Antares! dost thou linger now? Good
+horse—oho, Aldebaran! I hear them singing in the tents. I hear the
+children singing and the women—singing of the stars, of Atair, Antares,
+Rigel, Aldebaran, victory!—and the song will never end. Well done! Home
+to-morrow, under the black tent—home! On, Antares! The tribe is waiting
+for us, and the master is waiting! ’Tis done! ’tis done! Ha, ha! We
+have overthrown the proud. The hand that smote us is in the dust. Ours
+the glory! Ha, ha!—steady! The work is done—soho! Rest!”
+
+There had never been anything of the kind more simple; seldom anything
+so instantaneous.
+
+At the moment chosen for the dash, Messala was moving in a circle round
+the goal. To pass him, Ben-Hur had to cross the track, and good
+strategy required the movement to be in a forward direction; that is,
+on a like circle limited to the least possible increase. The thousands
+on the benches understood it all: they saw the signal given—the
+magnificent response; the four close outside Messala’s outer wheel;
+Ben-Hur’s inner wheel behind the other’s car—all this they saw. Then
+they heard a crash loud enough to send a thrill through the Circus,
+and, quicker than thought, out over the course a spray of shining white
+and yellow flinders flew. Down on its right side toppled the bed of the
+Roman’s chariot. There was a rebound as of the axle hitting the hard
+earth; another and another; then the car went to pieces; and Messala,
+entangled in the reins, pitched forward headlong.
+
+To increase the horror of the sight by making death certain, the
+Sidonian, who had the wall next behind, could not stop or turn out.
+Into the wreck full speed he drove; then over the Roman, and into the
+latter’s four, all mad with fear. Presently, out of the turmoil, the
+fighting of horses, the resound of blows, the murky cloud of dust and
+sand, he crawled, in time to see the Corinthian and Byzantine go on
+down the course after Ben-Hur, who had not been an instant delayed.
+
+The people arose, and leaped upon the benches, and shouted and
+screamed. Those who looked that way caught glimpses of Messala, now
+under the trampling of the fours, now under the abandoned cars. He was
+still; they thought him dead; but far the greater number followed
+Ben-Hur in his career. They had not seen the cunning touch of the reins
+by which, turning a little to the left, he caught Messala’s wheel with
+the iron-shod point of his axle, and crushed it; but they had seen the
+transformation of the man, and themselves felt the heat and glow of his
+spirit, the heroic resolution, the maddening energy of action with
+which, by look, word, and gesture, he so suddenly inspired his Arabs.
+And such running! It was rather the long leaping of lions in harness;
+but for the lumbering chariot, it seemed the four were flying. When the
+Byzantine and Corinthian were halfway down the course, Ben-Hur turned
+the first goal.
+
+AND THE RACE WAS WON!
+
+The consul arose; the people shouted themselves hoarse; the editor came
+down from his seat, and crowned the victors.
+
+The fortunate man among the boxers was a low-browed, yellow-haired
+Saxon, of such brutalized face as to attract a second look from
+Ben-Hur, who recognized a teacher with whom he himself had been a
+favorite at Rome. From him the young Jew looked up and beheld Simonides
+and his party on the balcony. They waved their hands to him. Esther
+kept her seat; but Iras arose, and gave him a smile and a wave of her
+fan—favors not the less intoxicating to him because we know, O reader,
+they would have fallen to Messala had he been the victor.
+
+The procession was then formed, and, midst the shouting of the
+multitude which had had its will, passed out of the Gate of Triumph.
+
+And the day was over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Ben-Hur tarried across the river with Ilderim; for at midnight, as
+previously determined, they would take the road which the caravan, then
+thirty hours out, had pursued.
+
+The sheik was happy; his offers of gifts had been royal; but Ben-Hur
+had refused everything, insisting that he was satisfied with the
+humiliation of his enemy. The generous dispute was long continued.
+
+“Think,” the sheik would say, “what thou hast done for me. In every
+black tent down to the Akaba and to the ocean, and across to the
+Euphrates, and beyond to the sea of the Scythians, the renown of my
+Mira and her children will go; and they who sing of them will magnify
+me, and forget that I am in the wane of life; and all the spears now
+masterless will come to me, and my sword-hands multiply past counting.
+Thou dost not know what it is to have sway of the desert such as will
+now be mine. I tell thee it will bring tribute incalculable from
+commerce, and immunity from kings. Ay, by the sword of Solomon! doth my
+messenger seek favor for me of Cæsar, that will he get. Yet
+nothing—nothing?”
+
+And Ben-Hur would answer,
+
+“Nay, sheik, have I not thy hand and heart? Let thy increase of power
+and influence inure to the King who comes. Who shall say it was not
+allowed thee for him? In the work I am going to, I may have great need.
+Saying no now will leave me to ask of thee with better grace
+hereafter.”
+
+In the midst of a controversy of the kind, two messengers
+arrived—Malluch and one unknown. The former was admitted first.
+
+The good fellow did not attempt to hide his joy over the event of the
+day.
+
+“But, coming to that with which I am charged,” he said, “the master
+Simonides sends me to say that, upon the adjournment of the games, some
+of the Roman faction made haste to protest against payment of the money
+prize.”
+
+Ilderim started up, crying, in his shrillest tones,
+
+“By the splendor of God! the East shall decide whether the race was
+fairly won.”
+
+“Nay, good sheik,” said Malluch, “the editor has paid the money.”
+
+“’Tis well.”
+
+“When they said Ben-Hur struck Messala’s wheel, the editor laughed, and
+reminded them of the blow the Arabs had at the turn of the goal.”
+
+“And what of the Athenian?”
+
+“He is dead.”
+
+“Dead!” cried Ben-Hur.
+
+“Dead!” echoed Ilderim. “What fortune these Roman monsters have!
+Messala escaped?”
+
+“Escaped—yes, O sheik, with life; but it shall be a burden to him. The
+physicians say he will live, but never walk again.”
+
+Ben-Hur looked silently up to heaven. He had a vision of Messala,
+chairbound like Simonides, and, like him, going abroad on the shoulders
+of servants. The good man had abode well; but what would this one with
+his pride and ambition?
+
+“Simonides bade me say, further,” Malluch continued, “Sanballat is
+having trouble. Drusus, and those who signed with him, referred the
+question of paying the five talents they lost to the Consul Maxentius,
+and he has referred it to Cæsar. Messala also refused his losses, and
+Sanballat, in imitation of Drusus, went to the consul, where the matter
+is still in advisement. The better Romans say the protestants shall not
+be excused; and all the adverse factions join with them. The city rings
+with the scandal.”
+
+“What says Simonides?” asked Ben-Hur.
+
+“The master laughs, and is well pleased. If the Roman pays, he is
+ruined; if he refuses to pay, he is dishonored. The imperial policy
+will decide the matter. To offend the East would be a bad beginning
+with the Parthians; to offend Sheik Ilderim would be to antagonize the
+Desert, over which lie all Maxentius’s lines of operation. Wherefore
+Simonides bade me tell you to have no disquiet; Messala will pay.”
+
+Ilderim was at once restored to his good-humor.
+
+“Let us be off now,” he said, rubbing his hands. “The business will do
+well with Simonides. The glory is ours. I will order the horses.”
+
+“Stay,” said Malluch. “I left a messenger outside. Will you see him?”
+
+“By the splendor of God! I forgot him.”
+
+Malluch retired, and was succeeded by a lad of gentle manners and
+delicate appearance, who knelt upon one knee, and said, winningly,
+“Iras, the daughter of Balthasar, well known to good Sheik Ilderim,
+hath intrusted me with a message to the sheik, who, she saith, will do
+her great favor so he receive her congratulations on account of the
+victory of his four.”
+
+“The daughter of my friend is kind,” said Ilderim, with sparkling eyes.
+“Do thou give her this jewel, in sign of the pleasure I have from her
+message.”
+
+He took a ring from his finger as he spoke.
+
+“I will as thou sayest, O sheik,” the lad replied, and continued, “The
+daughter of the Egyptian charged me further. She prays the good Sheik
+Ilderim to send word to the youth Ben-Hur that her father hath taken
+residence for a time in the palace of Idernee, where she will receive
+the youth after the fourth hour to-morrow. And if, with her
+congratulations, Sheik Ilderim will accept her gratitude for this other
+favor done, she will be ever so pleased.”
+
+The sheik looked at Ben-Hur, whose face was suffused with pleasure.
+
+“What will you?” he asked.
+
+“By your leave, O sheik, I will see the fair Egyptian.”
+
+Ilderim laughed, and said, “Shall not a man enjoy his youth?”
+
+Then Ben-Hur answered the messenger.
+
+“Say to her who sent you that I, Ben-Hur, will see her at the palace of
+Idernee, wherever that may be, to-morrow at noon.”
+
+The lad arose, and, with silent salute, departed.
+
+At midnight Ilderim took the road, having arranged to leave a horse and
+a guide for Ben-Hur, who was to follow him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Going next day to fill his appointment with Iras, Ben-Hur turned from
+the Omphalus, which was in the heart of the city, into the Colonnade of
+Herod, and came shortly to the palace of Idernee.
+
+From the street he passed first into a vestibule, on the sides of which
+were stairways under cover, leading up to a portico. Winged lions sat
+by the stairs; in the middle there was a gigantic ibis spouting water
+over the floor; the lions, ibis, walls, and floor were reminders of the
+Egyptians: everything, even the balustrading of the stairs, was of
+massive gray stone.
+
+Above the vestibule, and covering the landing of the steps, arose the
+portico, a pillared grace, so light, so exquisitely proportioned, it
+was at that period hardly possible of conception except by a Greek. Of
+marble snowy white, its effect was that of a lily dropped carelessly
+upon a great bare rock.
+
+Ben-Hur paused in the shade of the portico to admire its tracery and
+finish, and the purity of its marble; then he passed on into the
+palace. Ample folding-doors stood open to receive him. The passage into
+which he first entered was high, but somewhat narrow; red tiling formed
+the floor, and the walls were tinted to correspond. Yet this plainness
+was a warning of something beautiful to come.
+
+He moved on slowly, all his faculties in repose. Presently he would be
+in the presence of Iras; she was waiting for him; waiting with song and
+story and badinage, sparkling, fanciful, capricious—with smiles which
+glorified her glance, and glances which lent voluptuous suggestion to
+her whisper. She had sent for him the evening of the boat-ride on the
+lake in the Orchard of Palms; she had sent for him now; and he was
+going to her in the beautiful palace of Idernee. He was happy and
+dreamful rather than thoughtless.
+
+The passage brought him to a closed door, in front of which he paused;
+and, as he did so, the broad leaves began to open of themselves,
+without creak or sound of lock or latch, or touch of foot or finger.
+The singularity was lost in the view that broke upon him.
+
+Standing in the shade of the dull passage, and looking through the
+doorway, he beheld the atrium of a Roman house, roomy and rich to a
+fabulous degree of magnificence.
+
+How large the chamber was cannot be stated, because of the deceit there
+is in exact proportions; its depth was vista-like, something never to
+be said of an equal interior. When he stopped to make survey, and
+looked down upon the floor, he was standing upon the breast of a Leda,
+represented as caressing a swan; and, looking farther, he saw the whole
+floor was similarly laid in mosaic pictures of mythological subjects.
+And there were stools and chairs, each a separate design, and a work of
+art exquisitely composed, and tables much carven, and here and there
+couches which were invitations of themselves. The articles of
+furniture, which stood out from the walls, were duplicated on the floor
+distinctly as if they floated unrippled water; even the panelling of
+the walls, the figures upon them in painting and bas-relief, and the
+fresco of the ceiling were reflected on the floor. The ceiling curved
+up towards the centre, where there was an opening through which the
+sunlight poured without hindrance, and the sky, ever so blue, seemed in
+hand-reach; the impluvium under the opening was guarded by bronzed
+rails; the gilded pillars supporting the roof at the edges of the
+opening shone like flame where the sun struck them, and their
+reflections beneath seemed to stretch to infinite depth. And there were
+candelabra quaint and curious, and statuary and vases; the whole making
+an interior that would have befitted well the house on the Palatine
+Hill which Cicero bought of Crassus, or that other, yet more famous for
+extravagance, the Tusculan villa of Scaurus.
+
+Still in his dreamful mood, Ben-Hur sauntered about, charmed by all he
+beheld, and waiting. He did not mind a little delay; when Iras was
+ready, she would come or send a servant. In every well-regulated Roman
+house the atrium was the reception chamber for visitors.
+
+Twice, thrice, he made the round. As often he stood under the opening
+in the roof, and pondered the sky and its azure depth; then, leaning
+against a pillar, he studied the distribution of light and shade, and
+its effects; here a veil diminishing objects, there a brilliance
+exaggerating others; yet nobody came. Time, or rather the passage of
+time, began at length to impress itself upon him, and he wondered why
+Iras stayed so long. Again he traced out the figures upon the floor,
+but not with the satisfaction the first inspection gave him. He paused
+often to listen: directly impatience blew a little fevered breath upon
+his spirit; next time it blew stronger and hotter; and at last he woke
+to a consciousness of the silence which held the house in thrall, and
+the thought of it made him uneasy and distrustful. Still he put the
+feeling off with a smile and a promise. “Oh, she is giving the last
+touch to her eyelids, or she is arranging a chaplet for me; she will
+come presently, more beautiful of the delay!” He sat down then to
+admire a candelabrum—a bronze plinth on rollers, filigree on the sides
+and edges; the post at one end, and on the end opposite it an altar and
+a female celebrant; the lamp-rests swinging by delicate chains from the
+extremities of drooping palm-branches; altogether a wonder in its way.
+But the silence would obtrude itself: he listened even as he looked at
+the pretty object—he listened, but there was not a sound; the palace
+was still as a tomb.
+
+There might be a mistake. No, the messenger had come from the Egyptian,
+and this was the palace of Idernee. Then he remembered how mysteriously
+the door had opened so soundlessly, so of itself. He would see!
+
+He went to the same door. Though he walked ever so lightly the sound of
+his stepping was loud and harsh, and he shrank from it. He was getting
+nervous. The cumbrous Roman lock resisted his first effort to raise it;
+and the second—the blood chilled in his cheeks—he wrenched with all his
+might: in vain—the door was not even shaken. A sense of danger seized
+him, and for a moment he stood irresolute.
+
+Who in Antioch had the motive to do him harm?
+
+Messala!
+
+And this palace of Idernee? He had seen Egypt in the vestibule, Athens
+in the snowy portico; but here, in the atrium, was Rome; everything
+about him betrayed Roman ownership. True, the site was on the great
+thoroughfare of the city, a very public place in which to do him
+violence; but for that reason it was more accordant with the audacious
+genius of his enemy. The atrium underwent a change; with all its
+elegance and beauty, it was no more than a trap. Apprehension always
+paints in black.
+
+The idea irritated Ben-Hur.
+
+There were many doors on the right and left of the atrium, leading,
+doubtless, to sleeping-chambers; he tried them, but they were all
+firmly fastened. Knocking might bring response. Ashamed to make outcry,
+he betook himself to a couch, and, lying down, tried to reflect.
+
+All too plainly he was a prisoner; but for what purpose? and by whom?
+
+If the work were Messala’s! He sat up, looked about, and smiled
+defiantly. There were weapons in every table. But birds had been
+starved in golden cages; not so would he—the couches would serve him as
+battering-rams; and he was strong, and there was such increase of might
+in rage and despair!
+
+Messala himself could not come. He would never walk again; he was a
+cripple like Simonides; still he could move others. And where were
+there not others to be moved by him? Ben-Hur arose, and tried the doors
+again. Once he called out; the room echoed so that he was startled.
+With such calmness as he could assume, he made up his mind to wait a
+time before attempting to break a way out.
+
+In such a situation the mind has its ebb and flow of disquiet, with
+intervals of peace between. At length—how long, though, he could not
+have said—he came to the conclusion that the affair was an accident or
+mistake. The palace certainly belonged to somebody; it must have care
+and keeping: and the keeper would come; the evening or the night would
+bring him. Patience!
+
+So concluding, he waited.
+
+Half an hour passed—a much longer period to Ben-Hur—when the door which
+had admitted him opened and closed noiselessly as before, and without
+attracting his attention.
+
+The moment of the occurrence he was sitting at the farther end of the
+room. A footstep startled him.
+
+“At last she has come!” he thought, with a throb of relief and
+pleasure, and arose.
+
+The step was heavy, and accompanied with the gride and clang of coarse
+sandals. The gilded pillars were between him and the door; he advanced
+quietly, and leaned against one of them. Presently he heard voices—the
+voices of men—one of them rough and guttural. What was said he could
+not understand, as the language was not of the East or South of Europe.
+
+After a general survey of the room, the strangers crossed to their
+left, and were brought into Ben-Hur’s view—two men, one very stout,
+both tall, and both in short tunics. They had not the air of masters of
+the house or domestics. Everything they saw appeared wonderful to them;
+everything they stopped to examine they touched. They were vulgarians.
+The atrium seemed profaned by their presence. At the same time, their
+leisurely manner and the assurance with which they proceeded pointed to
+some right or business; if business, with whom?
+
+With much jargon they sauntered this way and that, all the time
+gradually approaching the pillar by which Ben-Hur was standing. Off a
+little way, where a slanted gleam of the sun fell with a glare upon the
+mosaic of the floor, there was a statue which attracted their notice.
+In examining it, they stopped in the light.
+
+The mystery surrounding his own presence in the palace tended, as we
+have seen, to make Ben-Hur nervous; so now, when in the tall stout
+stranger he recognized the Northman whom he had known in Rome, and seen
+crowned only the day before in the Circus as the winning pugilist; when
+he saw the man’s face, scarred with the wounds of many battles, and
+imbruted by ferocious passions; when he surveyed the fellow’s naked
+limbs, very marvels of exercise and training, and his shoulders of
+Herculean breadth, a thought of personal danger started a chill along
+every vein. A sure instinct warned him that the opportunity for murder
+was too perfect to have come by chance; and here now were the
+myrmidons, and their business was with him. He turned an anxious eye
+upon the Northman’s comrade—young, black-eyed, black-haired, and
+altogether Jewish in appearance; he observed, also, that both the men
+were in costume exactly such as professionals of their class were in
+the habit of wearing in the arena. Putting the several circumstances
+together, Ben-Hur could not be longer in doubt: he had been lured into
+the palace with design. Out of reach of aid, in this splendid privacy,
+he was to die!
+
+At a loss what to do, he gazed from man to man, while there was enacted
+within him that miracle of mind by which life is passed before us in
+awful detail, to be looked at by ourselves as if it were another’s; and
+from the evolvement, from a hidden depth, cast up, as it were, by a
+hidden hand, he was given to see that he had entered upon a new life,
+different from the old one in this: whereas, in that, he had been the
+victim of violences done to him, henceforth he was to be the aggressor.
+Only yesterday he had found his first victim! To the purely Christian
+nature the presentation would have brought the weakness of remorse. Not
+so with Ben-Hur; his spirit had its emotions from the teachings of the
+first lawgiver, not the last and greatest one. He had dealt punishment,
+not wrong, to Messala. By permission of the Lord, he had triumphed; and
+he derived faith from the circumstance—faith the source of all rational
+strength, especially strength in peril.
+
+Nor did the influence stop there. The new life was made appear to him a
+mission just begun, and holy as the King to come was holy, and certain
+as the coming of the King was certain—a mission in which force was
+lawful if only because it was unavoidable. Should he, on the very
+threshold of such an errand, be afraid?
+
+He undid the sash around his waist, and, baring his head and casting
+off his white Jewish gown, stood forth in an undertunic not unlike
+those of the enemy, and was ready, body and mind. Folding his arms, he
+placed his back against the pillar, and calmly waited.
+
+The examination of the statue was brief. Directly the Northman turned,
+and said something in the unknown tongue; then both looked at Ben-Hur.
+A few more words, and they advanced towards him.
+
+“Who are you?” he asked, in Latin.
+
+The Northman fetched a smile which did not relieve his face of its
+brutalism, and answered,
+
+“Barbarians.”
+
+“This is the palace of Idernee. Whom seek you? Stand and answer.”
+
+The words were spoken with earnestness. The strangers stopped; and in
+his turn the Northman asked, “Who are you?”
+
+“A Roman.”
+
+The giant laid his head back upon his shoulders.
+
+“Ha, ha, ha! I have heard how a god once came from a cow licking a
+salted stone; but not even a god can make a Roman of a Jew.”
+
+The laugh over, he spoke to his companion again, and they moved nearer.
+
+“Hold!” said Ben-Hur, quitting the pillar. “One word.”
+
+They stopped again.
+
+“A word!” replied the Saxon, folding his immense arms across his
+breast, and relaxing the menace beginning to blacken his face. “A word!
+Speak.”
+
+“You are Thord the Northman.”
+
+The giant opened his blue eyes.
+
+“You were lanista in Rome.”
+
+Thord nodded.
+
+“I was your scholar.”
+
+“No,” said Thord, shaking his head. “By the beard of Irmin, I had never
+a Jew to make a fighting-man of.”
+
+“But I will prove my saying.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“You came here to kill me.”
+
+“That is true.”
+
+“Then let this man fight me singly, and I will make the proof on his
+body.”
+
+A gleam of humor shone in the Northman’s face. He spoke to his
+companion, who made answer; then he replied with the naivete of a
+diverted child,
+
+“Wait till I say begin.”
+
+By repeated touches of his foot, he pushed a couch out on the floor,
+and proceeded leisurely to stretch his burly form upon it; when
+perfectly at ease, he said, simply, “Now begin.”
+
+Without ado, Ben-Hur walked to his antagonist.
+
+“Defend thyself,” he said.
+
+The man, nothing loath, put up his hands.
+
+As the two thus confronted each other in approved position, there was
+no discernible inequality between them; on the contrary, they were as
+like as brothers. To the stranger’s confident smile, Ben-Hur opposed an
+earnestness which, had his skill been known, would have been accepted
+fair warning of danger. Both knew the combat was to be mortal.
+
+Ben-Hur feinted with his right hand. The stranger warded, slightly
+advancing his left arm. Ere he could return to guard, Ben-Hur caught
+him by the wrist in a grip which years at the oar had made terrible as
+a vise. The surprise was complete, and no time given. To throw himself
+forward; to push the arm across the man’s throat and over his right
+shoulder, and turn him left side front; to strike surely with the ready
+left hand; to strike the bare neck under the ear—were but petty
+divisions of the same act. No need of a second blow. The myrmidon fell
+heavily, and without a cry, and lay still.
+
+Ben-Hur turned to Thord.
+
+“Ha! What! By the beard of Irmin!” the latter cried, in astonishment,
+rising to a sitting posture. Then he laughed.
+
+“Ha, ha, ha! I could not have done it better myself.”
+
+He viewed Ben-Hur coolly from head to foot, and, rising, faced him with
+undisguised admiration.
+
+“It was my trick—the trick I have practised for ten years in the
+schools of Rome. You are not a Jew. Who are you?”
+
+“You knew Arrius the duumvir.”
+
+“Quintus Arrius? Yes, he was my patron.”
+
+“He had a son.”
+
+“Yes,” said Thord, his battered features lighting dully, “I knew the
+boy; he would have made a king gladiator. Cæsar offered him his
+patronage. I taught him the very trick you played on this one here—a
+trick impossible except to a hand and arm like mine. It has won me many
+a crown.”
+
+“I am that son of Arrius.”
+
+Thord drew nearer, and viewed him carefully; then his eyes brightened
+with genuine pleasure, and, laughing, he held out his hand.
+
+“Ha, ha, ha! He told me I would find a Jew here—a Jew—a dog of a
+Jew—killing whom was serving the gods.”
+
+“Who told you so?” asked Ben-Hur, taking the hand.
+
+“He—Messala—ha, ha, ha!”
+
+“When, Thord?”
+
+“Last night.”
+
+“I thought he was hurt.”
+
+“He will never walk again. On his bed he told me between groans.”
+
+A very vivid portrayal of hate in a few words; and Ben-Hur saw that the
+Roman, if he lived, would still be capable and dangerous, and follow
+him unrelentingly. Revenge remained to sweeten the ruined life;
+therefore the clinging to fortune lost in the wager with Sanballat.
+Ben-Hur ran the ground over, with a distinct foresight of the many ways
+in which it would be possible for his enemy to interfere with him in
+the work he had undertaken for the King who was coming. Why not he
+resort to the Roman’s methods? The man hired to kill him could be hired
+to strike back. It was in his power to offer higher wages. The
+temptation was strong; and, half yielding, he chanced to look down at
+his late antagonist lying still, with white upturned face, so like
+himself. A light came to him, and he asked, “Thord, what was Messala to
+give you for killing me?”
+
+“A thousand sestertii.”
+
+“You shall have them yet; and so you do now what I tell you, I will add
+three thousand more to the sum.”
+
+The giant reflected aloud,
+
+“I won five thousand yesterday; from the Roman one—six. Give me four,
+good Arrius—four more—and I will stand firm for you, though old Thor,
+my namesake, strike me with his hammer. Make it four, and I will kill
+the lying patrician, if you say so. I have only to cover his mouth with
+my hand—thus.”
+
+He illustrated the process by clapping his hand over his own mouth.
+
+“I see,” said Ben-Hur; “ten thousand sestertii is a fortune. It will
+enable you to return to Rome, and open a wine-shop near the Great
+Circus, and live as becomes the first of the lanistae.”
+
+The very scars on the giant’s face glowed afresh with the pleasure the
+picture gave him.
+
+“I will make it four thousand,” Ben-Hur continued; “and in what you
+shall do for the money there will be no blood on your hands, Thord.
+Hear me now. Did not your friend here look like me?”
+
+“I would have said he was an apple from the same tree.”
+
+“Well, if I put on his tunic, and dress him in these clothes of mine,
+and you and I go away together, leaving him here, can you not get your
+sestertii from Messala all the same? You have only to make him believe
+it me that is dead.”
+
+Thord laughed till the tears ran into his mouth.
+
+“Ha, ha, ha! Ten thousand sestertii were never won so easily. And a
+wine-shop by the Great Circus!—all for a lie without blood in it! Ha,
+ha, ha! Give me thy hand, O son of Arrius. Get on now, and—ha, ha,
+ha!—if ever you come to Rome, fail not to ask for the wine-shop of
+Thord the Northman. By the beard of Irmin, I will give you the best,
+though I borrow it from Cæsar!”
+
+They shook hands again; after which the exchange of clothes was
+effected. It was arranged then that a messenger should go at night to
+Thord’s lodging-place with the four thousand sestertii. When they were
+done, the giant knocked at the front door; it opened to him; and,
+passing out of the atrium, he led Ben-Hur into a room adjoining, where
+the latter completed his attire from the coarse garments of the dead
+pugilist. They separated directly in the Omphalus.
+
+“Fail not, O son of Arrius, fail not the wine-shop near the Great
+Circus! Ha, ha, ha! By the beard of Irmin, there was never fortune
+gained so cheap. The gods keep you!”
+
+Upon leaving the atrium, Ben-Hur gave a last look at the myrmidon as he
+lay in the Jewish vestments, and was satisfied. The likeness was
+striking. If Thord kept faith, the cheat was a secret to endure
+forever.
+
+
+At night, in the house of Simonides, Ben-Hur told the good man all that
+had taken place in the palace of Idernee; and it was agreed that, after
+a few days, public inquiry should be set afloat for the discovery of
+the whereabouts of the son of Arrius. Eventually the matter was to be
+carried boldly to Maxentius; then, if the mystery came not out, it was
+concluded that Messala and Gratus would be at rest and happy, and
+Ben-Hur free to betake himself to Jerusalem, to make search for his
+lost people.
+
+At the leave-taking, Simonides sat in his chair out on the terrace
+overlooking the river, and gave his farewell and the peace of the Lord
+with the impressment of a father. Esther went with the young man to the
+head of the steps.
+
+“If I find my mother, Esther, thou shalt go to her at Jerusalem, and be
+a sister to Tirzah.”
+
+And with the words he kissed her.
+
+Was it only a kiss of peace?
+
+He crossed the river next to the late quarters of Ilderim, where he
+found the Arab who was to serve him as guide. The horses were brought
+out.
+
+“This one is thine,” said the Arab.
+
+Ben-Hur looked, and, lo! it was Aldebaran, the swiftest and brightest
+of the sons of Mira, and, next to Sirius, the beloved of the sheik; and
+he knew the old man’s heart came to him along with the gift.
+
+The corpse in the atrium was taken up and buried by night; and, as part
+of Messala’s plan, a courier was sent off to Gratus to make him at rest
+by the announcement of Ben-Hur’s death—this time past question.
+
+Ere long a wine-shop was opened near the Circus Maximus, with
+inscription over the door:
+
+THORD THE NORTHMAN.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SIXTH
+
+
+“Is that a Death? and are there two?
+Is Death that woman’s mate?
+
+Her skin was as white as leprosy,
+The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
+Who thicks man’s blood with cold.”
+
+COLERIDGE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Our story moves forward now thirty days from the night Ben-Hur left
+Antioch to go out with Sheik Ilderim into the desert.
+
+A great change has befallen—great at least as respects the fortunes of
+our hero. _Valerius Gratus has been succeeded by Pontius Pilate!_
+
+The removal, it may be remarked, cost Simonides exactly five talents
+Roman money in hand paid to Sejanus, who was then in height of power as
+imperial favorite; the object being to help Ben-Hur, by lessening his
+exposure while in and about Jerusalem attempting discovery of his
+people. To such pious use the faithful servant put the winnings from
+Drusus and his associates; all of whom, having paid their wagers,
+became at once and naturally the enemies of Messala, whose repudiation
+was yet an unsettled question in Rome.
+
+Brief as the time was, already the Jews knew the change of rulers was
+not for the better.
+
+The cohorts sent to relieve the garrison of Antonia made their entry
+into the city by night; next morning the first sight that greeted the
+people resident in the neighborhood was the walls of the old Tower
+decorated with military ensigns, which unfortunately consisted of busts
+of the emperor mixed with eagles and globes. A multitude, in passion,
+marched to Cæsarea, where Pilate was lingering, and implored him to
+remove the detested images. Five days and nights they beset his palace
+gates; at last he appointed a meeting with them in the Circus. When
+they were assembled, he encircled them with soldiers; instead of
+resisting, they offered him their lives, and conquered. He recalled the
+images and ensigns to Cæsarea, where Gratus, with more consideration,
+had kept such abominations housed during the eleven years of his reign.
+
+The worst of men do once in a while vary their wickednesses by good
+acts; so with Pilate. He ordered an inspection of all the prisons in
+Judea, and a return of the names of the persons in custody, with a
+statement of the crimes for which they had been committed. Doubtless,
+the motive was the one so common with officials just installed—dread of
+entailed responsibility; the people, however, in thought of the good
+which might come of the measure, gave him credit, and, for a period,
+were comforted. The revelations were astonishing. Hundreds of persons
+were released against whom there were no accusations; many others came
+to light who had long been accounted dead; yet more amazing, there was
+opening of dungeons not merely unknown at the time by the people, but
+actually forgotten by the prison authorities. With one instance of the
+latter kind we have now to deal; and, strange to say, it occurred in
+Jerusalem.
+
+The Tower of Antonia, which will be remembered as occupying two thirds
+of the sacred area on Mount Moriah, was originally a castle built by
+the Macedonians. Afterwards, John Hyrcanus erected the castle into a
+fortress for the defence of the Temple, and in his day it was
+considered impregnable to assault; but when Herod came with his bolder
+genius, he strengthened its walls and extended them, leaving a vast
+pile which included every appurtenance necessary for the stronghold he
+intended it to be forever; such as offices, barracks, armories,
+magazines, cisterns, and last, though not least, prisons of all grades.
+He levelled the solid rock, and tapped it with deep excavations, and
+built over them; connecting the whole great mass with the Temple by a
+beautiful colonnade, from the roof of which one could look down over
+the courts of the sacred structure. In such condition the Tower fell at
+last out of his hands into those of the Romans, who were quick to see
+its strength and advantages, and convert it to uses becoming such
+masters. All through the administration of Gratus it had been a
+garrisoned citadel and underground prison terrible to revolutionists.
+Woe when the cohorts poured from its gates to suppress disorder! Woe
+not less when a Jew passed the same gates going in under arrest!
+
+With this explanation, we hasten to our story.
+
+
+The order of the new procurator requiring a report of the persons in
+custody was received at the Tower of Antonia, and promptly executed;
+and two days have gone since the last unfortunate was brought up for
+examination. The tabulated statement, ready for forwarding, lies on the
+table of the tribune in command; in five minutes more it will be on the
+way to Pilate, sojourning in the palace up on Mount Zion.
+
+The tribune’s office is spacious and cool, and furnished in a style
+suitable to the dignity of the commandant of a post in every respect so
+important. Looking in upon him about the seventh hour of the day, the
+officer appears weary and impatient; when the report is despatched, he
+will to the roof of the colonnade for air and exercise, and the
+amusement to be had watching the Jews over in the courts of the Temple.
+His subordinates and clerks share his impatience.
+
+In the spell of waiting a man appeared in a doorway leading to an
+adjoining apartment. He rattled a bunch of keys, each heavy as a
+hammer, and at once attracted the chief’s attention.
+
+“Ah, Gesius! come in,” the tribune said.
+
+As the new-comer approached the table behind which the chief sat in an
+easy-chair, everybody present looked at him, and, observing a certain
+expression of alarm and mortification on his face, became silent that
+they might hear what he had to say.
+
+“O tribune!” he began, bending low, “I fear to tell what now I bring
+you.”
+
+“Another mistake—ha, Gesius?”
+
+“If I could persuade myself it is but a mistake, I would not be
+afraid.”
+
+“A crime then—or, worse, a breach of duty. Thou mayst laugh at Cæsar,
+or curse the gods, and live; but if the offence be to the eagles—ah,
+thou knowest, Gesius—go on!”
+
+“It is now about eight years since Valerius Gratus selected me to be
+keeper of prisoners here in the Tower,” said the man, deliberately. “I
+remember the morning I entered upon the duties of my office. There had
+been a riot the day before, and fighting in the streets. We slew many
+Jews, and suffered on our side. The affair came, it was said, of an
+attempt to assassinate Gratus, who had been knocked from his horse by a
+tile thrown from a roof. I found him sitting where you now sit, O
+tribune, his head swathed in bandages. He told me of my selection, and
+gave me these keys, numbered to correspond with the numbers of the
+cells; they were the badges of my office, he said, and not to be parted
+with. There was a roll of parchment on the table. Calling me to him, he
+opened the roll. ‘Here are maps of the cells,’ said he. There were
+three of them. ‘This one,’ he went on, ‘shows the arrangement of the
+upper floor; this second one gives you the second floor; and this last
+is of the lower floor. I give them to you in trust.’ I took them from
+his hand, and he said, further, ‘Now you have the keys and the maps; go
+immediately, and acquaint yourself with the whole arrangement; visit
+each cell, and see to its condition. When anything is needed for the
+security of a prisoner, order it according to your judgment, for you
+are the master under me, and no other.’
+
+“I saluted him, and turned to go away; he called me back. ‘Ah, I
+forgot,’ he said. ‘Give me the map of the third floor.’ I gave it to
+him, and he spread it upon the table. ‘Here, Gesius,’ he said, ‘see
+this cell.’ He laid his finger on the one numbered V. ‘There are three
+men confined in that cell, desperate characters, who by some means got
+hold of a state secret, and suffer for their curiosity, which’—he
+looked at me severely—‘in such matters is worse than a crime.
+Accordingly, they are blind and tongueless, and are placed there for
+life. They shall have nothing but food and drink, to be given them
+through a hole, which you will find in the wall covered by a slide. Do
+you hear, Gesius?’ I made him answer. ‘It is well,’ he continued. ‘One
+thing more which you shall not forget, or’—he looked at me
+threateningly—‘The door of their cell—cell number V. on the same
+floor—this one, Gesius’—he put his finger on the particular cell to
+impress my memory—‘shall never be opened for any purpose, neither to
+let one in nor out, not even yourself.’ ‘But if they die?’ I asked. ‘If
+they die,’ he said, ‘the cell shall be their tomb. They were put there
+to die, and be lost. The cell is leprous. Do you understand?’ With that
+he let me go.”
+
+Gesius stopped, and from the breast of his tunic drew three parchments,
+all much yellowed by time and use; selecting one of them, he spread it
+upon the table before the tribune, saying, simply, “This is the lower
+floor.”
+
+The whole company looked at
+
+THE MAP
+
+   __________________________________________
+  |                                          |
+  |                 Passage                  |
+  |                                          |
+  |--][---+---][---+---][---+---][---+---][--|
+  |       |        |        |        |       |
+  |   V   |   IV   |   III  |   II   |   I   |
+  |_______|________|________|________|_______|
+
+
+“This is exactly, O tribune, as I had it from Gratus. See, there is
+cell number V.,” said Gesius.
+
+“I see,” the tribune replied. “Go on now. The cell was leprous, he
+said.”
+
+“I would like to ask you a question,” remarked the keeper, modestly.
+
+The tribune assented.
+
+“Had I not a right, under the circumstances, to believe the map a true
+one?”
+
+“What else couldst thou?”
+
+“Well, it is not a true one.”
+
+The chief looked up surprised.
+
+“It is not a true one,” the keeper repeated. “It shows but five cells
+upon that floor, while there are six.”
+
+“Six, sayest thou?”
+
+“I will show you the floor as it is—or as I believe it to be.”
+
+Upon a page of his tablets, Gesius drew the following diagram, and gave
+it to the tribune:
+
+   __________________________________________
+  |                                          |
+  |--][---+---][---+---][---+---][---+---][--|
+  |       |        |        |        |       |
+  |   V   |   IV   |   III  |   II   |   I   |
+  |--][---+--------+--------+--------+-------|
+  |                    VI                    |
+  |__________________________________________|
+
+
+“Thou hast done well,” said the tribune, examining the drawing, and
+thinking the narrative at an end. “I will have the map corrected, or,
+better, I will have a new one made, and given thee. Come for it in the
+morning.”
+
+So saying, he arose.
+
+“But hear me further, O tribune.”
+
+“To-morrow, Gesius, to-morrow.”
+
+“That which I have yet to tell will not wait.”
+
+The tribune good-naturedly resumed his chair.
+
+“I will hurry,” said the keeper, humbly, “only let me ask another
+question. Had I not a right to believe Gratus in what he further told
+me as to the prisoners in cell number V.?”
+
+“Yes, it was thy duty to believe there were three prisoners in the
+cell—prisoners of state—blind and without tongues.”
+
+“Well,” said the keeper, “that was not true either.”
+
+“No!” said the tribune, with returning interest.
+
+“Hear, and judge for yourself, O tribune. As required, I visited all
+the cells, beginning with those on the first floor, and ending with
+those on the lower. The order that the door of number V. should not be
+opened had been respected; through all the eight years food and drink
+for three men had been passed through a hole in the wall. I went to the
+door yesterday, curious to see the wretches who, against all
+expectation, had lived so long. The locks refused the key. We pulled a
+little, and the door fell down, rusted from its hinges. Going in, I
+found but one man, old, blind, tongueless, and naked. His hair dropped
+in stiffened mats below his waist. His skin was like the parchment
+there. He held his hands out, and the finger-nails curled and twisted
+like the claws of a bird. I asked him where his companions were. He
+shook his head in denial. Thinking to find the others, we searched the
+cell. The floor was dry; so were the walls. If three men had been shut
+in there, and two of them had died, at least their bones would have
+endured.”
+
+“Wherefore thou thinkest—”
+
+“I think, O tribune, there has been but one prisoner there in the eight
+years.”
+
+The chief regarded the keeper sharply, and said, “Have a care; thou art
+more than saying Valerius lied.”
+
+Gesius bowed, but said, “He might have been mistaken.”
+
+“No, he was right,” said the tribune, warmly. “By thine own statement
+he was right. Didst thou not say but now that for eight years food and
+drink had been furnished three men?”
+
+The bystanders approved the shrewdness of their chief; yet Gesius did
+not seem discomfited.
+
+“You have but half the story, O tribune. When you have it all, you will
+agree with me. You know what I did with the man: that I sent him to the
+bath, and had him shorn and clothed, and then took him to the gate of
+the Tower, and bade him go free. I washed my hands of him. To-day he
+came back, and was brought to me. By signs and tears he at last made me
+understand he wished to return to his cell, and I so ordered. As they
+were leading him off, he broke away and kissed my feet, and, by piteous
+dumb imploration, insisted I should go with him; and I went. The
+mystery of the three men stayed in my mind. I was not satisfied about
+it. Now I am glad I yielded to his entreaty.”
+
+The whole company at this point became very still.
+
+“When we were in the cell again, and the prisoner knew it, he caught my
+hand eagerly, and led me to a hole like that through which we were
+accustomed to pass him his food. Though large enough to push your
+helmet through, it escaped me yesterday. Still holding my hand, he put
+his face to the hole and gave a beast-like cry. A sound came faintly
+back. I was astonished, and drew him away, and called out, ‘Ho, here!’
+At first there was no answer. I called again, and received back these
+words, ‘Be thou praised, O Lord!’ Yet more astonishing, O tribune, the
+voice was a woman’s. And I asked, ‘Who are you?’ and had reply, ‘A
+woman of Israel, entombed here with her daughter. Help us quickly, or
+we die.’ I told them to be of cheer, and hurried here to know your
+will.”
+
+The tribune arose hastily.
+
+“Thou wert right, Gesius,” he said, “and I see now. The map was a lie,
+and so was the tale of the three men. There have been better Romans
+than Valerius Gratus.”
+
+“Yes,” said the keeper. “I gleaned from the prisoner that he had
+regularly given the women of the food and drink he had received.”
+
+“It is accounted for,” replied the tribune, and observing the
+countenances of his friends, and reflecting how well it would be to
+have witnesses, he added, “Let us rescue the women. Come all.”
+
+Gesuis was pleased.
+
+“We will have to pierce the wall,” he said. “I found where a door had
+been, but it was filled solidly with stones and mortar.”
+
+The tribune stayed to say to a clerk, “Send workmen after me with
+tools. Make haste; but hold the report, for I see it will have to be
+corrected.”
+
+In a short time they were gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+“A woman of Israel, entombed here with her daughter. Help us quickly,
+or we die.”
+
+Such was the reply Gesius, the keeper, had from the cell which appears
+on his amended map as VI. The reader, when he observed the answer, knew
+who the unfortunates were, and, doubtless, said to himself, “At last
+the mother of Ben-Hur, and Tirzah, his sister!”
+
+And so it was.
+
+The morning of their seizure, eight years before, they had been carried
+to the Tower, where Gratus proposed to put them out of the way. He had
+chosen the Tower for the purpose as more immediately in his own
+keeping, and cell VI. because, first, it could be better lost than any
+other; and, secondly, it was infected with leprosy; for these prisoners
+were not merely to be put in a safe place, but in a place to die. They
+were, accordingly, taken down by slaves in the night-time, when there
+were no witnesses of the deed; then, in completion of the savage task,
+the same slaves walled up the door, after which they were themselves
+separated, and sent away never to be heard of more. To save accusation,
+and, in the event of discovery, to leave himself such justification as
+might be allowed in a distinction between the infliction of a
+punishment and the commission of a double murder, Gratus preferred
+sinking his victims where natural death was certain, though slow. That
+they might linger along, he selected a convict who had been made blind
+and tongueless, and sank him in the only connecting cell, there to
+serve them with food and drink. Under no circumstances could the poor
+wretch tell the tale or identify either the prisoners or their
+doomsman. So, with a cunning partly due to Messala, the Roman, under
+color of punishing a brood of assassins, smoothed a path to
+confiscation of the estate of the Hurs, of which no portion ever
+reached the imperial coffers.
+
+As the last step in the scheme, Gratus summarily removed the old keeper
+of the prisons; not because he knew what had been done—for he did
+not—but because, knowing the underground floors as he did, it would be
+next to impossible to keep the transaction from him. Then, with
+masterly ingenuity, the procurator had new maps drawn for delivery to a
+new keeper, with the omission, as we have seen, of cell VI. The
+instructions given the latter, taken with the omission on the map,
+accomplished the design—the cell and its unhappy tenants were all alike
+lost.
+
+What may be thought of the life of the mother and daughter during the
+eight years must have relation to their culture and previous habits.
+Conditions are pleasant or grievous to us according to our
+sensibilities. It is not extreme to say, if there was a sudden exit of
+all men from the world, heaven, as prefigured in the Christian idea,
+would not be a heaven to the majority; on the other hand, neither would
+all suffer equally in the so-called Tophet. Cultivation has its
+balances. As the mind is made intelligent, the capacity of the soul for
+pure enjoyment is proportionally increased. Well, therefore, if it be
+saved! If lost, however, alas that it ever had cultivation! its
+capacity for enjoyment in the one case is the measure of its capacity
+to suffer in the other. Wherefore repentance must be something more
+than mere remorse for sins; it comprehends a change of nature befitting
+heaven.
+
+We repeat, to form an adequate idea of the suffering endured by the
+mother of Ben-Hur, the reader must think of her spirit and its
+sensibilities as much as, if not more than, of the conditions of the
+immurement; the question being, not what the conditions were, but how
+she was affected by them. And now we may be permitted to say it was in
+anticipation of this thought that the scene in the summer-house on the
+roof of the family palace was given so fully in the beginning of the
+Second Book of our story. So, too, to be helpful when the inquiry
+should come up, we ventured the elaborate description of the palace of
+the Hurs.
+
+In other words, let the serene, happy, luxurious life in the princely
+house be recalled and contrasted with this existence in the lower
+dungeon of the Tower of Antonia; then if the reader, in his effort to
+realize the misery of the woman, persists in mere reference to
+conditions physical, he cannot go amiss; as he is a lover of his kind,
+tender of heart, he will be melted with much sympathy. But will he go
+further; will he more than sympathize with her; will he share her agony
+of mind and spirit; will he at least try to measure it—let him recall
+her as she discoursed to her son of God and nations and heroes; one
+moment a philosopher, the next a teacher, and all the time a mother.
+
+Would you hurt a man keenest, strike at his self-love; would you hurt a
+woman worst, aim at her affections.
+
+With quickened remembrance of these unfortunates—remembrance of them as
+they were—let us go down and see them as they are.
+
+The cell VI. was in form as Gesius drew it on his map. Of its
+dimensions but little idea can be had; enough that it was a roomy,
+roughened interior, with ledged and broken walls and floor.
+
+In the beginning, the site of the Macedonian Castle was separated from
+the site of the Temple by a narrow but deep cliff somewhat in shape of
+a wedge. The workmen, wishing to hew out a series of chambers, made
+their entry in the north face of the cleft, and worked in, leaving a
+ceiling of the natural stone; delving farther, they executed the cells
+V., IV., III., II., I., with no connection with number VI. except
+through number V. In like manner, they constructed the passage and
+stairs to the floor above. The process of the work was precisely that
+resorted to in carving out the Tombs of the Kings, yet to be seen a
+short distance north of Jerusalem; only when the cutting was done, cell
+VI. was enclosed on its outer side by a wall of prodigious stones, in
+which, for ventilation, narrow apertures were left bevelled like modern
+port-holes. Herod, when he took hold of the Temple and Tower, put a
+facing yet more massive upon this outer wall, and shut up all the
+apertures but one, which yet admitted a little vitalizing air, and a
+ray of light not nearly strong enough to redeem the room from darkness.
+
+Such was cell VI.
+
+Startle not now!
+
+The description of the blind and tongueless wretch just liberated from
+cell V. may be accepted to break the horror of what is coming.
+
+The two women are grouped close by the aperture; one is seated, the
+other is half reclining against her; there is nothing between them and
+the bare rock. The light, slanting upwards, strikes them with ghastly
+effect, and we cannot avoid seeing they are without vesture or
+covering. At the same time we are helped to the knowledge that love is
+there yet, for the two are in each other’s arms. Riches take wings,
+comforts vanish, hope withers away, but love stays with us. Love is
+God.
+
+Where the two are thus grouped the stony floor is polished shining
+smooth. Who shall say how much of the eight years they have spent in
+that space there in front of the aperture, nursing their hope of rescue
+by that timid yet friendly ray of light? When the brightness came
+creeping in, they knew it was dawn; when it began to fade, they knew
+the world was hushing for the night, which could not be anywhere so
+long and utterly dark as with them. The world! Through that crevice, as
+if it were broad and high as a king’s gate, they went to the world in
+thought, and passed the weary time going up and down as spirits go,
+looking and asking, the one for her son, the other for her brother. On
+the seas they sought him, and on the islands of the seas; to-day he was
+in this city, to-morrow in that other; and everywhere, and at all
+times, he was a flitting sojourner; for, as they lived waiting for him,
+he lived looking for them. How often their thoughts passed each other
+in the endless search, his coming, theirs going! It was such sweet
+flattery for them to say to each other, “While he lives, we shall not
+be forgotten; as long as he remembers us, there is hope!” The strength
+one can eke from little, who knows till he has been subjected to the
+trial?
+
+Our recollections of them in former days enjoin us to be respectful;
+their sorrows clothe them with sanctity. Without going too near, across
+the dungeon, we see they have undergone a change of appearance not to
+be accounted for by time or long confinement. The mother was beautiful
+as a woman, the daughter beautiful as a child; not even love could say
+so much now. Their hair is long, unkempt, and strangely white; they
+make us shrink and shudder with an indefinable repulsion, though the
+effect may be from an illusory glozing of the light glimmering dismally
+through the unhealthy murk; or they may be enduring the tortures of
+hunger and thirst, not having had to eat or drink since their servant,
+the convict, was taken away—that is, since yesterday.
+
+Tirzah, reclining against her mother in half embrace, moans piteously.
+
+“Be quiet, Tirzah. They will come. God is good. We have been mindful of
+him, and forgotten not to pray at every sounding of the trumpets over
+in the Temple. The light, you see, is still bright; the sun is standing
+in the south sky yet, and it is hardly more than the seventh hour.
+Somebody will come to us. Let us have faith. God is good.”
+
+Thus the mother. The words were simple and effective, although, eight
+years being now to be added to the thirteen she had attained when last
+we saw her, Tirzah was no longer a child.
+
+“I will try and be strong, mother,” she said. “Your suffering must be
+as great as mine; and I do so want to live for you and my brother! But
+my tongue burns, my lips scorch. I wonder where he is, and if he will
+ever, ever find us!”
+
+There is something in the voices that strikes us singularly—an
+unexpected tone, sharp, dry, metallic, unnatural.
+
+The mother draws the daughter closer to her breast, and says, “I
+dreamed about him last night, and saw him as plainly, Tirzah, as I see
+you. We must believe in dreams, you know, because our fathers did. The
+Lord spoke to them so often in that way. I thought we were in the
+Women’s Court just before the Gate Beautiful; there were many women
+with us; and he came and stood in the shade of the Gate, and looked
+here and there, at this one and that. My heart beat strong. I knew he
+was looking for us, and stretched my arms to him, and ran, calling him.
+He heard me and saw me, but he did not know me. In a moment he was
+gone.”
+
+“Would it not be so, mother, if we were to meet him in fact? We are so
+changed.”
+
+“It might be so; but—” The mother’s head droops, and her face knits as
+with a wrench of pain; recovering, however, she goes on—“but we could
+make ourselves known to him.”
+
+Tirzah tossed her arms, and moaned again.
+
+“Water, mother, water, though but a drop.”
+
+The mother stares around in blank helplessness. She has named God so
+often, and so often promised in his name, the repetition is beginning
+to have a mocking effect upon herself. A shadow passes before her
+dimming the dim light, and she is brought down to think of death as
+very near, waiting to come in as her faith goes out. Hardly knowing
+what she does, speaking aimlessly, because speak she must, she says
+again,
+
+“Patience, Tirzah; they are coming—they are almost here.”
+
+She thought she heard a sound over by the little trap in the
+partition-wall through which they held all their actual communication
+with the world. And she was not mistaken. A moment, and the cry of the
+convict rang through the cell. Tirzah heard it also; and they both
+arose, still keeping hold of each other.
+
+“Praised be the Lord forever!” exclaimed the mother, with the fervor of
+restored faith and hope.
+
+“Ho, there!” they heard next; and then, “Who are you?”
+
+The voice was strange. What matter? Except from Tirzah, they were the
+first and only words the mother had heard in eight years. The revulsion
+was mighty—from death to life—and so instantly!
+
+“A woman of Israel, entombed here with her daughter. Help us quickly,
+or we die.”
+
+“Be of cheer. I will return.”
+
+The women sobbed aloud. They were found; help was coming. From wish to
+wish hope flew as the twittering swallows fly. They were found; they
+would be released. And restoration would follow—restoration to all they
+had lost—home, society, property, son and brother! The scanty light
+glozed them with the glory of day, and, forgetful of pain and thirst
+and hunger, and of the menace of death, they sank upon the floor and
+cried, keeping fast hold of each other the while.
+
+And this time they had not long to wait. Gesius, the keeper, told his
+tale methodically, but finished it at last. The tribune was prompt.
+
+“Within there!” he shouted through the trap.
+
+“Here!” said the mother, rising.
+
+Directly she heard another sound in another place, as of blows on the
+wall—blows quick, ringing, and delivered with iron tools. She did not
+speak, nor did Tirzah, but they listened, well knowing the meaning of
+it all—that a way to liberty was being made for them. So men a long
+time buried in deep mines hear the coming of rescuers, heralded by
+thrust of bar and beat of pick, and answer gratefully with
+heart-throbs, their eyes fixed upon the spot whence the sounds proceed;
+and they cannot look away, lest the work should cease, and they be
+returned to despair.
+
+The arms outside were strong, the hands skillful, the will good. Each
+instant the blows sounded more plainly; now and then a piece fell with
+a crash; and liberty came nearer and nearer. Presently the workmen
+could be heard speaking. Then—O happiness!—through a crevice flashed a
+red ray of torches. Into the darkness it cut incisive as diamond
+brilliance, beautiful as if from a spear of the morning.
+
+“It is he, mother, it is he! He has found us at last!” cried Tirzah,
+with the quickened fancy of youth.
+
+But the mother answered meekly, “God is good!”
+
+A block fell inside, and another—then a great mass, and the door was
+open. A man grimed with mortar and stone-dust stepped in, and stopped,
+holding a torch over his head. Two or three others followed with
+torches, and stood aside for the tribune to enter.
+
+Respect for women is not all a conventionality, for it is the best
+proof of their proper nature. The tribune stopped, because they fled
+from him—not with fear, be it said, but shame; nor yet, O reader, from
+shame alone! From the obscurity of their partial hiding he heard these
+words, the saddest, most dreadful, most utterly despairing of the human
+tongue:
+
+“Come not near us—unclean, unclean!”
+
+The men flared their torches while they stared at each other.
+
+“Unclean, unclean!” came from the corner again, a slow tremulous wail
+exceedingly sorrowful. With such a cry we can imagine a spirit
+vanishing from the gates of Paradise, looking back the while.
+
+So the widow and mother performed her duty, and in the moment realized
+that the freedom she had prayed for and dreamed of, fruit of scarlet
+and gold seen afar, was but an apple of Sodom in the hand.
+
+SHE AND TIRZAH WERE—LEPERS!
+
+Possibly the reader does not know all the word means. Let him be told
+it with reference to the Law of that time, only a little modified in
+this.
+
+“These four are accounted as dead—the blind, the leper, the poor, and
+the childless.” Thus the Talmud.
+
+That is, to be a leper was to be treated as dead—to be excluded from
+the city as a corpse; to be spoken to by the best beloved and most
+loving only at a distance; to dwell with none but lepers; to be utterly
+unprivileged; to be denied the rites of the Temple and the synagogue;
+to go about in rent garments and with covered mouth, except when
+crying, “Unclean, unclean!” to find home in the wilderness or in
+abandoned tombs; to become a materialized specter of Hinnom and
+Gehenna; to be at all times less a living offence to others than a
+breathing torment to self; afraid to die, yet without hope except in
+death.
+
+Once—she might not tell the day or the year, for down in the haunted
+hell even time was lost—once the mother felt a dry scurf in the palm of
+her right hand, a trifle which she tried to wash away. It clung to the
+member pertinaciously; yet she thought but little of the sign till
+Tirzah complained that she, too, was attacked in the same way. The
+supply of water was scant, and they denied themselves drink that they
+might use it as a curative. At length the whole hand was attacked; the
+skin cracked open, the fingernails loosened from the flesh. There was
+not much pain withal, chiefly a steadily increasing discomfort. Later
+their lips began to parch and seam. One day the mother, who was cleanly
+to godliness, and struggled against the impurities of the dungeon with
+all ingenuity, thinking the enemy was taking hold on Tirzah’s face, led
+her to the light, and, looking with the inspiration of a terrible
+dread, lo! the young girl’s eyebrows were white as snow.
+
+Oh, the anguish of that assurance!
+
+The mother sat awhile speechless, motionless, paralyzed of soul, and
+capable of but one thought—leprosy, leprosy!
+
+When she began to think, mother-like, it was not of herself, but her
+child, and, mother-like, her natural tenderness turned to courage, and
+she made ready for the last sacrifice of perfect heroism. She buried
+her knowledge in her heart; hopeless herself, she redoubled her
+devotion to Tirzah, and with wonderful ingenuity—wonderful chiefly in
+its very inexhaustibility—continued to keep the daughter ignorant of
+what they were beset with, and even hopeful that it was nothing. She
+repeated her little games, and retold her stories, and invented new
+ones, and listened with ever so much pleasure to the songs she would
+have from Tirzah, while on her own wasting lips the psalms of the
+singing king and their race served to bring soothing of forgetfulness,
+and keep alive in them both the recollection of the God who would seem
+to have abandoned them—the world not more lightly or utterly.
+
+Slowly, steadily, with horrible certainty, the disease spread, after a
+while bleaching their heads white, eating holes in their lips and
+eyelids, and covering their bodies with scales; then it fell to their
+throats shrilling their voices, and to their joints, hardening the
+tissues and cartilages—slowly, and, as the mother well knew, past
+remedy, it was affecting their lungs and arteries and bones, at each
+advance making the sufferers more and more loathsome; and so it would
+continue till death, which might be years before them.
+
+Another day of dread at length came—the day the mother, under impulsion
+of duty, at last told Tirzah the name of their ailment; and the two, in
+agony of despair, prayed that the end might come quickly.
+
+Still, as is the force of habit, these so afflicted grew in time not
+merely to speak composedly of their disease; they beheld the hideous
+transformation of their persons as of course, and in despite clung to
+existence. One tie to earth remained to them; unmindful of their own
+loneliness, they kept up a certain spirit by talking and dreaming of
+Ben-Hur. The mother promised reunion with him to the sister, and she to
+the mother, not doubting, either of them, that he was equally faithful
+to them, and would be equally happy of the meeting. And with the
+spinning and respinning of this slender thread they found pleasure, and
+excused their not dying. In such manner as we have seen, they were
+solacing themselves the moment Gesius called them, at the end of twelve
+hours’ fasting and thirst.
+
+The torches flashed redly through the dungeon, and liberty was come.
+“God is good,” the widow cried—not for what had been, O reader, but for
+what was. In thankfulness for present mercy, nothing so becomes us as
+losing sight of past ills.
+
+The tribune came directly; then in the corner to which she had fled,
+suddenly a sense of duty smote the elder of the women, and straightway
+the awful warning—
+
+“Unclean, unclean!”
+
+Ah, the pang the effort to acquit herself of that duty cost the mother!
+Not all the selfishness of joy over the prospect could keep her blind
+to the consequences of release, now that it was at hand. The old happy
+life could never be again. If she went near the house called home, it
+would be to stop at the gate and cry, “Unclean, unclean!” She must go
+about with the yearnings of love alive in her breast strong as ever,
+and more sensitive even, because return in kind could not be. The boy
+of whom she had so constantly thought, and with all sweet promises such
+as mothers find their purest delight in, must, at meeting her, stand
+afar off. If he held out his hands to her, and called “Mother, mother,”
+for very love of him she must answer, “Unclean, unclean!” And this
+other child, before whom, in want of other covering, she was spreading
+her long tangled locks, bleached unnaturally white—ah! that she was she
+must continue, sole partner of her blasted remainder of life. Yet, O
+reader, the brave woman accepted the lot, and took up the cry which had
+been its sign immemorially, and which thenceforward was to be her
+salutation without change—“Unclean, unclean!”
+
+The tribune heard it with a tremor, but kept his place.
+
+“Who are you?” he asked.
+
+“Two women dying of hunger and thirst. Yet”—the mother did not
+falter—“come not near us, nor touch the floor or the wall. Unclean,
+unclean!”
+
+“Give me thy story, woman—thy name, and when thou wert put here, and by
+whom, and for what.”
+
+“There was once in this city of Jerusalem a Prince Ben-Hur, the friend
+of all generous Romans, and who had Cæsar for his friend. I am his
+widow, and this one with me is his child. How may I tell you for what
+we were sunk here, when I do not know, unless it was because we were
+rich? Valerius Gratus can tell you who our enemy was, and when our
+imprisonment began. I cannot. See to what we have been reduced—oh, see,
+and have pity!”
+
+The air was heavy with the pest and the smoke of the torches, yet the
+Roman called one of the torch-bearers to his side, and wrote the answer
+nearly word for word. It was terse, and comprehensive, containing at
+once a history, an accusation, and a prayer. No common person could
+have made it, and he could not but pity and believe.
+
+“Thou shalt have relief, woman,” he said, closing the tablets. “I will
+send thee food and drink.”
+
+“And raiment, and purifying water, we pray you, O generous Roman!”
+
+“As thou wilt,” he replied.
+
+“God is good,” said the widow, sobbing. “May his peace abide with you!”
+
+“And, further,” he added, “I cannot see thee again. Make preparation,
+and to-night I will have thee taken to the gate of the Tower, and set
+free. Thou knowest the law. Farewell.”
+
+He spoke to the men, and went out the door.
+
+Very shortly some slaves came to the cell with a large gurglet of
+water, a basin and napkins, a platter with bread and meat, and some
+garments of women’s wear; and, setting them down within reach of the
+prisoners, they ran away.
+
+About the middle of the first watch, the two were conducted to the
+gate, and turned into the street. So the Roman quit himself of them,
+and in the city of their fathers they were once more free.
+
+Up to the stars, twinkling merrily as of old, they looked; then they
+asked themselves,
+
+“What next? and where to?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+About the hour Gesius, the keeper, made his appearance before the
+tribune in the Tower of Antonia, a footman was climbing the eastern
+face of Mount Olivet. The road was rough and dusty, and vegetation on
+that side burned brown, for it was the dry season in Judea. Well for
+the traveller that he had youth and strength, not to speak of the cool,
+flowing garments with which he was clothed.
+
+He proceeded slowly, looking often to his right and left; not with the
+vexed, anxious expression which marks a man going forward uncertain of
+the way, but rather the air with which one approaches as old
+acquaintance after a long separation—half of pleasure, half of inquiry;
+as if he were saying, “I am glad to be with you again; let me see in
+what you are changed.”
+
+As he arose higher, he sometimes paused to look behind him over the
+gradually widening view terminating in the mountains of Moab; but when
+at length he drew near the summit, he quickened his step, unmindful of
+fatigue, and hurried on without pause or turning of the face. On the
+summit—to reach which he bent his steps somewhat right of the beaten
+path—he came to a dead stop, arrested as if by a strong hand. Then one
+might have seen his eyes dilate, his cheeks flush, his breath quicken,
+effects all of one bright sweeping glance at what lay before him.
+
+The traveller, good reader, was no other than Ben-Hur; the spectacle,
+Jerusalem.
+
+Not the Holy City of to-day, but the Holy City as left by Herod—the
+Holy City of the Christ. Beautiful yet, as seen from old Olivet, what
+must it have been then?
+
+Ben-Hur betook him to a stone and sat down, and, stripping his head of
+the close white handkerchief which served it for covering, made the
+survey at leisure.
+
+The same has been done often since by a great variety of persons, under
+circumstances surpassingly singular—by the son of Vespasian, by the
+Islamite, by the Crusader, conquerors all of them; by many a pilgrim
+from the great New World, which waited discovery nearly fifteen hundred
+years after the time of our story; but of the multitude probably not
+one has taken that view with sensations more keenly poignant, more
+sadly sweet, more proudly bitter, than Ben-Hur. He was stirred by
+recollections of his countrymen, their triumphs and vicissitudes, their
+history the history of God. The city was of their building, at once a
+lasting testimony of their crimes and devotion, their weakness and
+genius, their religion and their irreligion. Though he had seen Rome to
+familiarity, he was gratified. The sight filled a measure of pride
+which would have made him drunk with vainglory but for the thought,
+princely as the property was, it did not any longer belong to his
+countrymen; the worship in the Temple was by permission of strangers;
+the hill where David dwelt was a marbled cheat—an office in which the
+chosen of the Lord were wrung and wrung for taxes, and scourged for
+very deathlessness of faith. These, however, were pleasures and griefs
+of patriotism common to every Jew of the period; in addition, Ben-Hur
+brought with him a personal history which would not out of mind for
+other consideration whatever, which the spectacle served only to
+freshen and vivify.
+
+A country of hills changes but little; where the hills are of rock, it
+changes not at all. The scene Ben-Hur beheld is the same now, except as
+respects the city. The failure is in the handiwork of man alone.
+
+The sun dealt more kindly by the west side of Olivet than by the east,
+and men were certainly more loving towards it. The vines with which it
+was partially clad, and the sprinkling of trees, chiefly figs and old
+wild olives, were comparatively green. Down to the dry bed of the
+Cedron the verdure extended, a refreshment to the vision; there Olivet
+ceased and Moriah began—a wall of bluff boldness, white as snow,
+founded by Solomon, completed by Herod. Up, up the wall the eye climbed
+course by course of the ponderous rocks composing it—up to Solomon’s
+Porch, which was as the pedestal of the monument, the hill being the
+plinth. Lingering there a moment, the eye resumed its climbing, going
+next to the Gentiles’ Court, then to the Israelites’ Court, then to the
+Women’s Court, then to the Court of the Priests, each a pillared tier
+of white marble, one above the other in terraced retrocession; over
+them all a crown of crowns infinitely sacred, infinitely beautiful,
+majestic in proportions, effulgent with beaten gold—lo! the Tent, the
+Tabernacle, the Holy of Holies. The Ark was not there, but Jehovah
+was—in the faith of every child of Israel he was there a personal
+Presence. As a temple, as a monument, there was nowhere anything of
+man’s building to approach that superlative apparition. Now, not a
+stone of it remains above another. Who shall rebuild that building?
+When shall the rebuilding be begun? So asks every pilgrim who has stood
+where Ben-Hur was—he asks, knowing the answer is in the bosom of God,
+whose secrets are not least marvellous in their well-keeping. And then
+the third question, What of him who foretold the ruin which has so
+certainly befallen? God? Or man of God? Or—enough that the question is
+for us to answer.
+
+And still Ben-Hur’s eyes climbed on and up—up over the roof of the
+Temple, to the hill Zion, consecrated to sacred memories, inseparable
+from the anointed kings. He knew the Cheesemonger’s Valley dipped deep
+down between Moriah and Zion; that it was spanned by the Xystus; that
+there were gardens and palaces in its depths; but over them all his
+thoughts soared with his vision to the great grouping on the royal
+hill—the house of Caiaphas, the Central Synagogue, the Roman
+Praetorium, Hippicus the eternal, and the sad but mighty cenotaphs
+Phasaelus and Mariamne—all relieved against Gareb, purpling in the
+distance. And when midst them he singled out the palace of Herod, what
+could he but think of the King Who Was Coming, to whom he was himself
+devoted, whose path he had undertaken to smooth, whose empty hands he
+dreamed of filling? And forward ran his fancy to the day the new King
+should come to claim his own and take possession of it—of Moriah and
+its Temple; of Zion and its towers and palaces; of Antonia, frowning
+darkly there just to the right of the Temple; of the new unwalled city
+of Bezetha; of the millions of Israel to assemble with palm-branches
+and banners, to sing rejoicing because the Lord had conquered and given
+them the world.
+
+Men speak of dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep.
+They should know better. All results achieved by us are self-promised,
+and all self-promises are made in dreams awake. Dreaming is the relief
+of labor, the wine that sustains us in act. We learn to love labor, not
+for itself, but for the opportunity it furnishes for dreaming, which is
+the great under-monotone of real life, unheard, unnoticed, because of
+its constancy. Living is dreaming. Only in the grave are there no
+dreams. Let no one smile at Ben-Hur for doing that which he himself
+would have done at that time and place under the same circumstances.
+
+The sun stooped low in its course. Awhile the flaring disk seemed to
+perch itself on the far summit of the mountains in the west, brazening
+all the sky above the city, and rimming the walls and towers with the
+brightness of gold. Then it disappeared as with a plunge. The quiet
+turned Ben-Hur’s thought homeward. There was a point in the sky a
+little north of the peerless front of the Holy of Holies upon which he
+fixed his gaze: under it, straight as a leadline would have dropped,
+lay his father’s house, if yet the house endured.
+
+The mellowing influences of the evening mellowed his feelings, and,
+putting his ambitions aside, he thought of the duty that was bringing
+him to Jerusalem.
+
+Out in the desert while with Ilderim, looking for strong places and
+acquainting himself with it generally, as a soldier studies a country
+in which he has projected a campaign, a messenger came one evening with
+the news that Gratus was removed, and Pontius Pilate sent to take his
+place.
+
+Messala was disabled and believed him dead; Gratus was powerless and
+gone; why should Ben-Hur longer defer the search for his mother and
+sister? There was nothing to fear now. If he could not himself see into
+the prisons of Judea, he could examine them with the eyes of others. If
+the lost were found, Pilate could have no motive in holding them in
+custody—none, at least, which could not be overcome by purchase. If
+found, he would carry them to a place of safety, and then, in calmer
+mind, his conscience at rest, this one first duty done, he could give
+himself more entirely to the King Who Was Coming. He resolved at once.
+That night he counselled with Ilderim, and obtained his assent. Three
+Arabs came with him to Jericho, where he left them and the horses, and
+proceeded alone and on foot. Malluch was to meet him in Jerusalem.
+
+Ben-Hur’s scheme, be it observed, was as yet a generality.
+
+In view of the future, it was advisable to keep himself in hiding from
+the authorities, particularly the Romans. Malluch was shrewd and
+trusty; the very man to charge with the conduct of the investigation.
+
+Where to begin was the first point. He had no clear idea about it. His
+wish was to commence with the Tower of Antonia. Tradition not of long
+standing planted the gloomy pile over a labyrinth of prison-cells,
+which, more even than the strong garrison, kept it a terror to the
+Jewish fancy. A burial, such as his people had been subjected to, might
+be possible there. Besides, in such a strait, the natural inclination
+is to start search at the place where the loss occurred, and he could
+not forget that his last sight of the loved ones was as the guard
+pushed them along the street in the direction to the Tower. If they
+were not there now, but had been, some record of the fact must remain,
+a clew which had only to be followed faithfully to the end.
+
+Under this inclination, moreover, there was a hope which he could not
+forego. From Simonides he knew Amrah, the Egyptian nurse, was living.
+It will be remembered, doubtless, that the faithful creature, the
+morning the calamity overtook the Hurs, broke from the guard and ran
+back into the palace, where, along with other chattels, she had been
+sealed up. During the years following, Simonides kept her supplied; so
+she was there now, sole occupant of the great house, which, with all
+his offers, Gratus had not been able to sell. The story of its rightful
+owners sufficed to secure the property from strangers, whether
+purchasers or mere occupants. People going to and fro passed it with
+whispers. Its reputation was that of a haunted house; derived probably
+from the infrequent glimpses of poor old Amrah, sometimes on the roof,
+sometimes in a latticed window. Certainly no more constant spirit ever
+abided than she; nor was there ever a tenement so shunned and fitted
+for ghostly habitation. Now, if he could get to her, Ben-Hur fancied
+she could help him to knowledge which, though faint, might yet be
+serviceable. Anyhow, sight of her in that place, so endeared by
+recollection, would be to him a pleasure next to finding the objects of
+his solicitude.
+
+So, first of all things, he would go to the old house, and look for
+Amrah.
+
+Thus resolved, he arose shortly after the going-down of the sun, and
+began descent of the Mount by the road which, from the summit, bends a
+little north of east. Down nearly at the foot, close by the bed of the
+Cedron, he came to the intersection with the road leading south to the
+village of Siloam and the pool of that name. There he fell in with a
+herdsman driving some sheep to market. He spoke to the man, and joined
+him, and in his company passed by Gethsemane on into the city through
+the Fish Gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+It was dark when, parting with the drover inside the gate, Ben-Hur
+turned into a narrow lane leading to the south. A few of the people
+whom he met saluted him. The bouldering of the pavement was rough. The
+houses on both sides were low, dark, and cheerless; the doors all
+closed: from the roofs, occasionally, he heard women crooning to
+children. The loneliness of his situation, the night, the uncertainty
+cloaking the object of his coming, all affected him cheerlessly. With
+feelings sinking lower and lower, he came directly to the deep
+reservoir now known as the Pool of Bethesda, in which the water
+reflected the over-pending sky. Looking up, he beheld the northern wall
+of the Tower of Antonia, a black frowning heap reared into the dim
+steel-gray sky. He halted as if challenged by a threatening sentinel.
+
+The Tower stood up so high, and seemed so vast, resting apparently upon
+foundations so sure, that he was constrained to acknowledge its
+strength. If his mother were there in living burial, what could he do
+for her? By the strong hand, nothing. An army might beat the stony face
+with ballista and ram, and be laughed at. Against him alone, the
+gigantic southeast turret looked down in the self-containment of a
+hill. And he thought, cunning is so easily baffled; and God, always the
+last resort of the helpless—God is sometimes so slow to act!
+
+In doubt and misgiving, he turned into the street in front of the
+Tower, and followed it slowly on to the west.
+
+Over in Bezetha he knew there was a khan, where it was his intention to
+seek lodging while in the city; but just now he could not resist the
+impulse to go home. His heart drew him that way.
+
+The old formal salutation which he received from the few people who
+passed him had never sounded so pleasantly. Presently, all the eastern
+sky began to silver and shine, and objects before invisible in the
+west—chiefly the tall towers on Mount Zion—emerged as from a shadowy
+depth, and put on spectral distinctness, floating, as it were, above
+the yawning blackness of the valley below, very castles in the air.
+
+He came, at length, to his father’s house.
+
+Of those who read this page, some there will be to divine his feelings
+without prompting. They are such as had happy homes in their youth, no
+matter how far that may have been back in time—homes which are now the
+starting-points of all recollection; paradises from which they went
+forth in tears, and which they would now return to, if they could, as
+little children; places of laughter and singing, and associations
+dearer than any or all the triumphs of after-life.
+
+At the gate on the north side of the old house Ben-Hur stopped. In the
+corners the wax used in the sealing-up was still plainly seen, and
+across the valves was the board with the inscription—
+
+“THIS IS THE PROPERTY OF
+THE EMPEROR.”
+
+Nobody had gone in or out the gate since the dreadful day of the
+separation. Should he knock as of old? It was useless, he knew; yet he
+could not resist the temptation. Amrah might hear, and look out of one
+of the windows on that side. Taking a stone, he mounted the broad stone
+step, and tapped three times. A dull echo replied. He tried again,
+louder than before; and again, pausing each time to listen. The silence
+was mocking. Retiring into the street, he watched the windows; but
+they, too, were lifeless. The parapet on the roof was defined sharply
+against the brightening sky; nothing could have stirred upon it unseen
+by him, and nothing did stir.
+
+From the north side he passed to the west, where there were four
+windows which he watched long and anxiously, but with as little effect.
+At times his heart swelled with impotent wishes; at others, he trembled
+at the deceptions of his own fancy. Amrah made no sign—not even a ghost
+stirred.
+
+Silently, then, he stole round to the south. There, too, the gate was
+sealed and inscribed. The mellow splendor of the August moon, pouring
+over the crest of Olivet, since termed the Mount of Offence, brought
+the lettering boldly out; and he read, and was filled with rage. All he
+could do was to wrench the board from its nailing, and hurl it into the
+ditch. Then he sat upon the step, and prayed for the New King, and that
+his coming might be hastened. As his blood cooled, insensibly he
+yielded to the fatigue of long travel in the summer heat, and sank down
+lower, and, at last, slept.
+
+About that time two women came down the street from the direction of
+the Tower of Antonia, approaching the palace of the Hurs. They advanced
+stealthily, with timid steps, pausing often to listen. At the corner of
+the rugged pile, one said to the other, in a low voice,
+
+“This is it, Tirzah!”
+
+And Tirzah, after a look, caught her mother’s hand, and leaned upon her
+heavily, sobbing, but silent.
+
+“Let us go on, my child, because”—the mother hesitated and trembled;
+then, with an effort to be calm, continued—“because when morning comes
+they will put us out of the gate of the city to—return no more.”
+
+Tirzah sank almost to the stones.
+
+“Ah, yes!” she said, between sobs; “I forgot. I had the feeling of
+going home. But we are lepers, and have no homes; we belong to the
+dead!”
+
+The mother stooped and raised her tenderly, saying, “We have nothing to
+fear. Let us go on.”
+
+Indeed, lifting their empty hands, they could have run upon a legion
+and put it to flight.
+
+And, creeping in close to the rough wall, they glided on, like two
+ghosts, till they came to the gate, before which they also paused.
+Seeing the board, they stepped upon the stone in the scarce cold tracks
+of Ben-Hur, and read the inscription—“This is the Property of the
+Emperor.”
+
+Then the mother clasped her hands, and, with upraised eyes, moaned in
+unutterable anguish.
+
+“What now, mother? You scare me!”
+
+And the answer was, presently, “Oh, Tirzah, the poor are dead! He is
+dead!”
+
+“Who, mother?”
+
+“Your brother! They took everything from him—everything—even this
+house!”
+
+“Poor!” said Tirzah, vacantly.
+
+“He will never be able to help us.”
+
+“And then, mother?”
+
+“To-morrow—to-morrow, my child, we must find a seat by the wayside, and
+beg alms as the lepers do; beg, or—”
+
+Tirzah leaned upon her again, and said, whispering, “Let us—let us
+die!”
+
+“No!” the mother said, firmly. “The Lord has appointed our times, and
+we are believers in the Lord. We will wait on him even in this. Come
+away!”
+
+She caught Tirzah’s hand as she spoke, and hastened to the west corner
+of the house, keeping close to the wall. No one being in sight there,
+they kept on to the next corner, and shrank from the moonlight, which
+lay exceedingly bright over the whole south front, and along a part of
+the street. The mother’s will was strong. Casting one look back and up
+to the windows on the west side, she stepped out into the light,
+drawing Tirzah after her; and the extent of their affliction was then
+to be seen—on their lips and cheeks, in their bleared eyes, in their
+cracked hands; especially in the long, snaky locks, stiff with
+loathsome ichor, and, like their eyebrows, ghastly white. Nor was it
+possible to have told which was mother, which daughter; both alike
+seemed witch-like old.
+
+“Hist!” said the mother. “There is some one lying upon the step—a man.
+Let us go round him.”
+
+They crossed to the opposite side of the street quickly, and, in the
+shade there, moved on till before the gate, where they stopped.
+
+“He is asleep, Tirzah!”
+
+The man was very still.
+
+“Stay here, and I will try the gate.”
+
+So saying, the mother stole noiselessly across, and ventured to touch
+the wicket; she never knew if it yielded, for that moment the man
+sighed, and, turning restlessly, shifted the handkerchief on his head
+in such manner that the face was left upturned and fair in the broad
+moonlight. She looked down at it and started; then looked again,
+stooping a little, and arose and clasped her hands and raised her eyes
+to heaven in mute appeal. An instant so, and she ran back to Tirzah.
+
+“As the Lord liveth, the man is my son—thy brother!” she said, in an
+awe-inspiring whisper.
+
+“My brother?—Judah?”
+
+The mother caught her hand eagerly.
+
+“Come!” she said, in the same enforced whisper, “let us look at him
+together—once more—only once—then help thou thy servants, Lord!”
+
+They crossed the street hand in hand ghostly-quick, ghostly-still. When
+their shadows fell upon him, they stopped. One of his hands was lying
+out upon the step palm up. Tirzah fell upon her knees, and would have
+kissed it; but the mother drew her back.
+
+“Not for thy life; not for thy life! Unclean, unclean!” she whispered.
+
+Tirzah shrank from him, as if he were the leprous one.
+
+Ben-Hur was handsome as the manly are. His cheeks and forehead were
+swarthy from exposure to the desert sun and air; yet under the light
+mustache the lips were red, and the teeth shone white, and the soft
+beard did not hide the full roundness of chin and throat. How beautiful
+he appeared to the mother’s eyes! How mightily she yearned to put her
+arms about him, and take his head upon her bosom and kiss him, as had
+been her wont in his happy childhood! Where got she the strength to
+resist the impulse? From her love, O, reader!—her mother-love, which,
+if thou wilt observe well, hath this unlikeness to any other love:
+tender to the object, it can be infinitely tyrannical to itself, and
+thence all its power of self-sacrifice. Not for restoration to health
+and fortune, not for any blessing of life, not for life itself, would
+she have left her leprous kiss upon his cheek! Yet touch him she must;
+in that instant of finding him she must renounce him forever! How
+bitter, bitter hard it was, let some other mother say! She knelt down,
+and, crawling to his feet, touched the sole of one of his sandals with
+her lips, yellow though it was with the dust of the street—and touched
+it again and again; and her very soul was in the kisses.
+
+He stirred, and tossed his hand. They moved back, but heard him mutter
+in his dream,
+
+“Mother! Amrah! Where is—”
+
+He fell off into the deep sleep.
+
+Tirzah stared wistfully. The mother put her face in the dust,
+struggling to suppress a sob so deep and strong it seemed her heart was
+bursting. Almost she wished he might waken.
+
+He had asked for her; she was not forgotten; in his sleep he was
+thinking of her. Was it not enough?
+
+Presently mother beckoned to Tirzah, and they arose, and taking one
+more look, as if to print his image past fading, hand in hand they
+recrossed the street. Back in the shade of the wall there, they retired
+and knelt, looking at him, waiting for him to wake—waiting some
+revelation, they knew not what. Nobody has yet given us a measure for
+the patience of a love like theirs.
+
+By-and-by, the sleep being yet upon him, another woman appeared at the
+corner of the palace. The two in the shade saw her plainly in the
+light; a small figure, much bent, dark-skinned, gray-haired, dressed
+neatly in servant’s garb, and carrying a basket full of vegetables.
+
+At sight of the man upon the step the new-comer stopped; then, as if
+decided, she walked on—very lightly as she drew near the sleeper.
+Passing round him, she went to the gate, slid the wicket latch easily
+to one side, and put her hand in the opening. One of the broad boards
+in the left valve swung ajar without noise. She put the basket through,
+and was about to follow, when, yielding to curiosity, she lingered to
+have one look at the stranger whose face was below her in open view.
+
+The spectators across the street heard a low exclamation, and saw the
+woman rub her eyes as if to renew their power, bend closer down, clasp
+her hands, gaze wildly around, look at the sleeper, stoop and raise the
+outlying hand, and kiss it fondly—that which they wished so mightily to
+do, but dared not.
+
+Awakened by the action, Ben-Hur instinctively withdrew the hand; as he
+did so, his eyes met the woman’s.
+
+“Amrah! O Amrah, is it thou?” he said.
+
+The good heart made no answer in words, but fell upon his neck, crying
+for joy.
+
+Gently he put her arms away, and lifting the dark face wet with tears,
+kissed it, his joy only a little less than hers. Then those across the
+way heard him say,
+
+“Mother—Tirzah—O Amrah, tell me of them! Speak, speak, I pray thee!”
+
+Amrah only cried afresh.
+
+“Thou has seen them, Amrah. Thou knowest where they are; tell me they
+are at home.”
+
+Tirzah moved, but her mother, divining her purpose, caught her and
+whispered, “Do not go—not for life. Unclean, unclean!”
+
+Her love was in tyrannical mood. Though both their hearts broke, he
+should not become what they were; and she conquered.
+
+Meantime, Amrah, so entreated, only wept the more.
+
+“Wert thou going in?” he asked, presently, seeing the board swung back.
+“Come, then. I will go with thee.” He arose as he spoke. “The Romans—be
+the curse of the Lord upon them!—the Romans lied. The house is mine.
+Rise, Amrah, and let us go in.” A moment and they were gone, leaving
+the two in the shade to behold the gate staring blankly at them—the
+gate which they might not ever enter more. They nestled together in the
+dust.
+
+They had done their duty.
+
+Their love was proven.
+
+Next morning they were found, and driven out the city with stones.
+
+“Begone! Ye are of the dead; go to the dead!”
+
+With the doom ringing in their ears, they went forth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Nowadays travellers in the Holy Land looking for the famous place with
+the beautiful name, the King’s Garden, descend the bed of the Cedron or
+the curve of Gihon and Hinnom as far as the old well En-rogel, take a
+drink of the sweet living water, and stop, having reached the limit of
+the interesting in that direction. They look at the great stones with
+which the well is curbed, ask its depth, smile at the primitive mode of
+drawing the purling treasure, and waste some pity on the ragged wretch
+who presides over it; then, facing about, they are enraptured with the
+mounts Moriah and Zion, both of which slope towards them from the
+north, one terminating in Ophel, the other in what used to be the site
+of the city of David. In the background, up far in the sky, the
+garniture of the sacred places is visible: here the Haram, with its
+graceful dome; yonder the stalward remains of Hippicus, defiant even in
+ruins. When that view has been enjoyed, and is sufficiently impressed
+upon the memory, the travellers glance at the Mount of Offence standing
+in rugged stateliness at their right hand, and then at the Hill of Evil
+Counsel over on the left, in which, if they be well up in Scriptural
+history and in the traditions rabbinical and monkish, they will find a
+certain interest not to be overcome by superstitious horror.
+
+It were long to tell all the points of interest grouped around that
+hill; for the present purpose, enough that its feet are planted in the
+veritable orthodox Hell of the moderns—the Hell of brimstone and
+fire—in the old nomenclature Gehenna; and that now, as in the days of
+Christ, its bluff face opposite the city on the south and southeast is
+seamed and pitted with tombs which have been immemorially the
+dwelling-places of lepers, not singly, but collectively. There they set
+up their government and established their society; there they founded a
+city and dwelt by themselves, avoided as the accursed of God.
+
+The second morning after the incidents of the preceding chapter, Amrah
+drew near the well En-rogel, and seated herself upon a stone. One
+familiar with Jerusalem, looking at her, would have said she was the
+favorite servant of some well-to-do family. She brought with her a
+water-jar and a basket, the contents of the latter covered with a
+snow-white napkin. Placing them on the ground at her side, she loosened
+the shawl which fell from her head, knit her fingers together in her
+lap, and gazed demurely up to where the hill drops steeply down into
+Aceldama and the Potter’s Field.
+
+It was very early, and she was the first to arrive at the well. Soon,
+however, a man came bringing a rope and a leathern bucket. Saluting the
+little dark-faced woman, he undid the rope, fixed it to the bucket, and
+waited customers. Others who chose to do so might draw water for
+themselves, he was a professional in the business, and would fill the
+largest jar the stoutest woman could carry for a gerah.
+
+Amrah sat still, and had nothing to say. Seeing the jar, the man asked
+after a while if she wished it filled; she answered him civilly, “Not
+now;” whereupon he gave her no more attention. When the dawn was fairly
+defined over Olivet, his patrons began to arrive, and he had all he
+could do to attend to them. All the time she kept her seat, looking
+intently up at the hill.
+
+The sun made its appearance, yet she sat watching and waiting; and
+while she thus waits, let us see what her purpose is.
+
+Her custom had been to go to market after nightfall. Stealing out
+unobserved, she would seek the shops in the Tyropoeon, or those over by
+the Fish Gate in the east, make her purchases of meat and vegetables,
+and return and shut herself up again.
+
+The pleasure she derived from the presence of Ben-Hur in the old house
+once more may be imagined. She had nothing to tell him of her mistress
+or Tirzah—nothing. He would have had her move to a place not so
+lonesome; she refused. She would have had him take his own room again,
+which was just as he had left it; but the danger of discovery was too
+great, and he wished above all things to avoid inquiry. He would come
+and see her often as possible. Coming in the night, he would also go
+away in the night. She was compelled to be satisfied, and at once
+occupied herself contriving ways to make him happy. That he was a man
+now did not occur to her; nor did it enter her mind that he might have
+put by or lost his boyish tastes; to please him, she thought to go on
+her old round of services. He used to be fond of confections; she
+remembered the things in that line which delighted him most, and
+resolved to make them, and have a supply always ready when he came.
+Could anything be happier? So next night, earlier than usual, she stole
+out with her basket, and went over to the Fish Gate Market. Wandering
+about, seeking the best honey, she chanced to hear a man telling a
+story.
+
+What the story was the reader can arrive at with sufficient certainty
+when told that the narrator was one of the men who had held torches for
+the commandant of the Tower of Antonia when, down in cell VI., the Hurs
+were found. The particulars of the finding were all told, and she heard
+them, with the names of the prisoners, and the widow’s account of
+herself.
+
+The feelings with which Amrah listened to the recital were such as
+became the devoted creature she was. She made her purchases, and
+returned home in a dream. What a happiness she had in store for her
+boy! She had found his mother!
+
+She put the basket away, now laughing, now crying. Suddenly she stopped
+and thought. It would kill him to be told that his mother and Tirzah
+were lepers. He would go through the awful city over on the Hill of
+Evil Counsel—into each infected tomb he would go without rest, asking
+for them, and the disease would catch him, and their fate would be his.
+She wrung her hands. What should she do?
+
+Like many a one before her, and many a one since, she derived
+inspiration, if not wisdom, from her affection, and came to a singular
+conclusion.
+
+The lepers, she knew, were accustomed of mornings to come down from
+their sepulchral abodes in the hill, and take a supply of water for the
+day from the well En-rogel. Bringing their jars, they would set them on
+the ground and wait, standing afar until they were filled. To that the
+mistress and Tirzah must come; for the law was inexorable, and admitted
+no distinction. A rich leper was no better than a poor one.
+
+So Amrah decided not to speak to Ben-Hur of the story she had heard,
+but go alone to the well and wait. Hunger and thirst would drive the
+unfortunates thither, and she believed she could recognize them at
+sight; if not, they might recognize her.
+
+Meantime Ben-Hur came, and they talked much. To-morrow Malluch would
+arrive; then the search should be immediately begun. He was impatient
+to be about it. To amuse himself he would visit the sacred places in
+the vicinity. The secret, we may be sure, weighed heavily on the woman,
+but she held her peace.
+
+When he was gone she busied herself in the preparation of things good
+to eat, applying her utmost skill to the work. At the approach of day,
+as signalled by the stars, she filled the basket, selected a jar, and
+took the road to En-rogel, going out by the Fish Gate which was
+earliest open, and arriving as we have seen.
+
+Shortly after sunrise, when business at the well was most pressing, and
+the drawer of water most hurried; when, in fact, half a dozen buckets
+were in use at the same time, everybody making haste to get away before
+the cool of the morning melted into the heat of the day, the tenantry
+of the hill began to appear and move about the doors of their tombs.
+Somewhat later they were discernible in groups, of which not a few were
+children so young that they suggested the holiest relation. Numbers
+came momentarily around the turn of the bluff—women with jars upon
+their shoulders, old and very feeble men hobbling along on staffs and
+crutches. Some leaned upon the shoulders of others; a few—the utterly
+helpless—lay, like heaps of rags, upon litters. Even that community of
+superlative sorrow had its love-light to make life endurable and
+attractive. Distance softened without entirely veiling the misery of
+the outcasts.
+
+From her seat by the well Amrah kept watch upon the spectral groups.
+She scarcely moved. More than once she imagined she saw those she
+sought. That they were there upon the hill she had no doubt; that they
+must come down and near she knew; when the people at the well were all
+served they would come.
+
+Now, quite at the base of the bluff there was a tomb which had more
+than once attracted Amrah by its wide gaping. A stone of large
+dimensions stood near its mouth. The sun looked into it through the
+hottest hours of the day, and altogether it seemed uninhabitable by
+anything living, unless, perchance, by some wild dogs returning from
+scavenger duty down in Gehenna. Thence, however, and greatly to her
+surprise, the patient Egyptian beheld two women come, one half
+supporting, half leading, the other. They were both white-haired; both
+looked old; but their garments were not rent, and they gazed about them
+as if the locality were new. The witness below thought she even saw
+them shrink terrified at the spectacle offered by the hideous
+assemblage of which they found themselves part. Slight reasons,
+certainly, to make her heart beat faster, and draw her attention to
+them exclusively; but so they did.
+
+The two remained by the stone awhile; then they moved slowly,
+painfully, and with much fear towards the well, whereat several voices
+were raised to stop them; yet they kept on. The drawer of water picked
+up some pebbles, and made ready to drive them back. The company cursed
+them. The greater company on the hill shouted shrilly, “Unclean,
+unclean!”
+
+“Surely,” thought Amrah of the two, as they kept coming—“surely, they
+are strangers to the usage of lepers.”
+
+She arose, and went to meet them, taking the basket and jar. The alarm
+at the well immediately subsided.
+
+“What a fool,” said one, laughing, “what a fool to give good bread to
+the dead in that way!”
+
+“And to think of her coming so far!” said another. “I would at least
+make them meet me at the gate.”
+
+Amrah, with better impulse, proceeded. If she should be mistaken! Her
+heart arose into her throat. And the farther she went the more doubtful
+and confused she became. Four or five yards from where they stood
+waiting for her she stopped.
+
+That the mistress she loved! whose hand she had so often kissed in
+gratitude! whose image of matronly loveliness she had treasured in
+memory so faithfully! And that the Tirzah she had nursed through
+babyhood! whose pains she had soothed, whose sports she had shared!
+that the smiling, sweet-faced, songful Tirzah, the light of the great
+house, the promised blessing of her old age! Her mistress, her
+darling—they? The soul of the woman sickened at the sight.
+
+“These are old women,” she said to herself. “I never saw them before. I
+will go back.”
+
+She turned away.
+
+“Amrah,” said one of the lepers.
+
+The Egyptian dropped the jar, and looked back, trembling.
+
+“Who called me?” she asked.
+
+“Amrah.”
+
+The servant’s wondering eyes settled upon the speaker’s face.
+
+“Who are you?” she cried.
+
+“We are they you are seeking.”
+
+Amrah fell upon her knees.
+
+“O my mistress, my mistress! As I have made your God my God, be he
+praised that he has led me to you!”
+
+And upon her knees the poor overwhelmed creature began moving forward.
+
+“Stay, Amrah! Come not nearer. Unclean, unclean!”
+
+The words sufficed. Amrah fell upon her face, sobbing so loud the
+people at the well heard her. Suddenly she arose upon her knees again.
+
+“O my mistress, where is Tirzah?”
+
+“Here I am, Amrah, here! Will you not bring me a little water?”
+
+The habit of the servant renewed itself. Putting back the coarse hair
+fallen over her face, Amrah arose and went to the basket and uncovered
+it.
+
+“See,” she said, “here are bread and meat.”
+
+She would have spread the napkin upon the ground, but the mistress
+spoke again,
+
+“Do not so, Amrah. Those yonder may stone you, and refuse us drink.
+Leave the basket with me. Take up the jar and fill it, and bring it
+here. We will carry them to the tomb with us. For this day you will
+then have rendered all the service that is lawful. Haste, Amrah.”
+
+The people under whose eyes all this had passed made way for the
+servant, and even helped her fill the jar, so piteous was the grief her
+countenance showed.
+
+“Who are they?” a woman asked.
+
+Amrah meekly answered, “They used to be good to me.”
+
+Raising the jar upon her shoulder, she hurried back. In forgetfulness,
+she would have gone to them, but the cry “Unclean, unclean! Beware!”
+arrested her. Placing the water by the basket, she stepped back, and
+stood off a little way.
+
+“Thank you, Amrah,” said the mistress, taking the articles into
+possession. “This is very good of you.”
+
+“Is there nothing more I can do?” asked Amrah.
+
+The mother’s hand was upon the jar, and she was fevered with thirst;
+yet she paused, and rising, said firmly, “Yes, I know that Judah has
+come home. I saw him at the gate night before last asleep on the step.
+I saw you wake him.”
+
+Amrah clasped her hands.
+
+“O my mistress! You saw it, and did not come!”
+
+“That would have been to kill him. I can never take him in my arms
+again. I can never kiss him more. O Amrah, Amrah, you love him, I
+know!”
+
+“Yes,” said the true heart, bursting into tears again, and kneeling. “I
+would die for him.”
+
+“Prove to me what you say, Amrah.”
+
+“I am ready.”
+
+“Then you shall not tell him where we are or that you have seen us—only
+that, Amrah.”
+
+“But he is looking for you. He has come from afar to find you.”
+
+“He must not find us. He shall not become what we are. Hear, Amrah. You
+shall serve us as you have this day. You shall bring us the little we
+need—not long now—not long. You shall come every morning and evening
+thus, and—and”—the voice trembled, the strong will almost broke
+down—“and you shall tell us of him, Amrah; but to him you shall say
+nothing of us. Hear you?”
+
+“Oh, it will be so hard to hear him speak of you, and see him going
+about looking for you—to see all his love, and not tell him so much as
+that you are alive!”
+
+“Can you tell him we are well, Amrah?”
+
+The servant bowed her head in her arms.
+
+“No,” the mistress continued; “wherefore to be silent altogether. Go
+now, and come this evening. We will look for you. Till then, farewell.”
+
+“The burden will be heavy, O my mistress, and hard to bear,” said
+Amrah, falling upon her face.
+
+“How much harder would it be to see him as we are,” the mother answered
+as she gave the basket to Tirzah. “Come again this evening,” she
+repeated, taking up the water, and starting for the tomb.
+
+Amrah waited kneeling until they had disappeared; then she took the
+road sorrowfully home.
+
+In the evening she returned; and thereafter it became her custom to
+serve them in the morning and evening, so that they wanted for nothing
+needful. The tomb, though ever so stony and desolate, was less
+cheerless than the cell in the Tower had been. Daylight gilded its
+door, and it was in the beautiful world. Then, one can wait death with
+so much more faith out under the open sky.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The morning of the first day of the seventh month—Tishri in the Hebrew,
+October in English—Ben-Hur arose from his couch in the khan ill
+satisfied with the whole world.
+
+Little time had been lost in consultation upon the arrival of Malluch.
+The latter began the search at the Tower of Antonia, and began it
+boldly, by a direct inquiry of the tribune commanding. He gave the
+officer a history of the Hurs, and all the particulars of the accident
+to Gratus, describing the affair as wholly without criminality. The
+object of the quest now, he said, was if any of the unhappy family were
+discovered alive to carry a petition to the feet of Cæsar, praying
+restitution of the estate and return to their civil rights. Such a
+petition, he had no doubt, would result in an investigation by the
+imperial order, a proceeding of which the friends of the family had no
+fear.
+
+In reply the tribune stated circumstantially the discovery of the women
+in the Tower, and permitted a reading of the memorandum he had taken of
+their account of themselves; when leave to copy it was prayed, he even
+permitted that.
+
+Malluch thereupon hurried to Ben-Hur.
+
+It were useless to attempt description of the effect the terrible story
+had upon the young man. The pain was not relieved by tears or
+passionate outcries; it was too deep for any expression. He sat still a
+long time, with pallid face and laboring heart. Now and then, as if to
+show the thoughts which were most poignant, he muttered,
+
+“Lepers, lepers! They—my mother and Tirzah—they lepers! How long, how
+long, O Lord!”
+
+One moment he was torn by a virtuous rage of sorrow, next by a longing
+for vengeance which, it must be admitted, was scarcely less virtuous.
+
+At length he arose.
+
+“I must look for them. They may be dying.”
+
+“Where will you look?” asked Malluch.
+
+“There is but one place for them to go.”
+
+Malluch interposed, and finally prevailed so far as to have the
+management of the further attempt intrusted to him. Together they went
+to the gate over on the side opposite the Hill of Evil Counsel,
+immemorially the lepers’ begging-ground. There they stayed all day,
+giving alms, asking for the two women, and offering rich rewards for
+their discovery. So they did in repetition day after day through the
+remainder of the fifth month, and all the sixth. There was diligent
+scouring of the dread city on the hill by lepers to whom the rewards
+offered were mighty incentives, for they were only dead in law. Over
+and over again the gaping tomb down by the well was invaded, and its
+tenants subjected to inquiry; but they kept their secret fast. The
+result was failure. And now, the morning of the first day of the
+seventh month, the extent of the additional information gained was that
+not long before two leprous women had been stoned from the Fish Gate by
+the authorities. A little pressing of the clew, together with some
+shrewd comparison of dates, led to the sad assurance that the sufferers
+were the Hurs, and left the old questions darker than ever. Where were
+they? And what had become of them?
+
+“It was not enough that my people should be made lepers,” said the son,
+over and over again, with what intensity of bitterness the reader may
+imagine; “that was not enough. Oh no! They must be stoned from their
+native city! My mother is dead! she has wandered to the wilderness! she
+is dead! Tirzah is dead! I alone am left. And for what? How long, O
+God, thou Lord God of my fathers, how long shall this Rome endure?”
+
+Angry, hopeless, vengeful, he entered the court of the khan, and found
+it crowded with people come in during the night. While he ate his
+breakfast, he listened to some of them. To one party he was specially
+attracted. They were mostly young, stout, active, hardy men, in manner
+and speech provincial. In their look, the certain indefinable air, the
+pose of the head, glance of the eye, there was a spirit which did not,
+as a rule, belong to the outward seeming of the lower orders of
+Jerusalem; the spirit thought by some to be a peculiarity of life in
+mountainous districts, but which may be more surely traced to a life of
+healthful freedom. In a short time he ascertained they were Galileans,
+in the city for various purposes, but chiefly to take part in the Feast
+of Trumpets, set for that day. They became to him at once objects of
+interest, as hailing from the region in which he hoped to find readiest
+support in the work he was shortly to set about.
+
+While observing them, his mind running ahead in thought of achievements
+possible to a legion of such spirits disciplined after the severe Roman
+style, a man came into the court, his face much flushed, his eyes
+bright with excitement.
+
+“Why are you here?” he said to the Galileans. “The rabbis and elders
+are going from the Temple to see Pilate. Come, make haste, and let us
+go with them.”
+
+They surrounded him in a moment.
+
+“To see Pilate! For what?”
+
+“They have discovered a conspiracy. Pilate’s new aqueduct is to be paid
+for with money of the Temple.”
+
+“What, with the sacred treasure?”
+
+They repeated the question to each other with flashing eyes.
+
+“It is Corban—money of God. Let him touch a shekel of it if he dare!”
+
+“Come,” cried the messenger. “The procession is by this time across the
+bridge. The whole city is pouring after. We may be needed. Make haste!”
+
+As if the thought and the act were one, there was quick putting away of
+useless garments, and the party stood forth bareheaded, and in the
+short sleeveless under-tunics they were used to wearing as reapers in
+the field and boatmen on the lake—the garb in which they climbed the
+hills following the herds, and plucked the ripened vintage, careless of
+the sun. Lingering only to tighten their girdles, they said, “We are
+ready.”
+
+Then Ben-Hur spoke to them.
+
+“Men of Galilee,” he said, “I am a son of Judah. Will you take me in
+your company?”
+
+“We may have to fight,” they replied.
+
+“Oh, then, I will not be first to run away!”
+
+They took the retort in good humor, and the messenger said, “You seem
+stout enough. Come along.”
+
+Ben-Hur put off his outer garments.
+
+“You think there may be fighting?” he asked, quietly, as he tightened
+his girdle.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“With whom?”
+
+“The guard.”
+
+“Legionaries?”
+
+“Whom else can a Roman trust?”
+
+“What have you to fight with?”
+
+They looked at him silently.
+
+“Well,” he continued, “we will have to do the best we can; but had we
+not better choose a leader? The legionaries always have one, and so are
+able to act with one mind.”
+
+The Galileans stared more curiously, as if the idea were new to them.
+
+“Let us at least agree to stay together,” he said. “Now I am ready, if
+you are.”
+
+“Yes, let us go.”
+
+The khan, it should not be forgotten, was in Bezetha, the new town; and
+to get to the Praetorium, as the Romans resonantly styled the palace of
+Herod on Mount Zion, the party had to cross the lowlands north and west
+of the Temple. By streets—if they may be so called—trending north and
+south, with intersections hardly up to the dignity of alleys, they
+passed rapidly round the Akra district to the Tower of Mariamne, from
+which the way was short to the grand gate of the walled heights. In
+going, they overtook, or were overtaken by, people like themselves
+stirred to wrath by news of the proposed desecration. When, at length,
+they reached the gate of the Praetorium, the procession of elders and
+rabbis had passed in with a great following, leaving a greater crowd
+clamoring outside.
+
+A centurion kept the entrance with a guard drawn up full armed under
+the beautiful marble battlements. The sun struck the soldiers fervidly
+on helm and shield; but they kept their ranks indifferent alike to its
+dazzle and to the mouthings of the rabble. Through the open bronze
+gates a current of citizens poured in, while a much lesser one poured
+out.
+
+“What is going on?” one of the Galileans asked an outcomer.
+
+“Nothing,” was the reply. “The rabbis are before the door of the palace
+asking to see Pilate. He has refused to come out. They have sent one to
+tell him they will not go away till he has heard them. They are
+waiting.”
+
+“Let us go in,” said Ben-Hur, in his quiet way, seeing what his
+companions probably did not, that there was not only a disagreement
+between the suitors and the governor, but an issue joined, and a
+serious question as to who should have his will.
+
+Inside the gate there was a row of trees in leaf, with seats under
+them. The people, whether going or coming, carefully avoided the shade
+cast gratefully upon the white, clean-swept pavement; for, strange as
+it may seem, a rabbinical ordinance, alleged to have been derived from
+the law, permitted no green thing to be grown within the walls of
+Jerusalem. Even the wise king, it was said, wanting a garden for his
+Egyptian bride, was constrained to found it down in the meeting-place
+of the valleys above En-rogel.
+
+Through the tree-tops shone the outer fronts of the palace. Turning to
+the right, the party proceeded a short distance to a spacious square,
+on the west side of which stood the residence of the governor. An
+excited multitude filled the square. Every face was directed towards a
+portico built over a broad doorway which was closed. Under the portico
+there was another array of legionaries.
+
+The throng was so close the friends could not well have advanced if
+such had been their desire; they remained therefore in the rear,
+observers of what was going on. About the portico they could see the
+high turbans of the rabbis, whose impatience communicated at times to
+the mass behind them; a cry was frequent to the effect “Pilate, if thou
+be a governor, come forth, come forth!”
+
+Once a man coming out pushed through the crowd, his face red with
+anger.
+
+“Israel is of no account here,” he said, in a loud voice. “On this holy
+ground we are no better than dogs of Rome.”
+
+“Will he not come out, think you?”
+
+“Come? Has he not thrice refused?”
+
+“What will the rabbis do?”
+
+“As at Cæsarea—camp here till he gives them ear.”
+
+“He will not dare touch the treasure, will he?” asked one of the
+Galileans.
+
+“Who can say? Did not a Roman profane the Holy of Holies? Is there
+anything sacred from Romans?”
+
+An hour passed, and though Pilate deigned them no answer, the rabbis
+and crowd remained. Noon came, bringing a shower from the west, but no
+change in the situation, except that the multitude was larger and much
+noisier, and the feeling more decidedly angry. The shouting was almost
+continuous, Come forth, come forth! The cry was sometimes with
+disrespectful variations. Meanwhile Ben-Hur held his Galilean friends
+together. He judged the pride of the Roman would eventually get the
+better of his discretion, and that the end could not be far off. Pilate
+was but waiting for the people to furnish him an excuse for resort to
+violence.
+
+And at last the end came. In the midst of the assemblage there was
+heard the sound of blows, succeeded instantly by yells of pain and
+rage, and a most furious commotion. The venerable men in front of the
+portico faced about aghast. The common people in the rear at first
+pushed forward; in the centre, the effort was to get out; and for a
+short time the pressure of opposing forces was terrible. A thousand
+voices made inquiry, raised all at once; as no one had time to answer,
+the surprise speedily became a panic.
+
+Ben-Hur kept his senses.
+
+“You cannot see?” he said to one of the Galileans.
+
+“No.”
+
+“I will raise you up.”
+
+He caught the man about the middle, and lifted him bodily.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“I see now,” said the man. “There are some armed with clubs, and they
+are beating the people. They are dressed like Jews.”
+
+“Who are they?”
+
+“Romans, as the Lord liveth! Romans in disguise. Their clubs fly like
+flails! There, I saw a rabbi struck down—an old man! They spare
+nobody!”
+
+Ben-Hur let the man down.
+
+“Men of Galilee,” he said, “it is a trick of Pilate’s. Now, will you do
+what I say, we will get even with the club-men.”
+
+The Galilean spirit arose.
+
+“Yes, yes!” they answered.
+
+“Let us go back to the trees by the gate, and we may find the planting
+of Herod, though unlawful, has some good in it after all. Come!”
+
+They ran back all of them fast as they could; and, by throwing their
+united weight upon the limbs, tore them from the trunks. In a brief
+time they, too, were armed. Returning, at the corner of the square they
+met the crowd rushing madly for the gate. Behind, the clamor
+continued—a medley of shrieks, groans, and execrations.
+
+“To the wall!” Ben-Hur shouted. “To the wall!—and let the herd go by!”
+
+So, clinging to the masonry at their right hand, they escaped the might
+of the rush, and little by little made headway until, at last, the
+square was reached.
+
+“Keep together now, and follow me!”
+
+By this time Ben-Hur’s leadership was perfect; and as he pushed into
+the seething mob his party closed after him in a body. And when the
+Romans, clubbing the people and making merry as they struck them down,
+came hand to hand with the Galileans, lithe of limb, eager for the
+fray, and equally armed, they were in turn surprised. Then the shouting
+was close and fierce; the crash of sticks rapid and deadly; the advance
+furious as hate could make it. No one performed his part as well as
+Ben-Hur, whose training served him admirably; for, not merely he knew
+to strike and guard; his long arm, perfect action, and incomparable
+strength helped him, also, to success in every encounter. He was at the
+same time fighting-man and leader. The club he wielded was of goodly
+length and weighty, so he had need to strike a man but once. He seemed,
+moreover, to have eyes for each combat of his friends, and the faculty
+of being at the right moment exactly where he was most needed. In his
+fighting cry there were inspiration for his party and alarm for his
+enemies. Thus surprised and equally matched, the Romans at first
+retired, but finally turned their backs and fled to the portico. The
+impetuous Galileans would have pursued them to the steps, but Ben-Hur
+wisely restrained them.
+
+“Stay, my men!” he said. “The centurion yonder is coming with the
+guard. They have swords and shields; we cannot fight them. We have done
+well; let us get back and out of the gate while we may.”
+
+They obeyed him, though slowly; for they had frequently to step over
+their countrymen lying where they had been felled; some writhing and
+groaning, some praying help, others mute as the dead. But the fallen
+were not all Jews. In that there was consolation.
+
+The centurion shouted to them as they went off; Ben-Hur laughed at him,
+and replied in his own tongue, “If we are dogs of Israel, you are
+jackals of Rome. Remain here, and we will come again.”
+
+The Galileans cheered, and laughing went on.
+
+Outside the gate there was a multitude the like of which Ben-Hur had
+never seen, not even in the circus at Antioch. The house-tops, the
+streets, the slope of the hill, appeared densely covered with people
+wailing and praying. The air was filled with their cries and
+imprecations.
+
+The party were permitted to pass without challenge by the outer guard.
+But hardly were they out before the centurion in charge at the portico
+appeared, and in the gateway called to Ben-Hur,
+
+“Ho, insolent! Art thou a Roman or a Jew?”
+
+Ben-Hur answered, “I am a son of Judah, born here. What wouldst thou
+with me?”
+
+“Stay and fight.”
+
+“Singly?”
+
+“As thou wilt!”
+
+Ben-Hur laughed derisively.
+
+“O brave Roman! Worthy son of the bastard Roman Jove! I have no arms.”
+
+“Thou shalt have mine,” the centurion answered. “I will borrow of the
+guard here.”
+
+The people in hearing of the colloquy became silent; and from them the
+hush spread afar. But lately Ben-Hur had beaten a Roman under the eyes
+of Antioch and the Farther East; now, could he beat another one under
+the eyes of Jerusalem, the honor might be vastly profitable to the
+cause of the New King. He did not hesitate. Going frankly to the
+centurion, he said, “I am willing. Lend me thy sword and shield.”
+
+“And the helm and breastplate?” asked the Roman.
+
+“Keep them. They might not fit me.”
+
+The arms were as frankly delivered, and directly the centurion was
+ready. All this time the soldiers in rank close by the gate never
+moved; they simply listened. As to the multitude, only when the
+combatants advanced to begin the fight the question sped from mouth to
+mouth, “Who is he?” And no one knew.
+
+Now the Roman supremacy in arms lay in three things—submission to
+discipline, the legionary formation of battle, and a peculiar use of
+the short sword. In combat, they never struck or cut; from first to
+last they thrust—they advanced thrusting, they retired thrusting; and
+generally their aim was at the foeman’s face. All this was well known
+to Ben-Hur. As they were about to engage he said,
+
+“I told thee I was a son of Judah; but I did not tell that I am
+lanista-taught. Defend thyself!”
+
+At the last word Ben-Hur closed with his antagonist. A moment, standing
+foot to foot, they glared at each other over the rims of their embossed
+shields; then the Roman pushed forward and feinted an under-thrust. The
+Jew laughed at him. A thrust at the face followed. The Jew stepped
+lightly to the left; quick as the thrust was, the step was quicker.
+Under the lifted arm of the foe he slid his shield, advancing it until
+the sword and sword-arm were both caught on its upper surface; another
+step, this time forward and left, and the man’s whole right side was
+offered to the point. The centurion fell heavily on his breast,
+clanging the pavement, and Ben-Hur had won. With his foot upon his
+enemy’s back, he raised his shield overhead after a gladiatorial
+custom, and saluted the imperturbable soldiers by the gate.
+
+When the people realized the victory they behaved like mad. On the
+houses far as the Xystus, fast as the word could fly, they waved their
+shawls and handkerchiefs and shouted; and if he had consented, the
+Galileans would have carried Ben-Hur off upon their shoulders.
+
+To a petty officer who then advanced from the gate he said, “Thy
+comrade died like a soldier. I leave him undespoiled. Only his sword
+and shield are mine.”
+
+With that, he walked away. Off a little he spoke to the Galileans.
+
+“Brethren, you have behaved well. Let us now separate, lest we be
+pursued. Meet me to-night at the khan in Bethany. I have something to
+propose to you of great interest to Israel.”
+
+“Who are you?” they asked him.
+
+“A son of Judah,” he answered, simply.
+
+A throng eager to see him surged around the party.
+
+“Will you come to Bethany?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, we will come.”
+
+“Then bring with you this sword and shield that I may know you.”
+
+Pushing brusquely through the increasing crowd, he speedily
+disappeared.
+
+At the instance of Pilate, the people went up from the city, and
+carried off their dead and wounded, and there was much mourning for
+them; but the grief was greatly lightened by the victory of the unknown
+champion, who was everywhere sought, and by every one extolled. The
+fainting spirit of the nation was revived by the brave deed; insomuch
+that in the streets and up in the Temple even, amidst the solemnities
+of the feast, old tales of the Maccabees were told again, and thousands
+shook their heads whispering wisely,
+
+“A little longer, only a little longer, brethren, and Israel will come
+to her own. Let there be faith in the Lord, and patience.”
+
+In such manner Ben-Hur obtained hold on Galilee, and paved the way to
+greater services in the cause of the King Who Was Coming.
+
+And with what result we shall see.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SEVENTH
+
+
+“And, waking, I beheld her there
+Sea-dreaming in the moted air,
+A siren lithe and debonair,
+With wristlets woven of scarlet weeds,
+And oblong lucent amber beads
+Of sea-kelp shining in her hair.”
+
+THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The meeting took place in the khan of Bethany as appointed. Thence
+Ben-Hur went with the Galileans into their country, where his exploits
+up in the old Market-place gave him fame and influence. Before the
+winter was gone he raised three legions, and organized them after the
+Roman pattern. He could have had as many more, for the martial spirit
+of that gallant people never slept. The proceeding, however, required
+careful guarding as against both Rome and Herod Antipas. Contenting
+himself for the present with the three, he strove to train and educate
+them for systematic action. For that purpose he carried the officers
+over into the lava-beds of Trachonitis, and taught them the use of
+arms, particularly the javelin and sword, and the manoeuvering peculiar
+to the legionary formation; after which he sent them home as teachers.
+And soon the training became a pastime of the people.
+
+As may be thought, the task called for patience, skill, zeal, faith,
+and devotion on his part—qualities into which the power of inspiring
+others in matters of difficulty is always resolvable; and never man
+possessed them in greater degree or used them to better effect. How he
+labored! And with utter denial of self! Yet withal he would have failed
+but for the support he had from Simonides, who furnished him arms and
+money, and from Ilderim, who kept watch and brought him supplies. And
+still he would have failed but for the genius of the Galileans.
+
+Under that name were comprehended the four tribes—Asher, Zebulon,
+Issachar, and Naphthali—and the districts originally set apart to them.
+The Jew born in sight of the Temple despised these brethren of the
+north; but the Talmud itself has said, “The Galilean loves honor, and
+the Jew money.”
+
+Hating Rome fervidly as they loved their own country, in every revolt
+they were first in the field and last to leave it. One hundred and
+fifty thousand Galilean youths perished in the final war with Rome. For
+the great festal days, they went up to Jerusalem marching and camping
+like armies; yet they were liberal in sentiment, and even tolerant to
+heathenism. In Herod’s beautiful cities, which were Roman in all
+things, in Sepphoris and Tiberias especially, they took pride, and in
+the building them gave loyal support. They had for fellow-citizens men
+from the outside world everywhere, and lived in peace with them. To the
+glory of the Hebrew name they contributed poets like the singer of the
+Song of Songs and prophets like Hosea.
+
+Upon such a people, so quick, so proud, so brave, so devoted, so
+imaginative, a tale like that of the coming of the King was
+all-powerful. That he was coming to put Rome down would have been
+sufficient to enlist them in the scheme proposed by Ben-Hur; but when,
+besides, they were assured he was to rule the world, more mighty than
+Cæsar, more magnificent than Solomon, and that the rule was to last
+forever, the appeal was irresistible, and they vowed themselves to the
+cause body and soul. They asked Ben-Hur his authority for the sayings,
+and he quoted the prophets, and told them of Balthasar in waiting over
+in Antioch; and they were satisfied, for it was the old much-loved
+legend of the Messiah, familiar to them almost as the name of the Lord;
+the long-cherished dream with a time fixed for its realization. The
+King was not merely coming now; he was at hand.
+
+So with Ben-Hur the winter months rolled by, and spring came, with
+gladdening showers blown over from the summering sea in the west; and
+by that time so earnestly and successfully had he toiled that he could
+say to himself and his followers, “Let the good King come. He has only
+to tell us where he will have his throne set up. We have the
+sword-hands to keep it for him.”
+
+And in all his dealings with the many men they knew him only as a son
+of Judah, and by that name.
+
+
+One evening, over in Trachonitis, Ben-Hur was sitting with some of his
+Galileans at the mouth of the cave in which he quartered, when an Arab
+courier rode to him, and delivered a letter. Breaking the package, he
+read,
+
+“Jerusalem, Nisan IV.
+
+“A prophet has appeared who men say is Elias. He has been in the
+wilderness for years, and to our eyes he is a prophet; and such also is
+his speech, the burden of which is of one much greater than himself,
+who, he says, is to come presently, and for whom he is now waiting on
+the eastern shore of the River Jordan. I have been to see and hear him,
+and the one he is waiting for is certainly the King you are awaiting.
+Come and judge for yourself.
+
+“All Jerusalem is going out to the prophet, and with many people else
+the shore on which he abides is like Mount Olivet in the last days of
+the Passover.
+
+“MALLUCH.”
+
+Ben-Hur’s face flushed with joy.
+
+“By this word, O my friends,” he said—“by this word, our waiting is at
+end. The herald of the King has appeared and announced him.”
+
+Upon hearing the letter read, they also rejoiced at the promise it held
+out.
+
+“Get ready now,” he added, “and in the morning set your faces homeward;
+when arrived there, send word to those under you, and bid them be ready
+to assemble as I may direct. For myself and you, I will go see if the
+King be indeed at hand, and send you report. Let us, in the meantime,
+live in the pleasure of the promise.”
+
+Going into the cave, he addressed a letter to Ilderim, and another to
+Simonides, giving notice of the news received, and of his purpose to go
+up immediately to Jerusalem. The letters he despatched by swift
+messengers. When night fell, and the stars of direction came out, he
+mounted, and with an Arab guide set out for the Jordan, intending to
+strike the track of the caravans between Rabbath-Ammon and Damascus.
+
+The guide was sure, and Aldebaran swift; so by midnight the two were
+out of the lava fastness speeding southward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+It was Ben-Hur’s purpose to turn aside at the break of day, and find a
+safe place in which to rest; but the dawn overtook him while out in the
+Desert, and he kept on, the guide promising to bring him afterwhile to
+a vale shut in by great rocks, where there were a spring, some
+mulberry-trees, and herbage in plenty for the horses.
+
+As he rode thinking of the wondrous events so soon to happen, and of
+the changes they were to bring about in the affairs of men and nations,
+the guide, ever on the alert, called attention to an appearance of
+strangers behind them. Everywhere around the Desert stretched away in
+waves of sand, slowly yellowing in the growing light, and without any
+green thing visible. Over on the left, but still far off, a range of
+low mountains extended, apparently interminable. In the vacancy of such
+a waste an object in motion could not long continue a mystery.
+
+“It is a camel with riders,” the guide said, directly.
+
+“Are there others behind?” said Ben-Hur.
+
+“It is alone. No, there is a man on horseback—the driver, probably.”
+
+A little later Ben-Hur himself could see the camel was white and
+unusually large, reminding him of the wonderful animal he had seen
+bring Balthasar and Iras to the fountain in the Grove of Daphne. There
+could be no other like it. Thinking then of the fair Egyptian,
+insensibly his gait became slower, and at length fell into the merest
+loiter, until finally he could discern a curtained houdah, and two
+persons seated within it. If they were Balthasar and Iras! Should he
+make himself known to them? But it could not be: this was the
+Desert—and they were alone. But while he debated the question the long
+swinging stride of the camel brought its riders up to him. He heard the
+ringing of the tiny bells, and beheld the rich housings which had been
+so attractive to the crowd at the Castalian fount. He beheld also the
+Ethiopian, always attendant upon the Egyptians. The tall brute stopped
+close by his horse, and Ben-Hur, looking up, lo! Iras herself under the
+raised curtain looking down at him, her great swimming eyes bright with
+astonishment and inquiry!
+
+“The blessing of the true God upon you!” said Balthasar, in his
+tremulous voice.
+
+“And to thee and thine be the peace of the Lord,” Ben-Hur replied.
+
+“My eyes are weak with years,” said Balthasar; “but they approve you
+that son of Hur whom lately I knew an honored guest in the tent of
+Ilderim the Generous.”
+
+“And thou art that Balthasar, the wise Egyptian, whose speech
+concerning certain holy things in expectation is having so much to do
+with the finding me in this waste place. What dost thou here?”
+
+“He is never alone who is where God is—and God is everywhere,”
+Balthasar answered, gravely; “but in the sense of your asking, there is
+a caravan short way behind us going to Alexandria; and as it is to pass
+through Jerusalem, I thought best to avail myself of its company as far
+as the Holy City, whither I am journeying. This morning, however, in
+discontent with its slow movement—slower because of a Roman cohort in
+attendance upon it—we rose early, and ventured thus far in advance. As
+to robbers along the way, we are not afraid, for I have here a signet
+of Sheik Ilderim; against beasts of prey, God is our sufficient trust.”
+
+Ben-Hur bowed and said, “The good sheik’s signet is a safeguard
+wherever the wilderness extends, and the lion shall be swift that
+overtakes this king of his kind.”
+
+He patted the neck of the camel as he spoke.
+
+“Yet,” said Iras, with a smile which was not lost upon the youth, whose
+eyes, it must be admitted, had several times turned to her during the
+interchange of speeches with the elder—“Yet even he would be better if
+his fast were broken. Kings have hunger and headaches. If you be,
+indeed, the Ben-Hur of whom my father has spoken, and whom it was my
+pleasure to have known as well, you will be happy, I am sure, to show
+us some near path to living water, that with its sparkle we may grace a
+morning’s meal in the Desert.”
+
+Ben-Hur, nothing loath, hastened to answer.
+
+“Fair Egyptian, I give you sympathy. Can you bear suffering a little
+longer, we will find the spring you ask for, and I promise that its
+draught shall be as sweet and cooling as that of the more famous
+Castalia. With leave, we will make haste.”
+
+“I give you the blessing of the thirsty,” she replied; “and offer you
+in return a bit of bread from the city ovens, dipped in fresh butter
+from the dewy meadows of Damascus.”
+
+“A most rare favor! Let us go on.”
+
+So saying, Ben-Hur rode forward with the guide, one of the
+inconveniences of travelling with camels being that it is necessarily
+an interdiction of polite conversation.
+
+Afterwhile the party came to a shallow wady, down which, turning to the
+right hand, the guide led them. The bed of the cut was somewhat soft
+from recent rains, and quite bold in its descent. Momentarily, however,
+it widened; and erelong the sides became bluffs ribbed with rocks much
+scarred by floods rushing to lower depths ahead. Finally, from a narrow
+passage, the travellers entered a spreading vale which was very
+delightful; but come upon suddenly from the yellow, unrelieved,
+verdureless plain, it had the effect of a freshly discovered Paradise.
+The water-channels winding here and there, definable by crisp white
+shingling, appeared like threads tangled among islands green with
+grasses and fringed with reeds. Up from the final depths of the valley
+of the Jordan some venturous oleanders had crept, and with their large
+bloom now starred the sunken place. One palm-tree arose in royal
+assertion. The bases of the boundary-walls were cloaked with clambering
+vines, and under a leaning cliff over on the left the mulberry grove
+had planted itself, proclaiming the spring which the party were
+seeking. And thither the guide conducted them, careless of whistling
+partridges and lesser birds of brighter hues roused whirring from the
+reedy coverts.
+
+The water started from a crack in the cliff which some loving hand had
+enlarged into an arched cavity. Graven over it in bold Hebraic letters
+was the word GOD. The graver had no doubt drunk there, and tarried many
+days, and given thanks in that durable form. From the arch the stream
+ran merrily over a flag spotted with bright moss, and leaped into a
+pool glassy clear; thence it stole away between grassy banks, nursing
+the trees before it vanished in the thirsty sand. A few narrow paths
+were noticeable about the margin of the pool; otherwise the space
+around was untrodden turf, at sight of which the guide was assured of
+rest free from intrusion by men. The horses were presently turned
+loose, and from the kneeling camel the Ethiopian assisted Balthasar and
+Iras; whereupon the old man, turning his face to the east, crossed his
+hands reverently upon his breast and prayed.
+
+“Bring me a cup,” Iras said, with some impatience.
+
+From the houdah the slave brought her a crystal goblet; then she said
+to Ben-Hur,
+
+“I will be your servant at the fountain.”
+
+They walked to the pool together. He would have dipped the water for
+her, but she refused his offer, and kneeling, held the cup to be filled
+by the stream itself; nor yet content, when it was cooled and
+overrunning, she tendered him the first draught.
+
+“No,” he said, putting the graceful hand aside, and seeing only the
+large eyes half hidden beneath the arches of the upraised brows, “be
+the service mine, I pray.”
+
+She persisted in having her way.
+
+“In my country, O son of Hur, we have a saying, ‘Better a cupbearer to
+the fortunate than minister to a king.’”
+
+“Fortunate!” he said.
+
+There were both surprise and inquiry in the tone of his voice and in
+his look, and she said quickly,
+
+“The gods give us success as a sign by which we may know them on our
+side. Were you not winner in the Circus?”
+
+His cheeks began to flush.
+
+“That was one sign. There is another. In a combat with swords you slew
+a Roman.”
+
+The flush deepened—not so much for the triumphs themselves as the
+flattery there was in the thought that she had followed his career with
+interest. A moment, and the pleasure was succeeded by a reflection. The
+combat, he knew, was matter of report throughout the East; but the name
+of the victor had been committed to a very few—Malluch, Ilderim, and
+Simonides. Could they have made a confidante of the woman? So with
+wonder and gratification he was confused; and seeing it, she arose and
+said, holding the cup over the pool,
+
+“O gods of Egypt! I give thanks for a hero discovered—thanks that the
+victim in the Palace of Idernee was not my king of men. And so, O holy
+gods, I pour and drink.”
+
+Part of the contents of the cup she returned to the stream, the rest
+she drank. When she took the crystal from her lips, she laughed at him.
+
+“O son of Hur, is it a fashion of the very brave to be so easily
+overcome by a woman? Take the cup now, and see if you cannot find a
+happy word in it for me.”
+
+He took the cup, and stooped to refill it.
+
+“A son of Israel has no gods whom he can libate,” he said, playing with
+the water to hide his amazement, now greater than before. What more did
+the Egyptian know about him? Had she been told of his relations with
+Simonides? And there was the treaty with Ilderim—had she knowledge of
+that also? He was struck with mistrust. Somebody had betrayed his
+secrets, and they were serious. And, besides, he was going to
+Jerusalem, just then of all the world the place where such intelligence
+possessed by an enemy might be most dangerous to him, his associates,
+and the cause. But was she an enemy? It is well for us that, while
+writing is slow, thought is instantaneous. When the cup was fairly
+cooled, he filled it and arose, saying, with indifference well
+affected,
+
+“Most fair, were I an Egyptian or a Greek or a Roman, I would say”—he
+raised the goblet overhead as he spoke—“O ye better gods! I give thanks
+that there are yet left to the world, despite its wrongs and
+sufferings, the charm of beauty and the solace of love, and I drink to
+her who best represents them—to Iras, loveliest of the daughters of the
+Nile!”
+
+She laid her hand softly upon his shoulder.
+
+“You have offended against the law. The gods you have drunk to are
+false gods. Why shall I not tell the rabbis on you?”
+
+“Oh!” he replied, laughing, “that is very little to tell for one who
+knows so much else that is really important.”
+
+“I will go further—I will go to the little Jewess who makes the roses
+grow and the shadows flame in the house of the great merchant over in
+Antioch. To the rabbis I will accuse you of impenitence; to her—”
+
+“Well, to her?”
+
+“I will repeat what you have said to me under the lifted cup, with the
+gods for witnesses.”
+
+He was still a moment, as if waiting for the Egyptian to go on. With
+quickened fancy he saw Esther at her father’s side listening to the
+despatches he had forwarded—sometimes reading them. In her presence he
+had told Simonides the story of the affair in the Palace of Idernee.
+She and Iras were acquainted; this one was shrewd and worldly; the
+other was simple and affectionate, and therefore easily won. Simonides
+could not have broken faith—nor Ilderim—for if not held by honor, there
+was no one, unless it might be himself, to whom the consequences of
+exposure were more serious and certain. Could Esther have been the
+Egyptian’s informant? He did not accuse her; yet a suspicion was sown
+with the thought, and suspicions, as we all know, are weeds of the mind
+which grow of themselves, and most rapidly when least wanted. Before he
+could answer the allusion to the little Jewess, Balthasar came to the
+pool.
+
+“We are greatly indebted to you, son of Hur,” he said, in his grave
+manner. “This vale is very beautiful; the grass, the trees, the shade,
+invite us to stay and rest, and the spring here has the sparkle of
+diamonds in motion, and sings to me of a loving God. It is not enough
+to thank you for the enjoyment we find; come sit with us, and taste our
+bread.”
+
+“Suffer me first to serve you.”
+
+With that Ben-Hur filled the goblet, and gave it to Balthasar, who
+lifted his eyes in thanksgiving.
+
+Immediately the slave brought napkins; and after laving their hands and
+drying them, the three seated themselves in Eastern style under the
+tent which years before had served the Wise Men at the meeting in the
+Desert. And they ate heartily of the good things taken from the camel’s
+pack.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The tent was cosily pitched beneath a tree where the gurgle of the
+stream was constantly in ear. Overhead the broad leaves hung motionless
+on their stems; the delicate reed-stalks off in the pearly haze stood
+up arrowy-straight; occasionally a home-returning bee shot humming
+athwart the shade, and a partridge creeping from the sedge drank,
+whistled to his mate, and ran away. The restfulness of the vale, the
+freshness of the air, the garden beauty, the Sabbath stillness, seemed
+to have affected the spirits of the elder Egyptian; his voice,
+gestures, and whole manner were unusually gentle; and often as he bent
+his eyes upon Ben-Hur conversing with Iras, they softened with pity.
+
+“When we overtook you, son of Hur,” he said, at the conclusion of the
+repast, “it seemed your face was also turned towards Jerusalem. May I
+ask, without offence, if you are going so far?”
+
+“I am going to the Holy City.”
+
+“For the great need I have to spare myself prolonged toil, I will
+further ask you, Is there a shorter road than that by Rabbath-Ammon?”
+
+“A rougher route, but shorter, lies by Gerasa and Rabbath-Gilead. It is
+the one I design taking.”
+
+“I am impatient,” said Balthasar. “Latterly my sleep has been visited
+by dreams—or rather by the same dream in repetition. A voice—it is
+nothing more—comes and tells me, ‘Haste—arise! He whom thou hast so
+long awaited is at hand.’”
+
+“You mean he that is to be King of the Jews?” Ben-Hur asked, gazing at
+the Egyptian in wonder.
+
+“Even so.”
+
+“Then you have heard nothing of him?”
+
+“Nothing, except the words of the voice in the dream.”
+
+“Here, then, are tidings to make you glad as they made me.”
+
+From his gown Ben-Hur drew the letter received from Malluch. The hand
+the Egyptian held out trembled violently. He read aloud, and as he read
+his feelings increased; the limp veins in his neck swelled and
+throbbed. At the conclusion he raised his suffused eyes in thanksgiving
+and prayer. He asked no questions, yet had no doubts.
+
+“Thou hast been very good to me, O God,” he said. “Give me, I pray
+thee, to see the Saviour again, and worship him, and thy servant will
+be ready to go in peace.”
+
+The words, the manner, the singular personality of the simple prayer,
+touched Ben-Hur with a sensation new and abiding. God never seemed so
+actual and so near by; it was as if he were there bending over them or
+sitting at their side—a Friend whose favors were to be had by the most
+unceremonious asking—a Father to whom all his children were alike in
+love—Father, not more of the Jew than of the Gentile—the Universal
+Father, who needed no intermediates, no rabbis, no priests, no
+teachers. The idea that such a God might send mankind a Saviour instead
+of a king appeared to Ben-Hur in a light not merely new, but so plain
+that he could almost discern both the greater want of such a gift and
+its greater consistency with the nature of such a Deity. So he could
+not resist asking,
+
+“Now that he has come, O Balthasar, you still think he is to be a
+Saviour, and not a king?”
+
+Balthasar gave him a look thoughtful as it was tender.
+
+“How shall I understand you?” he asked, in return. “The Spirit, which
+was the Star that was my guide of old, has not appeared to me since I
+met you in the tent of the good sheik; that is to say, I have not seen
+or heard it as formerly. I believe the voice that spoke to me in my
+dreams was it; but other than that I have no revelation.”
+
+“I will recall the difference between us,” said Ben-Hur, with
+deference. “You were of opinion that he would be a king, but not as
+Cæsar is; you thought his sovereignty would be spiritual, not of the
+world.”
+
+“Oh yes,” the Egyptian answered; “and I am of the same opinion now. I
+see the divergence in our faith. You are going to meet a king of men, I
+a Saviour of souls.”
+
+He paused with the look often seen when people are struggling, with
+introverted effort, to disentangle a thought which is either too high
+for quick discernment or too subtle for simple expression.
+
+“Let me try, O son of Hur,” he said, directly, “and help you to a clear
+understanding of my belief; then it may be, seeing how the spiritual
+kingdom I expect him to set up can be more excellent in every sense
+than anything of mere Cæsarean splendor, you will better understand
+the reason of the interest I take in the mysterious person we are going
+to welcome.
+
+“I cannot tell you when the idea of a Soul in every man had its origin.
+Most likely the first parents brought it with them out of the garden in
+which they had their first dwelling. We all do know, however, that it
+has never perished entirely out of mind. By some peoples it was lost,
+but not by all; in some ages it dulled and faded, in others it was
+overwhelmed with doubts; but, in great goodness, God kept sending us at
+intervals mighty intellects to argue it back to faith and hope.
+
+“Why should there be a Soul in every man? Look, O son of Hur—for one
+moment look at the necessity of such a device. To lie down and die, and
+be no more—no more forever—time never was when man wished for such an
+end; nor has the man ever been who did not in his heart promise himself
+something better. The monuments of the nations are all protests against
+nothingness after death; so are statues and inscriptions; so is
+history. The greatest of our Egyptian kings had his effigy cut-out of a
+hill of solid rock. Day after day he went with a host in chariots to
+see the work; at last it was finished, never effigy so grand, so
+enduring: it looked like him—the features were his, faithful even in
+expression. Now may we not think of him saying in that moment of pride,
+‘Let Death come; there is an after-life for me!’ He had his wish. The
+statue is there yet.
+
+“But what is the after-life he thus secured? Only a recollection by
+men—a glory unsubstantial as moonshine on the brow of the great bust; a
+story in stone—nothing more. Meantime what has become of the king?
+There is an embalmed body up in the royal tombs which once was his—an
+effigy not so fair to look at as the other out in the Desert. But
+where, O son of Hur, where is the king himself? Is he fallen into
+nothingness? Two thousand years have gone since he was a man alive as
+you and I are. Was his last breath the end of him?
+
+“To say yes would be to accuse God; let us rather accept his better
+plan of attaining life after death for us—actual life, I mean—the
+something more than a place in mortal memory; life with going and
+coming, with sensation, with knowledge, with power and all
+appreciation; life eternal in term though it may be with changes of
+condition.
+
+“Ask you what God’s plan is? The gift of a Soul to each of us at birth,
+with this simple law—there shall be no immortality except through the
+Soul. In that law see the necessity of which I spoke.
+
+“Let us turn from the necessity now. A word as to the pleasure there is
+in the thought of a Soul in each of us. In the first place, it robs
+death of its terrors by making dying a change for the better, and
+burial but the planting of a seed from which there will spring a new
+life. In the next place, behold me as I am—weak, weary, old, shrunken
+in body, and graceless; look at my wrinkled face, think of my failing
+senses, listen to my shrilled voice. Ah! what happiness to me in the
+promise that when the tomb opens, as soon it will, to receive the
+worn-out husk I call myself, the now viewless doors of the universe,
+which is but the palace of God, will swing wide ajar to receive me, a
+liberated immortal Soul!
+
+“I would I could tell the ecstasy there must be in that life to come!
+Do not say I know nothing about it. This much I know, and it is enough
+for me—the being a Soul implies conditions of divine superiority. In
+such a being there is no dust, nor any gross thing; it must be finer
+than air, more impalpable than light, purer than essence—it is life in
+absolute purity.
+
+“What now, O son of Hur? Knowing so much, shall I dispute with myself
+or you about the unnecessaries—about the form of my soul? Or where it
+is to abide? Or whether it eats and drinks? Or is winged, or wears this
+or that? No. It is more becoming to trust in God. The beautiful in this
+world is all from his hand declaring the perfection of taste; he is the
+author of all form; he clothes the lily, he colors the rose, he distils
+the dew-drop, he makes the music of nature; in a word, he organized us
+for this life, and imposed its conditions; and they are such guaranty
+to me that, trustful as a little child, I leave to him the organization
+of my Soul, and every arrangement for the life after death. I know he
+loves me.”
+
+The good man stopped and drank, and the hand carrying the cup to his
+lips trembled; and both Iras and Ben-Hur shared his emotion and
+remained silent. Upon the latter a light was breaking. He was beginning
+to see, as never before, that there might be a spiritual kingdom of
+more import to men than any earthly empire; and that after all a
+Saviour would indeed be a more godly gift than the greatest king.
+
+“I might ask you now,” said Balthasar, continuing, “whether this human
+life, so troubled and brief, is preferable to the perfect and
+everlasting life designed for the Soul? But take the question, and
+think of it for yourself, formulating thus: Supposing both to be
+equally happy, is one hour more desirable than one year? From that then
+advance to the final inquiry, what are threescore and ten years on
+earth to all eternity with God? By-and-by, son of Hur, thinking in such
+manner, you will be filled with the meaning of the fact I present you
+next, to me the most amazing of all events, and in its effects the most
+sorrowful; it is that the very idea of life as a Soul is a light almost
+gone out in the world. Here and there, to be sure, a philosopher may be
+found who will talk to you of a Soul, likening it to a principle; but
+because philosophers take nothing upon faith, they will not go the
+length of admitting a Soul to be a being, and on that account its
+purpose is compressed darkness to them.
+
+“Everything animate has a mind measurable by its wants. Is there to you
+no meaning in the singularity that power in full degree to speculate
+upon the future was given to man alone? By the sign as I see it, God
+meant to make us know ourselves created for another and a better life,
+such being in fact the greatest need of our nature. But, alas! into
+what a habit the nations have fallen! They live for the day, as if the
+present were the all in all, and go about saying, ‘There is no
+to-morrow after death; or if there be, since we know nothing about it,
+be it a care unto itself.’ So when Death calls them, ‘Come,’ they may
+not enter into enjoyment of the glorious after-life because of their
+unfitness. That is to say, the ultimate happiness of man was
+everlasting life in the society of God. Alas, O son of Hur, that I
+should say it! but as well yon sleeping camel constant in such society
+as the holiest priests this day serving the highest altars in the most
+renowned temples. So much are men given to this lower earthly life! So
+nearly have they forgotten that other which is to come!
+
+“See now, I pray you, that which is to be saved to us.
+
+“For my part, speaking with the holiness of truth, I would not give one
+hour of life as a Soul for a thousand years of life as a man.”
+
+Here the Egyptian seemed to become unconscious of companionship and
+fall away into abstraction.
+
+“This life has its problems,” he said, “and there are men who spend
+their days trying to solve them; but what are they to the problems of
+the hereafter? What is there like knowing God? Not a scroll of the
+mysteries, but the mysteries themselves would for that hour at least
+lie before me revealed; even the innermost and most awful—the power
+which now we shrink from thought of—which rimmed the void with shores,
+and lighted the darkness, and out of nothing appointed the universe.
+All places would be opened. I would be filled with divine knowledge; I
+would see all glories, taste all delights; I would revel in being. And
+if, at the end of the hour, it should please God to tell me, ‘I take
+thee into my service forever,’ the furthest limit of desire would be
+passed; after which the attainable ambitions of life, and its joys of
+whatever kind, would not be so much as the tinkling of little bells.”
+
+Balthasar paused as if to recover from very ecstasy of feeling; and to
+Ben-Hur it seemed the speech had been the delivery of a Soul speaking
+for itself.
+
+“I pray pardon, son of Hur,” the good man continued, with a bow the
+gravity of which was relieved by the tender look that followed it, “I
+meant to leave the life of a Soul, its conditions, pleasures,
+superiority, to your own reflection and finding out. The joy of the
+thought has betrayed me into much speech. I set out to show, though
+ever so faintly, the reason of my faith. It grieves me that words are
+so weak. But help yourself to truth. Consider first the excellence of
+the existence which was reserved for us after death, and give heed to
+the feelings and impulses the thought is sure to awaken in you—heed
+them, I say, because they are your own Soul astir, doing what it can to
+urge you in the right way. Consider next that the afterlife has become
+so obscured as to justify calling it a lost light. If you find it,
+rejoice, O son of Hur—rejoice as I do, though in beggary of words. For
+then, besides the great gift which is to be saved to us, you will have
+found the need of a Saviour so infinitely greater than the need of a
+king; and he we are going to meet will not longer hold place in your
+hope a warrior with a sword or a monarch with a crown.
+
+“A practical question presents itself—How shall we know him at sight?
+If you continue in your belief as to his character—that he is to be a
+king as Herod was—of course you will keep on until you meet a man
+clothed in purple and with a sceptre. On the other hand, he I look for
+will be one poor, humble, undistinguished—a man in appearance as other
+men; and the sign by which I will know him will be never so simple. He
+will offer to show me and all mankind the way to the eternal life; the
+beautiful pure Life of the Soul.”
+
+The company sat a moment in silence which was broken by Balthasar.
+
+“Let us arise now,” he said—“let us arise and set forward again. What I
+have said has caused a return of impatience to see him who is ever in
+my thought; and if I seem to hurry you, O son of Hur—and you, my
+daughter—be that my excuse.”
+
+At his signal the slave brought them wine in a skin bottle; and they
+poured and drank, and shaking the lap-cloths out arose.
+
+While the slave restored the tent and wares to the box under the
+houdah, and the Arab brought up the horses, the three principals laved
+themselves in the pool.
+
+In a little while they were retracing their steps back through the
+wady, intending to overtake the caravan if it had passed them by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The caravan, stretched out upon the Desert, was very picturesque; in
+motion, however, it was like a lazy serpent. By-and-by its stubborn
+dragging became intolerably irksome to Balthasar, patient as he was;
+so, at his suggestion, the party determined to go on by themselves.
+
+If the reader be young, or if he has yet a sympathetic recollection of
+the romanticisms of his youth, he will relish the pleasure with which
+Ben-Hur, riding near the camel of the Egyptians, gave a last look at
+the head of the straggling column almost out of sight on the shimmering
+plain.
+
+To be definite as may be, and perfectly confidential, Ben-Hur found a
+certain charm in Iras’s presence. If she looked down upon him from her
+high place, he made haste to get near her; if she spoke to him, his
+heart beat out of its usual time. The desire to be agreeable to her was
+a constant impulse. Objects on the way, though ever so common, became
+interesting the moment she called attention to them; a black swallow in
+the air pursued by her pointing finger went off in a halo; if a bit of
+quartz or a flake of mica was seen to sparkle in the drab sand under
+kissing of the sun, at a word he turned aside and brought it to her;
+and if she threw it away in disappointment, far from thinking of the
+trouble he had been put to, he was sorry it proved so worthless, and
+kept a lookout for something better—a ruby, perchance a diamond. So the
+purple of the far mountains became intensely deep and rich if she
+distinguished it with an exclamation of praise; and when, now and then,
+the curtain of the houdah fell down, it seemed a sudden dulness had
+dropped from the sky bedraggling all the landscape. Thus disposed,
+yielding to the sweet influence, what shall save him from the dangers
+there are in days of the close companionship with the fair Egyptian
+incident to the solitary journey they were entered upon?
+
+For that there is no logic in love, nor the least mathematical element,
+it is simply natural that she shall fashion the result who has the
+wielding of the influence.
+
+To quicken the conclusion, there were signs, too, that she well knew
+the influence she was exercising over him. From some place under hand
+she had since morning drawn a caul of golden coins, and adjusted it so
+the gleaming strings fell over her forehead and upon her cheeks,
+blending lustrously with the flowing of her blue-black hair. From the
+same safe deposit she had also produced articles of jewelry—rings for
+finger and ear, bracelets, a necklace of pearls—also, a shawl
+embroidered with threads of fine gold—the effect of all which she
+softened with a scarf of Indian lace skillfully folded about her throat
+and shoulders. And so arrayed, she plied Ben-Hur with countless
+coquetries of speech and manner; showering him with smiles; laughing in
+flute-like tremolo—and all the while following him with glances, now
+melting-tender, now sparkling-bright. By such play Antony was weaned
+from his glory; yet she who wrought his ruin was really not half so
+beautiful as this her countrywoman.
+
+And so to them the nooning came, and the evening.
+
+The sun at its going down behind a spur of the old Bashan, left the
+party halted by a pool of clear water of the rains out in the Abilene
+Desert. There the tent was pitched, the supper eaten, and preparations
+made for the night.
+
+The second watch was Ben-Hur’s; and he was standing, spear in hand,
+within arm-reach of the dozing camel, looking awhile at the stars, then
+over the veiled land. The stillness was intense; only after long spells
+a warm breath of wind would sough past, but without disturbing him, for
+yet in thought he entertained the Egyptian, recounting her charms, and
+sometimes debating how she came by his secrets, the uses she might make
+of them, and the course he should pursue with her. And through all the
+debate Love stood off but a little way—a strong temptation, the
+stronger of a gleam of policy behind. At the very moment he was most
+inclined to yield to the allurement, a hand very fair even in the
+moonless gloaming was laid softly upon his shoulder. The touch thrilled
+him; he started, turned—and she was there.
+
+“I thought you asleep,” he said, presently.
+
+“Sleep is for old people and little children, and I came out to look at
+my friends, the stars in the south—those now holding the curtains of
+midnight over the Nile. But confess yourself surprised!”
+
+He took the hand which had fallen from his shoulder, and said, “Well,
+was it by an enemy?”
+
+“Oh no! To be an enemy is to hate, and hating is a sickness which Isis
+will not suffer to come near me. She kissed me, you should know, on the
+heart when I was a child.”
+
+“Your speech does not sound in the least like your father’s. Are you
+not of his faith?”
+
+“I might have been”—and she laughed low—“I might have been had I seen
+what he has. I may be when I get old like him. There should be no
+religion for youth, only poetry and philosophy; and no poetry except
+such as is the inspiration of wine and mirth and love, and no
+philosophy that does not nod excuse for follies which cannot outlive a
+season. My father’s God is too awful for me. I failed to find him in
+the Grove of Daphne. He was never heard of as present in the atria of
+Rome. But, son of Hur, I have a wish.”
+
+“A wish! Where is he who could say it no?”
+
+“I will try you.”
+
+“Tell it then.”
+
+“It is very simple. I wish to help you.”
+
+She drew closer as she spoke.
+
+He laughed, and replied, lightly, “O Egypt!—I came near saying dear
+Egypt!—does not the sphinx abide in your country?”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“You are one of its riddles. Be merciful, and give me a little clew to
+help me understand you. In what do I need help? And how can you help
+me?”
+
+She took her hand from him, and, turning to the camel, spoke to it
+endearingly, and patted its monstrous head as it were a thing of
+beauty.
+
+“O thou last and swiftest and stateliest of the herds of Job! Sometimes
+thou, too, goest stumbling, because the way is rough and stony and the
+burden grievous. How is it thou knowest the kind intent by a word; and
+always makest answer gratefully, though the help offered is from a
+woman? I will kiss thee, thou royal brute!”—she stooped and touched its
+broad forehead with her lips, saying immediately, “because in thy
+intelligence there is no suspicion!”
+
+And Ben-Hur, restraining himself, said calmly, “The reproach has not
+failed its mark, O Egypt! I seem to say thee no; may it not be because
+I am under seal of honor, and by my silence cover the lives and
+fortunes of others?”
+
+“May be!” she said, quickly. “It is so.”
+
+He shrank a step, and asked, his voice sharp with amazement, “What all
+knowest thou?”
+
+She answered, after a laugh,
+
+“Why do men deny that the senses of women are sharper than theirs? Your
+face has been under my eyes all day. I had but to look at it to see you
+bore some weight in mind; and to find the weight, what had I to do more
+than recall your debates with my father? Son of Hur!”—she lowered her
+voice with singular dexterity, and, going nearer, spoke so her breath
+was warm upon his cheek—“son of Hur! he thou art going to find is to be
+King of the Jews, is he not?”
+
+His heart beat fast and hard.
+
+“A King of the Jews like Herod, only greater,” she continued.
+
+He looked away—into the night, up to the stars; then his eyes met hers,
+and lingered there; and her breath was on his lips, so near was she.
+
+“Since morning,” she said, further, “we have been having visions. Now
+if I tell you mine, will you serve me as well? What! silent still?”
+
+She pushed his hand away, and turned as if to go; but he caught her,
+and said, eagerly, “Stay—stay and speak!”
+
+She went back, and with her hand upon his shoulder, leaned against him;
+and he put his arm around her, and drew her close, very close; and in
+the caress was the promise she asked.
+
+“Speak, and tell me thy visions, O Egypt, dear Egypt! A prophet—nay,
+not the Tishbite, not even the Lawgiver—could have refused an asking of
+thine. I am at thy will. Be merciful—merciful, I pray.”
+
+The entreaty passed apparently unheard, for looking up and nestling in
+his embrace, she said, slowly, “The vision which followed me was of
+magnificent war—war on land and sea—with clashing of arms and rush of
+armies, as if Cæsar and Pompey were come again, and Octavius and
+Antony. A cloud of dust and ashes arose and covered the world, and Rome
+was not any more; all dominion returned to the East; out of the cloud
+issued another race of heroes; and there were vaster satrapies and
+brighter crowns for giving away than were ever known. And, son of Hur,
+while the vision was passing, and after it was gone, I kept asking
+myself, ‘What shall he not have who served the King earliest and
+best?’”
+
+Again Ben-Hur recoiled. The question was the very question which had
+been with him all day. Presently he fancied he had the clew he wanted.
+
+“So,” he said, “I have you now. The satrapies and crowns are the things
+to which you would help me. I see, I see! And there never was such
+queen as you would be, so shrewd, so beautiful, so royal—never! But,
+alas, dear Egypt! by the vision as you show it me the prizes are all of
+war, and you are but a woman, though Isis did kiss you on the heart.
+And crowns are starry gifts beyond your power of help, unless, indeed,
+you have a way to them more certain than that of the sword. If so, O
+Egypt, Egypt, show it me, and I will walk in it, if only for your
+sake.”
+
+She removed his arm, and said, “Spread your cloak upon the sand—here,
+so I can rest against the camel. I will sit, and tell you a story which
+came down the Nile to Alexandria, where I had it.”
+
+He did as she said, first planting the spear in the ground near by.
+
+“And what shall I do?” he said, ruefully, when she was seated. “In
+Alexandria is it customary for the listeners to sit or stand?”
+
+From the comfortable place against the old domestic she answered,
+laughing, “The audiences of story-tellers are wilful, and sometimes
+they do as they please.”
+
+Without more ado he stretched himself upon the sand, and put her arm
+about his neck.
+
+“I am ready,” he said.
+
+And directly she began:
+
+HOW THE BEAUTIFUL CAME TO THE EARTH.
+
+“You must know, in the first place, that Isis was—and, for that matter,
+she may yet be—the most beautiful of deities; and Osiris, her husband,
+though wise and powerful, was sometimes stung with jealousy of her, for
+only in their loves are the gods like mortals.
+
+“The palace of the Divine Wife was of silver, crowning the tallest
+mountain in the moon, and thence she passed often to the sun, in the
+heart of which, a source of eternal light, Osiris kept his palace of
+gold too shining for men to look at.
+
+“One time—there are no days with the gods—while she was full pleasantly
+with him on the roof of the golden palace, she chanced to look, and
+afar, just on the line of the universe, saw Indra passing with an army
+of simians, all borne upon the backs of flying eagles. He, the Friend
+of Living Things—so with much love is Indra called—was returning from
+his final war with the hideous Rakshakas—returning victorious; and in
+his suite were Rama, the hero, and Sita, his bride, who, next to Isis
+herself, was the very most beautiful. And Isis arose, and took off her
+girdle of stars, and waved it to Sita—to Sita, mind you—waved it in
+glad salute. And instantly, between the marching host and the two on
+the golden roof, a something as of night fell, and shut out the view;
+but it was not night—only the frown of Osiris.
+
+“It happened the subject of his speech that moment was such as none
+else than they could think of; and he arose, and said, majestically,
+‘Get thee home. I will do the work myself. To make a perfectly happy
+being I do not need thy help. Get thee gone.’
+
+“Now Isis had eyes large as those of the white cow which in the temple
+eats sweet grasses from the hands of the faithful even while they say
+their prayers; and her eyes were the color of the cows, and quite as
+tender. And she too arose and said, smiling as she spoke, so her look
+was little more than the glow of the moon in the hazy harvest-month,
+‘Farewell, good my lord. You will call me presently, I know; for
+without me you cannot make the perfectly happy creature of which you
+were thinking, any more’—and she stopped to laugh, knowing well the
+truth of the saying—‘any more, my lord, than you yourself can be
+perfectly happy without me.’
+
+“‘We will see,’ he said.
+
+“And she went her way, and took her needles and her chair, and on the
+roof of the silver palace sat watching and knitting.
+
+“And the will of Osiris, at labor in his mighty breast, was as the
+sound of the mills of all the other gods grinding at once, so loud that
+the near stars rattled like seeds in a parched pod; and some dropped
+out and were lost. And while the sound kept on she waited and knit; nor
+lost she ever a stitch the while.
+
+“Soon a spot appeared in the space over towards the sun; and it grew
+until it was great as the moon, and then she knew a world was intended;
+but when, growing and growing, at last it cast her planet in the shade,
+all save the little point lighted by her presence, she knew how very
+angry he was; yet she knit away, assured that the end would be as she
+had said.
+
+“And so came the earth, at first but a cold gray mass hanging listless
+in the hollow void. Later she saw it separate into divisions; here a
+plain, there a mountain, yonder a sea, all as yet without a sparkle.
+And then, by a river-bank, something moved; and she stopped her
+knitting for wonder. The something arose, and lifted its hands to the
+sun in sign of knowledge whence it had its being. And this First Man
+was beautiful to see. And about him were the creations we call
+nature—the grass, the trees, birds, beasts, even the insects and
+reptiles.
+
+“And for a time the man went about happy in his life: it was easy to
+see how happy he was. And in the lull of the sound of the laboring will
+Isis heard a scornful laugh, and presently the words, blown across from
+the sun,
+
+“‘Thy help, indeed! Behold a creature perfectly happy!’
+
+“And Isis fell to knitting again, for she was patient as Osiris was
+strong; and if he could work, she could wait; and wait she did, knowing
+that mere life is not enough to keep anything content.
+
+“And sure enough. Not long until the Divine Wife could see a change in
+the man. He grew listless, and kept to one place prone by the river,
+and looked up but seldom, and then always with a moody face. Interest
+was dying in him. And when she made sure of it, even while she was
+saying to herself, ‘The creature is sick of his being,’ there was a
+roar of the creative will at work again, and in a twinkling the earth,
+theretofore all a thing of coldest gray, flamed with colors; the
+mountains swam in purple, the plains bearing grass and trees turned
+green, the sea blue, and the clouds varied infinitely.”
+
+And the man sprang up and clapped his hands, for he was cured and happy
+again.
+
+“And Isis smiled, and knit away, saying to herself, ‘It was well
+thought, and will do a little while; but mere beauty in a world is not
+enough for such a being. My lord must try again.’
+
+“With the last word, the thunder of the will at work shook the moon,
+and, looking, Isis dropped her knitting and clapped her hands; for
+theretofore everything on the earth but the man had been fixed to a
+given place; now all living, and much that was not living, received the
+gift of Motion. The birds took to wing joyously; beasts great and small
+went about, each in its way; the trees shook their verdurous branches,
+nodding to the enamoured winds; the rivers ran to the seas, and the
+seas tossed in their beds and rolled in crested waves, and with surging
+and ebbing painted the shores with glistening foam; and over all the
+clouds floated like sailed ships unanchored.
+
+“And the man rose up happy as a child; whereat Osiris was pleased, so
+that he shouted, ‘Ha, ha! See how well I am doing without thee!’
+
+“The good wife took up her work, and answered ever so quietly, ‘It was
+well thought, my lord—ever so well thought—and will serve awhile.’
+
+“And as before, so again. The sight of things in motion became to the
+man as of course. The birds in flight, the rivers running, the seas in
+tumult of action, ceased to amuse him, and he pined again even worse.
+
+“And Isis waited, saying to herself, ‘Poor creature! He is more
+wretched than ever.’
+
+“And, as if he heard the thought, Osiris stirred, and the noise of his
+will shook the universe; the sun in its central seat alone stood firm.
+And Isis looked, but saw no change; then while she was smiling, assured
+that her lord’s last invention was sped, suddenly the creature arose,
+and seemed to listen; and his face brightened, and he clapped his hands
+for joy, for Sounds were heard the first time on earth—sounds
+dissonant, sounds harmonious. The winds murmured in the trees; the
+birds sang, each kind a song of its own, or chattered in speech; the
+rivulets running to the rivers became so many harpers with harps of
+silver strings all tinkling together; and the rivers running to the
+seas surged on in solemn accord, while the seas beat the land to a tune
+of thunder. There was music, music everywhere, and all the time; so the
+man could not but be happy.
+
+“Then Isis mused, thinking how well, how wondrous well, her lord was
+doing; but presently she shook her head: Color, Motion, Sound—and she
+repeated them slowly—there was no element else of beauty except Form
+and Light, and to them the earth had been born. Now, indeed, Osiris was
+done; and if the creature should again fall off into wretchedness, her
+help must be asked; and her fingers flew—two, three, five, even ten
+stitches she took at once.
+
+“And the man was happy a long time—longer than ever before; it seemed,
+indeed, he would never tire again. But Isis knew better; and she waited
+and waited, nor minded the many laughs flung at her from the sun; she
+waited and waited, and at last saw signs of the end. Sounds became
+familiar to him, and in their range, from the chirruping of the cricket
+under the roses to the roar of the seas and the bellow of the clouds in
+storm, there was not anything unusual. And he pined and sickened, and
+sought his place of moping by the river, and at last fell down
+motionless.
+
+“Then Isis in pity spoke.
+
+“‘My lord,’ she said, ‘the creature is dying.’
+
+“But Osiris, though seeing it all, held his peace; he could do no more.
+
+“‘Shall I help him?’ she asked.
+
+“Osiris was too proud to speak.
+
+“Then Isis took the last stitch in her knitting, and gathering her work
+in a roll of brilliance flung it off—flung it so it fell close to the
+man. And he, hearing the sound of the fall so near by, looked up, and
+lo! a Woman—the First Woman—was stooping to help him! She reached a
+hand to him; he caught it and arose; and nevermore was miserable, but
+evermore happy.”
+
+“Such, O son of Hur! is the genesis of the beautiful, as they tell it
+on the Nile.”
+
+She paused.
+
+“A pretty invention, and cunning,” he said, directly; “but it is
+imperfect. What did Osiris afterwards?”
+
+“Oh yes,” she replied. “He called the Divine Wife back to the sun, and
+they went on all pleasantly together, each helping the other.”
+
+“And shall I not do as the first man?”
+
+He carried the hand resting upon his neck to his lips. “In love—in
+love!” he said.
+
+His head dropped softly into her lap.
+
+“You will find the King,” she said, placing her other hand caressingly
+upon his head. “You will go on and find the King and serve him. With
+your sword you will earn his richest gifts; and his best soldier will
+be my hero.”
+
+He turned his face, and saw hers close above. In all the sky there was
+that moment nothing so bright to him as her eyes, enshadowed though
+they were. Presently he sat up, and put his arms about her, and kissed
+her passionately, saying, “O Egypt, Egypt! If the King has crowns in
+gift, one shall be mine; and I will bring it and put it here over the
+place my lips have marked. You shall be a queen—my queen—no one more
+beautiful! And we will be ever, ever so happy!”
+
+“And you will tell me everything, and let me help you in all?” she
+said, kissing him in return.
+
+The question chilled his fervor.
+
+“Is it not enough that I love you?” he asked.
+
+“Perfect love means perfect faith,” she replied. “But never mind—you
+will know me better.”
+
+She took her hand from him and arose.
+
+“You are cruel,” he said.
+
+Moving away, she stopped by the camel, and touched its front face with
+her lips.
+
+“O thou noblest of thy kind!—that, because there is no suspicion in thy
+love.”
+
+An instant, and she was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The third day of the journey the party nooned by the river Jabbok,
+where there were a hundred or more men, mostly of Peraea, resting
+themselves and their beasts. Hardly had they dismounted, before a man
+came to them with a pitcher of water and a bowl, and offered them
+drink; as they received the attention with much courtesy, he said,
+looking at the camel, “I am returning from the Jordan, where just now
+there are many people from distant parts, travelling as you are,
+illustrious friend; but they had none of them the equal of your servant
+here. A very noble animal. May I ask of what breed he is sprung?”
+
+Balthasar answered, and sought his rest; but Ben-Hur, more curious,
+took up the remark.
+
+“At what place on the river are the people?” he asked.
+
+“At Bethabara.”
+
+“It used to be a lonesome ford,” said Ben-Hur. “I cannot understand how
+it can have become of such interest.”
+
+“I see,” the stranger replied; “you, too, are from abroad, and have not
+heard the good tidings.”
+
+“What tidings?”
+
+“Well, a man has appeared out of the wilderness—a very holy man—with
+his mouth full of strange words, which take hold of all who hear them.
+He calls himself John the Nazarite, son of Zacharias, and says he is
+the messenger sent before the Messiah.”
+
+Even Iras listened closely while the man continued:
+
+“They say of this John that he has spent his life from childhood in a
+cave down by En-Gedi, praying and living more strictly than the
+Essenes. Crowds go to hear him preach. I went to hear him with the
+rest.”
+
+“Have all these, your friends, been there?”
+
+“Most of them are going; a few are coming away.”
+
+“What does he preach?”
+
+“A new doctrine—one never before taught in Israel, as all say. He calls
+it repentance and baptism. The rabbis do not know what to make of him;
+nor do we. Some have asked him if he is the Christ, others if he is
+Elias; but to them all he has the answer, ‘I am the voice of one crying
+in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord!’”
+
+At this point the man was called away by his friends; as he was going,
+Balthasar spoke.
+
+“Good stranger!” he said, tremulously, “tell us if we shall find the
+preacher at the place you left him.”
+
+“Yes, at Bethabara.”
+
+“Who should this Nazarite be?” said Ben-Hur to Iras, “if not the herald
+of our King?”
+
+In so short a time he had come to regard the daughter as more
+interested in the mysterious personage he was looking for than the aged
+father! Nevertheless, the latter with a positive glow in his sunken
+eyes half arose, and said,
+
+“Let us make haste. I am not tired.”
+
+They turned away to help the slave.
+
+There was little conversation between the three at the stopping-place
+for the night west of Ramoth-Gilead.
+
+“Let us arise early, son of Hur,” said the old man. “The Saviour may
+come, and we not there.”
+
+“The King cannot be far behind his herald,” Iras whispered, as she
+prepared to take her place on the camel.
+
+“To-morrow we will see!” Ben-Hur replied, kissing her hand.
+
+Next day about the third hour, out of the pass through which, skirting
+the base of Mount Gilead, they had journeyed since leaving Ramoth, the
+party came upon the barren steppe east of the sacred river. Opposite
+them they saw the upper limit of the old palm lands of Jericho,
+stretching off to the hill-country of Judea. Ben-Hur’s blood ran
+quickly, for he knew the ford was close at hand.
+
+“Content you, good Balthasar,” he said; “we are almost there.”
+
+The driver quickened the camel’s pace. Soon they caught sight of booths
+and tents and tethered animals; and then of the river, and a multitude
+collected down close by the bank, and yet another multitude on the
+western shore. Knowing that the preacher was preaching, they made
+greater haste; yet, as they were drawing near, suddenly there was a
+commotion in the mass, and it began to break up and disperse.
+
+They were too late!
+
+“Let us stay here,” said Ben-Hur to Balthasar, who was wringing his
+hands. “The Nazarite may come this way.”
+
+The people were too intent upon what they had heard, and too busy in
+discussion, to notice the new-comers. When some hundreds were gone by,
+and it seemed the opportunity to so much as see the Nazarite was lost
+to the latter, up the river not far away they beheld a person coming
+towards them of such singular appearance they forgot all else.
+
+Outwardly the man was rude and uncouth, even savage. Over a thin, gaunt
+visage of the hue of brown parchment, over his shoulders and down his
+back below the middle, in witch-like locks, fell a covering of
+sun-scorched hair. His eyes were burning-bright. All his right side was
+naked, and of the color of his face, and quite as meagre; a shirt of
+the coarsest camel’s-hair—coarse as Bedouin tent-cloth—clothed the rest
+of his person to the knees, being gathered at the waist by a broad
+girdle of untanned leather. His feet were bare. A scrip, also of
+untanned leather, was fastened to the girdle. He used a knotted staff
+to help him forward. His movement was quick, decided, and strangely
+watchful. Every little while he tossed the unruly hair from his eyes,
+and peered round as if searching for somebody.
+
+The fair Egyptian surveyed the son of the Desert with surprise, not to
+say disgust. Presently, raising the curtain of the houdah, she spoke to
+Ben-Hur, who sat his horse near by.
+
+“Is that the herald of thy King?”
+
+“It is the Nazarite,” he replied, without looking up.
+
+In truth, he was himself more than disappointed. Despite his
+familiarity with the ascetic colonists in En-Gedi—their dress, their
+indifference to all worldly opinion, their constancy to vows which gave
+them over to every imaginable suffering of body, and separated them
+from others of their kind as absolutely as if they had not been born
+like them—and notwithstanding he had been notified on the way to look
+for a Nazarite whose simple description of himself was a Voice from the
+Wilderness—still Ben-Hur’s dream of the King who was to be so great and
+do so much had colored all his thought of him, so that he never doubted
+to find in the forerunner some sign or token of the goodliness and
+royalty he was announcing. Gazing at the savage figure before him, the
+long trains of courtiers whom he had been used to see in the thermae
+and imperial corridors at Rome arose before him, forcing a comparison.
+Shocked, shamed, bewildered, he could only answer,
+
+“It is the Nazarite.”
+
+With Balthasar it was very different. The ways of God, he knew, were
+not as men would have them. He had seen the Saviour a child in a
+manger, and was prepared by his faith for the rude and simple in
+connection with the Divine reappearance. So he kept his seat, his hands
+crossed upon his breast, his lips moving in prayer. He was not
+expecting a king.
+
+In this time of such interest to the new-comers, and in which they were
+so differently moved, another man had been sitting by himself on a
+stone at the edge of the river, thinking yet, probably, of the sermon
+he had been hearing. Now, however, he arose, and walked slowly up from
+the shore, in a course to take him across the line the Nazarite was
+pursuing and bring him near the camel.
+
+And the two—the preacher and the stranger—kept on until they came, the
+former within twenty yards of the animal, the latter within ten feet.
+Then the preacher stopped, and flung the hair from his eyes, looked at
+the stranger, threw his hands up as a signal to all the people in
+sight; and they also stopped, each in the pose of a listener; and when
+the hush was perfect, slowly the staff in the Nazarite’s right hand
+came down and pointed to the stranger.
+
+All those who before were but listeners became watchers also.
+
+At the same instant, under the same impulse, Balthasar and Ben-Hur
+fixed their gaze upon the man pointed out, and both took the same
+impression, only in different degree. He was moving slowly towards them
+in a clear space a little to their front, a form slightly above the
+average in stature, and slender, even delicate. His action was calm and
+deliberate, like that habitual to men much given to serious thought
+upon grave subjects; and it well became his costume, which was an
+undergarment full-sleeved and reaching to the ankles, and an outer robe
+called the talith; on his left arm he carried the usual handkerchief
+for the head, the red fillet swinging loose down his side. Except the
+fillet and a narrow border of blue at the lower edge of the talith, his
+attire was of linen yellowed with dust and road stains. Possibly the
+exception should be extended to the tassels, which were blue and white,
+as prescribed by law for rabbis. His sandals were of the simplest kind.
+He was without scrip or girdle or staff.
+
+These points of appearance, however, the three beholders observed
+briefly, and rather as accessories to the head and face of the man,
+which—especially the latter—were the real sources of the spell they
+caught in common with all who stood looking at him.
+
+The head was open to the cloudless light, except as it was draped with
+hair long and slightly waved, and parted in the middle, and auburn in
+tint, with a tendency to reddish golden where most strongly touched by
+the sun. Under a broad, low forehead, under black well arched brows,
+beamed eyes dark-blue and large, and softened to exceeding tenderness
+by lashes of the great length sometimes seen on children, but seldom,
+if ever, on men. As to the other features, it would have been difficult
+to decide whether they were Greek or Jewish. The delicacy of the
+nostrils and mouth was unusual to the latter type; and when it was
+taken into account with the gentleness of the eyes, the pallor of the
+complexion, the fine texture of the hair, and the softness of the
+beard, which fell in waves over his throat to his breast, never a
+soldier but would have laughed at him in encounter, never a woman who
+would not have confided in him at sight, never a child that would not,
+with quick instinct, have given him its hand and whole artless trust;
+nor might any one have said he was not beautiful.
+
+The features, it should be further said, were ruled by a certain
+expression which, as the viewer chose, might with equal correctness
+have been called the effect of intelligence, love, pity, or sorrow;
+though, in better speech, it was a blending of them all—a look easy to
+fancy as the mark of a sinless soul doomed to the sight and
+understanding of the utter sinfulness of those among whom it was
+passing; yet withal no one could have observed the face with a thought
+of weakness in the man; so, at least, would not they who know that the
+qualities mentioned—love, sorrow, pity—are the results of a
+consciousness of strength to bear suffering oftener than strength to
+do; such has been the might of martyrs and devotees and the myriads
+written down in saintly calendars. And such, indeed, was the air of
+this one.
+
+Slowly he drew near—nearer the three.
+
+Now Ben-Hur, mounted and spear in hand, was an object to claim the
+glance of a king; yet the eyes of the man approaching were all the time
+raised above him—and not to Iras, whose loveliness has been so often
+remarked, but to Balthasar, the old and unserviceable.
+
+The hush was profound.
+
+Presently the Nazarite, still pointing with his staff, cried, in a loud
+voice,
+
+“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!”
+
+The many standing still, arrested by the action of the speaker, and
+listening for what might follow, were struck with awe by words so
+strange and past their understanding; upon Balthasar they were
+overpowering. He was there to see once more the Redeemer of men. The
+faith which had brought him the singular privileges of the time long
+gone abode yet in his heart; and if now it gave him a power of vision
+above that of his fellows—a power to see and know him for whom he was
+looking—better than calling the power a miracle, let it be thought of
+as the faculty of a soul not yet entirely released from the divine
+relations to which it had been formerly admitted, or as the fitting
+reward of a life in that age so without examples of holiness—a life
+itself a miracle. The ideal of his faith was before him, perfect in
+face, form, dress, action, age; and he was in its view, and the view
+was recognition. Ah, now if something should happen to identify the
+stranger beyond all doubt!
+
+And that was what did happen.
+
+Exactly at the fitting moment, as if to assure the trembling Egyptian,
+the Nazarite repeated the outcry,
+
+“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!”
+
+Balthasar fell upon his knees. For him there was no need of
+explanation; and as if the Nazarite knew it, he turned to those more
+immediately about him staring in wonder, and continued:
+
+“This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred
+before me, for he was before me. And I knew him not: but that he should
+be manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. I saw
+the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
+And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same
+said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and
+remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
+And I saw and bare record, that this”—he paused, his staff still
+pointing at the stranger in the white garments, as if to give a more
+absolute certainty to both his words and the conclusions intended—“I
+bare record, THAT THIS IS THE SON OF GOD!”
+
+“It is he, it is he!” Balthasar cried, with upraised tearful eyes. Next
+moment he sank down insensible.
+
+In this time, it should be remembered, Ben-Hur was studying the face of
+the stranger, though with an interest entirely different. He was not
+insensible to its purity of feature, and its thoughtfulness,
+tenderness, humility, and holiness; but just then there was room in his
+mind for but one thought—Who is this man? And what? Messiah or king?
+Never was apparition more unroyal. Nay, looking at that calm, benignant
+countenance, the very idea of war and conquest, and lust of dominion,
+smote him like a profanation. He said, as if speaking to his own heart,
+Balthasar must be right and Simonides wrong. This man has not come to
+rebuild the throne of Solomon; he has neither the nature nor the genius
+of Herod; king he may be, but not of another and greater than Rome.
+
+It should be understood now that this was not a conclusion with
+Ben-Hur, but an impression merely; and while it was forming, while yet
+he gazed at the wonderful countenance, his memory began to throe and
+struggle. “Surely,” he said to himself, “I have seen the man; but where
+and when?” That the look, so calm, so pitiful, so loving, had somewhere
+in a past time beamed upon him as that moment it was beaming upon
+Balthasar became an assurance. Faintly at first, at last a clear light,
+a burst of sunshine, the scene by the well at Nazareth what time the
+Roman guard was dragging him to the galleys returned, and all his being
+thrilled. Those hands had helped him when he was perishing. The face
+was one of the pictures he had carried in mind ever since. In the
+effusion of feeling excited, the explanation of the preacher was lost
+by him, all but the last words—words so marvellous that the world yet
+rings with them:
+
+“—this is the SON OF GOD!”
+
+Ben-Hur leaped from his horse to render homage to his benefactor; but
+Iras cried to him, “Help, son of Hur, help, or my father will die!”
+
+He stopped, looked back, then hurried to her assistance. She gave him a
+cup; and leaving the slave to bring the camel to its knees, he ran to
+the river for water. The stranger was gone when he came back.
+
+At last Balthasar was restored to consciousness. Stretching forth his
+hands, he asked, feebly, “Where is he?”
+
+“Who?” asked Iras.
+
+An intense instant interest shone upon the good man’s face, as if a
+last wish had been gratified, and he answered,
+
+“He—the Redeemer—the Son of God, whom I have seen again.”
+
+“Believest thou so?” Iras asked in a low voice of Ben-Hur.
+
+“The time is full of wonders; let us wait,” was all he said.
+
+And next day while the three were listening to him, the Nazarite broke
+off in mid-speech, saying reverently, “Behold the Lamb of God!”
+
+Looking to where he pointed, they beheld the stranger again. As Ben-Hur
+surveyed the slender figure, and holy beautiful countenance
+compassionate to sadness, a new idea broke upon him.
+
+“Balthasar is right—so is Simonides. May not the Redeemer be a king
+also?”
+
+And he asked one at his side, “Who is the man walking yonder?”
+
+The other laughed mockingly, and replied,
+
+“He is the son of a carpenter over in Nazareth.”
+
+
+
+
+BOOK EIGHTH
+
+
+“Who could resist? Who in this universe?
+She did so breathe ambrosia, so immerse
+My fine existence in a golden clime.
+She took me like a child of suckling-time,
+And cradled me in roses. Thus condemn’d,
+The current of my former life was stemm’d,
+And to this arbitrary queen of sense
+I bow’d a tranced vassal.”—KEATS, Endymion.
+
+
+“I am the resurrection and the life.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+“Esther—Esther! Speak to the servant below that he may bring me a cup
+of water.”
+
+“Would you not rather have wine, father?”
+
+“Let him bring both.”
+
+This was in the summer-house upon the roof of the old palace of the
+Hurs in Jerusalem. From the parapet overlooking the court-yard Esther
+called to a man in waiting there; at the same moment another
+man-servant came up the steps and saluted respectfully.
+
+“A package for the master,” he said, giving her a letter enclosed in
+linen cloth, tied and sealed.
+
+For the satisfaction of the reader, we stop to say that it is the
+twenty-first day of March, nearly three years after the annunciation of
+the Christ at Bethabara.
+
+In the meanwhile, Malluch, acting for Ben-Hur, who could not longer
+endure the emptiness and decay of his father’s house, had bought it
+from Pontius Pilate; and, in process of repair, gates, courts, lewens,
+stairways, terraces, rooms, and roof had been cleansed and thoroughly
+restored; not only was there no reminder left of the tragic
+circumstances so ruinous to the family, but the refurnishment was in a
+style richer than before. At every point, indeed, a visitor was met by
+evidences of the higher tastes acquired by the young proprietor during
+his years of residence in the villa by Misenum and in the Roman
+capital.
+
+Now it should not be inferred from this explanation that Ben-Hur had
+publicly assumed ownership of the property. In his opinion, the hour
+for that was not yet come. Neither had he yet taken his proper name.
+Passing the time in the labors of preparation in Galilee, he waited
+patiently the action of the Nazarene, who became daily more and more a
+mystery to him, and by prodigies done, often before his eyes, kept him
+in a state of anxious doubt both as to his character and mission.
+Occasionally he came up to the Holy City, stopping at the paternal
+house; always, however, as a stranger and a guest.
+
+These visits of Ben-Hur, it should also be observed, were for more than
+mere rest from labor. Balthasar and Iras made their home in the palace;
+and the charm of the daughter was still upon him with all its original
+freshness, while the father, though feebler in body, held him an
+unflagging listener to speeches of astonishing power, urging the
+divinity of the wandering miracle-worker of whom they were all so
+expectant.
+
+As to Simonides and Esther, they had arrived from Antioch only a few
+days before this their reappearance—a wearisome journey to the
+merchant, borne, as he had been, in a palanquin swung between two
+camels, which, in their careening, did not always keep the same step.
+But now that he was come, the good man, it seemed, could not see enough
+of his native land. He delighted in the perch upon the roof, and spent
+most of his day hours there seated in an arm-chair, the duplicate of
+that one kept for him in the cabinet over the store-house by the
+Orontes. In the shade of the summer-house he could drink fully of the
+inspiring air lying lightly upon the familiar hills; he could better
+watch the sun rise, run its course, and set as it used to in the
+far-gone, not a habit lost; and with Esther by him it was so much
+easier up there close to the sky, to bring back the other Esther, his
+love in youth, his wife, dearer growing with the passage of years. And
+yet he was not unmindful of business. Every day a messenger brought him
+a despatch from Sanballat, in charge of the big commerce behind; and
+every day a despatch left him for Sanballat with directions of such
+minuteness of detail as to exclude all judgment save his own, and all
+chances except those the Almighty has refused to submit to the most
+mindful of men.
+
+As Esther started in return to the summer-house, the sunlight fell
+softly upon the dustless roof, showing her a woman now—small, graceful
+in form, of regular features, rosy with youth and health, bright with
+intelligence, beautiful with the outshining of a devoted nature—a woman
+to be loved because loving was a habit of life irrepressible with her.
+
+She looked at the package as she turned, paused, looked at it a second
+time more closely than at first; and the blood rose reddening her
+cheeks—the seal was Ben-Hur’s. With quickened steps she hastened on.
+
+Simonides held the package a moment while he also inspected the seal.
+Breaking it open, he gave her the roll it contained.
+
+“Read,” he said.
+
+His eyes were upon her as he spoke, and instantly a troubled expression
+fell upon his own face.
+
+“You know who it is from, I see, Esther.”
+
+“Yes—from—our master.”
+
+Though the manner was halting, she met his gaze with modest sincerity.
+Slowly his chin sank into the roll of flesh puffed out under it like a
+cushion.
+
+“You love him, Esther,” he said, quietly.
+
+“Yes,” she answered.
+
+“Have you thought well of what you do?”
+
+“I have tried not to think of him, father, except as the master to whom
+I am dutifully bound. The effort has not helped me to strength.”
+
+“A good girl, a good girl, even as thy mother was,” he said, dropping
+into reverie, from which she roused him by unrolling the paper.
+
+“The Lord forgive me, but—but thy love might not have been vainly given
+had I kept fast hold of all I had, as I might have done—such power is
+there in money!”
+
+“It would have been worse for me had you done so, father; for then I
+had been unworthy a look from him, and without pride in you. Shall I
+not read now?”
+
+“In a moment,” he said. “Let me, for your sake, my child, show you the
+worst. Seeing it with me may make it less terrible to you. His love,
+Esther, is all bestowed.”
+
+“I know it,” she said, calmly.
+
+“The Egyptian has him in her net,” he continued. “She has the cunning
+of her race, with beauty to help her—much beauty, great cunning; but,
+like her race again, no heart. The daughter who despises her father
+will bring her husband to grief.”
+
+“Does she that?”
+
+Simonides went on:
+
+“Balthasar is a wise man who has been wonderfully favored for a
+Gentile, and his faith becomes him; yet she makes a jest of it. I heard
+her say, speaking of him yesterday, ‘The follies of youth are
+excusable; nothing is admirable in the aged except wisdom, and when
+that goes from them, they should die.’ A cruel speech, fit for a Roman.
+I applied it to myself, knowing a feebleness like her father’s will
+come to me also—nay, it is not far off. But you, Esther, will never say
+of me—no, never—‘It were better he were dead.’ No, your mother was a
+daughter of Judah.”
+
+With half-formed tears, she kissed him, and said, “I am my mother’s
+child.”
+
+“Yes, and my daughter—my daughter, who is to me all the Temple was to
+Solomon.”
+
+After a silence, he laid his hand upon her shoulder, and resumed: “When
+he has taken the Egyptian to wife, Esther, he will think of you with
+repentance and much calling of the spirit; for at last he will awake to
+find himself but the minister of her bad ambition. Rome is the centre
+of all her dreams. To her he is the son of Arrius the duumvir, not the
+son of Hur, Prince of Jerusalem.”
+
+Esther made no attempt to conceal the effect of these words.
+
+“Save him, father! It is not too late!” she said, entreatingly.
+
+He answered, with a dubious smile, “A man drowning may be saved; not so
+a man in love.”
+
+“But you have influence with him. He is alone in the world. Show him
+his danger. Tell him what a woman she is.”
+
+“That might save him from her. Would it give him to you, Esther? No,”
+and his brows fell darkly over his eyes. “I am a servant, as my fathers
+were for generations; yet I could not say to him, ‘Lo, master, my
+daughter! She is fairer than the Egyptian, and loves thee better!’ I
+have caught too much from years of liberty and direction. The words
+would blister my tongue. The stones upon the old hills yonder would
+turn in their beds for shame when I go out to them. No, by the
+patriarchs, Esther, I would rather lay us both with your mother to
+sleep as she sleeps!”
+
+A blush burned Esther’s whole face.
+
+“I did not mean you to tell him so, father. I was concerned for him
+alone—for his happiness, not mine. Because I have dared love him, I
+shall keep myself worthy his respect; so only can I excuse my folly.
+Let me read his letter now.”
+
+“Yes, read it.”
+
+She began at once, in haste to conclude the distasteful subject.
+
+“Nisan, 8th day.
+
+“On the road from Galilee to Jerusalem.
+
+“The Nazarene is on the way also. With him, though without his
+knowledge, I am bringing a full legion of mine. A second legion
+follows. The Passover will excuse the multitude. He said upon setting
+out, ‘We will go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by
+the prophets concerning me shall be accomplished.’
+
+“Our waiting draws to an end.
+
+“In haste.
+
+“Peace to thee, Simonides.
+
+“BEN-HUR.”
+
+Esther returned the letter to her father, while a choking sensation
+gathered in her throat. There was not a word in the missive for her—not
+even in the salutation had she a share—and it would have been so easy
+to have written “and to thine, peace.” For the first time in her life
+she felt the smart of a jealous sting.
+
+“The eighth day,” said Simonides, “the eighth day; and this, Esther,
+this is the—”
+
+“The ninth,” she replied.
+
+“Ah, then, they may be in Bethany now.”
+
+“And possibly we may see him to-night,” she added, pleased into
+momentary forgetfulness.
+
+“It may be, it may be! To-morrow is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and
+he may wish to celebrate it; so may the Nazarene; and we may see him—we
+may see both of them, Esther.”
+
+At this point the servant appeared with the wine and water. Esther
+helped her father, and in the midst of the service Iras came upon the
+roof.
+
+To the Jewess the Egyptian never appeared so very, very beautiful as at
+that moment. Her gauzy garments fluttered about her like a little cloud
+of mist; her forehead, neck, and arms glittered with the massive
+jewelry so affected by her people. Her countenance was suffused with
+pleasure. She moved with buoyant steps, and self-conscious, though
+without affectation. Esther at the sight shrank within herself, and
+nestled closer to her father.
+
+“Peace to you, Simonides, and to the pretty Esther peace,” said Iras,
+inclining her head to the latter. “You remind me, good master—if I may
+say it without offence-you remind me of the priests in Persia who climb
+their temples at the decline of day to send prayers after the departing
+sun. Is there anything in the worship you do not know, let me call my
+father. He is Magian-bred.”
+
+“Fair Egyptian,” the merchant replied, nodding with grave politeness,
+“your father is a good man who would not be offended if he knew I told
+you his Persian lore is the least part of his wisdom.”
+
+Iras’s lip curled slightly.
+
+“To speak like a philosopher, as you invite me,” she said, “the least
+part always implies a greater. Let me ask what you esteem the greater
+part of the rare quality you are pleased to attribute to him.”
+
+Simonides turned upon her somewhat sternly.
+
+“Pure wisdom always directs itself towards God; the purest wisdom is
+knowledge of God; and no man of my acquaintance has it in higher
+degree, or makes it more manifest in speech and act, than the good
+Balthasar.”
+
+To end the parley, he raised the cup and drank.
+
+The Egyptian turned to Esther a little testily.
+
+“A man who has millions in store, and fleets of ships at sea, cannot
+discern in what simple women like us find amusement. Let us leave him.
+By the wall yonder we can talk.”
+
+They went to the parapet then, stopping at the place where, years
+before, Ben-Hur loosed the broken tile upon the head of Gratus.
+
+“You have not been to Rome?” Iras began, toying the while with one of
+her unclasped bracelets.
+
+“No,” said Esther, demurely.
+
+“Have you not wished to go?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Ah, how little there has been of your life!”
+
+The sigh that succeeded the exclamation could not have been more
+piteously expressive had the loss been the Egyptian’s own. Next moment
+her laugh might have been heard in the street below; and she said “Oh,
+oh, my pretty simpleton! The half-fledged birds nested in the ear of
+the great bust out on the Memphian sands know nearly as much as you.”
+
+Then, seeing Esther’s confusion, she changed her manner, and said in a
+confiding tone, “You must not take offence. Oh no! I was playing. Let
+me kiss the hurt, and tell you what I would not to any other—not if
+Simbel himself asked it of me, offering a lotus-cup of the spray of the
+Nile!”
+
+Another laugh, masking excellently the look she turned sharply upon the
+Jewess, and she said, “The King is coming.”
+
+Esther gazed at her in innocent surprise.
+
+“The Nazarene,” Iras continued—“he whom our fathers have been talking
+about so much, whom Ben-Hur has been serving and toiling for so
+long”—her voice dropped several tones lower—“the Nazarene will be here
+to-morrow, and Ben-Hur to-night.”
+
+Esther struggled to maintain her composure, but failed: her eyes fell,
+the tell-tale blood surged to her cheek and forehead, and she was saved
+sight of the triumphant smile that passed, like a gleam, over the face
+of the Egyptian.
+
+“See, here is his promise.”
+
+And from her girdle she took a roll.
+
+“Rejoice with me, O my friend! He will be here tonight! On the Tiber
+there is a house, a royal property, which he has pledged to me; and to
+be its mistress is to be—”
+
+A sound of some one walking swiftly along the street below interrupted
+the speech, and she leaned over the parapet to see. Then she drew back,
+and cried, with hands clasped above her head, “Now blessed be Isis!
+’Tis he—Ben-Hur himself! That he should appear while I had such thought
+of him! There are no gods if it be not a good omen. Put your arms about
+me, Esther—and a kiss!”
+
+The Jewess looked up. Upon each cheek there was a glow; her eyes
+sparkled with a light more nearly of anger than ever her nature emitted
+before. Her gentleness had been too roughly overridden. It was not
+enough for her to be forbidden more than fugitive dreams of the man she
+loved; a boastful rival must tell her in confidence of her better
+success, and of the brilliant promises which were its rewards. Of her,
+the servant of a servant, there had been no hint of remembrance; this
+other could show his letter, leaving her to imagine all it breathed. So
+she said,
+
+“Dost thou love him so much, then, or Rome so much better?”
+
+The Egyptian drew back a step; then she bent her haughty head quite
+near her questioner.
+
+“What is he to thee, daughter of Simonides?”
+
+Esther, all thrilling, began, “He is my—”
+
+A thought blasting as lightning stayed the words: she paled, trembled,
+recovered, and answered,
+
+“He is my father’s friend.”
+
+Her tongue had refused to admit her servile condition.
+
+Iras laughed more lightly than before.
+
+“Not more than that?” she said. “Ah, by the lover-gods of Egypt, thou
+mayst keep thy kisses—keep them. Thou hast taught me but now that there
+are others vastly more estimable waiting me here in Judea; and”—she
+turned away, looking back over her shoulder—“I will go get them. Peace
+to thee.”
+
+Esther saw her disappear down the steps, when, putting her hands over
+her face, she burst into tears so they ran scalding through her
+fingers—tears of shame and choking passion. And, to deepen the paroxysm
+to her even temper so strange, up with a new meaning of withering force
+rose her father’s words—“Thy love might not have been vainly given had
+I kept fast hold of all I had, as I might have done.”
+
+And all the stars were out, burning low above the city and the dark
+wall of mountains about it, before she recovered enough to go back to
+the summer-house, and in silence take her accustomed place at her
+father’s side, humbly waiting his pleasure. To such duty it seemed her
+youth, if not her life, must be given. And, let the truth be said, now
+that the pang was spent, she went not unwillingly back to the duty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+An hour or thereabouts after the scene upon the roof, Balthasar and
+Simonides, the latter attended by Esther, met in the great chamber of
+the palace; and while they were talking, Ben-Hur and Iras came in
+together.
+
+The young Jew, advancing in front of his companion, walked first to
+Balthasar, and saluted him, and received his reply; then he turned to
+Simonides, but paused at sight of Esther.
+
+It is not often we have hearts roomy enough for more than one of the
+absorbing passions at the same time; in its blaze the others may
+continue to live, but only as lesser lights. So with Ben-Hur, much
+study of possibilities, indulgence of hopes and dreams, influences born
+of the condition of his country, influences more direct—that of Iras,
+for example—had made him in the broadest worldly sense ambitious; and
+as he had given the passion place, allowing it to become a rule, and
+finally an imperious governor, the resolves and impulses of former days
+faded imperceptibly out of being, and at last almost out of
+recollection. It is at best so easy to forget our youth; in his case it
+was but natural that his own sufferings and the mystery darkening the
+fate of his family should move him less and less as, in hope at least,
+he approached nearer and nearer the goals which occupied all his
+visions. Only let us not judge him too harshly.
+
+He paused in surprise at seeing Esther a woman now, and so beautiful;
+and as he stood looking at her a still voice reminded him of broken
+vows and duties undone: almost his old self returned.
+
+For an instant he was startled; but recovering, he went to Esther, and
+said, “Peace to thee, sweet Esther—peace; and thou, Simonides”—he
+looked to the merchant as he spoke—“the blessing of the Lord be thine,
+if only because thou hast been a good father to the fatherless.”
+
+Esther heard him with downcast face; Simonides answered,
+
+“I repeat the welcome of the good Balthasar, son of Hur—welcome to thy
+father’s house; and sit, and tell us of thy travels, and of thy work,
+and of the wonderful Nazarene—who he is, and what. If thou art not at
+ease here, who shall be? Sit, I pray—there, between us, that we may all
+hear.”
+
+Esther stepped out quickly and brought a covered stool, and set it for
+him.
+
+“Thanks,” he said to her, gratefully.
+
+When seated, after some other conversation, he addressed himself to the
+men.
+
+“I have come to tell you of the Nazarene.”
+
+The two became instantly attentive.
+
+“For many days now I have followed him with such watchfulness as one
+may give another upon whom he is waiting so anxiously. I have seen him
+under all circumstances said to be trials and tests of men; and while I
+am certain he is a man as I am, not less certain am I that he is
+something more.”
+
+“What more?” asked Simonides.
+
+“I will tell you—”
+
+Some one coming into the room interrupted him; he turned, and arose
+with extended hands.
+
+“Amrah! Dear old Amrah!” he cried.
+
+She came forward; and they, seeing the joy in her face, thought not
+once how wrinkled and tawny it was. She knelt at his feet, clasped his
+knees, and kissed his hands over and over; and when he could he put the
+lank gray hair from her cheeks, and kissed them, saying, “Good Amrah,
+have you nothing, nothing of them—not a word—not one little sign?”
+
+Then she broke into sobbing which made him answer plainer even than the
+spoken word.
+
+“God’s will has been done,” he next said, solemnly, in a tone to make
+each listener know he had no hope more of finding his people. In his
+eyes there were tears which he would not have them see, because he was
+a man.
+
+When he could again, he took seat, and said, “Come, sit by me,
+Amrah—here. No? then at my feet; for I have much to say to these good
+friends of a wonderful man come into the world.”
+
+But she went off, and stooping with her back to the wall, joined her
+hands before her knees, content, they all thought, with seeing him.
+Then Ben-Hur, bowing to the old men, began again:
+
+“I fear to answer the question asked me about the Nazarene without
+first telling you some of the things I have seen him do; and to that I
+am the more inclined, my friends, because to-morrow he will come to the
+city, and go up into the Temple, which he calls his father’s house,
+where, it is further said, he will proclaim himself. So, whether you
+are right, O Balthasar, or you, Simonides, we and Israel shall know
+to-morrow.”
+
+Balthasar rubbed his hands tremulously together, and asked, “Where
+shall I go to see him?”
+
+“The pressure of the crowd will be very great. Better, I think, that
+you all go upon the roof above the cloisters—say upon the Porch of
+Solomon.”
+
+“Can you be with us?”
+
+“No,” said Ben-Hur, “my friends will require me, perhaps, in the
+procession.”
+
+“Procession!” exclaimed Simonides. “Does he travel in state?”
+
+Ben-Hur saw the argument in mind.
+
+“He brings twelve men with him, fishermen, tillers of the soil, one a
+publican, all of the humbler class; and he and they make their journeys
+on foot, careless of wind, cold, rain, or sun. Seeing them stop by the
+wayside at nightfall to break bread or lie down to sleep, I have been
+reminded of a party of shepherds going back to their flocks from
+market, not of nobles and kings. Only when he lifts the corners of his
+handkerchief to look at some one or shake the dust from his head, I am
+made known he is their teacher as well as their companion—their
+superior not less than their friend.
+
+“You are shrewd men,” Ben-Hur resumed, after a pause. “You know what
+creatures of certain master motives we are, and that it has become
+little less than a law of our nature to spend life in eager pursuit of
+certain objects; now, appealing to that law as something by which we
+may know ourselves, what would you say of a man who could be rich by
+making gold of the stones under his feet, yet is poor of choice?”
+
+“The Greeks would call him a philosopher,” said Iras.
+
+“Nay, daughter,” said Balthasar, “the philosophers had never the power
+to do such thing.”
+
+“How know you this man has?”
+
+Ben-Hur answered quickly, “I saw him turn water into wine.”
+
+“Very strange, very strange,” said Simonides; “but it is not so strange
+to me as that he should prefer to live poor when he could be so rich.
+Is he so poor?”
+
+“He owns nothing, and envies nobody his owning. He pities the rich. But
+passing that, what would you say to see a man multiply seven loaves and
+two fishes, all his store, into enough to feed five thousand people,
+and have full baskets over? That I saw the Nazarene do.”
+
+“You saw it?” exclaimed Simonides.
+
+“Ay, and ate of the bread and fish.”
+
+“More marvellous still,” Ben-Hur continued, “what would you say of a
+man in whom there is such healing virtue that the sick have but to
+touch the hem of his garment to be cured, or cry to him afar? That,
+too, I witnessed, not once, but many times. As we came out of Jericho
+two blind men by the wayside called to the Nazarene, and he touched
+their eyes, and they saw. So they brought a palsied man to him, and he
+said merely, ‘Go unto thy house,’ and the man went away well. What say
+you to these things?”
+
+The merchant had no answer.
+
+“Think you now, as I have heard others argue, that what I have told you
+are tricks of jugglery? Let me answer by recalling greater things which
+I have seen him do. Look first to that curse of God—comfortless, as you
+all know, except by death—leprosy.”
+
+At these words Amrah dropped her hands to the floor, and in her
+eagerness to hear him half arose.
+
+“What would you say,” said Ben-Hur, with increased earnestness—“what
+would you say to have seen that I now tell you? A leper came to the
+Nazarene while I was with him down in Galilee, and said, ‘Lord, if thou
+wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ He heard the cry, and touched the
+outcast with his hand, saying, ‘Be thou clean;’ and forthwith the man
+was himself again, healthful as any of us who beheld the cure, and we
+were a multitude.”
+
+Here Amrah arose, and with her gaunt fingers held the wiry locks from
+her eyes. The brain of the poor creature had long since gone to heart,
+and she was troubled to follow the speech.
+
+“Then, again,” said Ben-Hur, without stop, “ten lepers came to him one
+day in a body, and falling at his feet, called out—I saw and heard it
+all—called out, ‘Master, Master, have mercy upon us!’ He told them,
+‘Go, show yourselves to the priest, as the law requires; and before you
+are come there ye shall be healed.’”
+
+“And were they?”
+
+“Yes. On the road going their infirmity left them, so that there was
+nothing to remind us of it except their polluted clothes.”
+
+“Such thing was never heard before—never in all Israel!” said
+Simonides, in undertone.
+
+And then, while he was speaking, Amrah turned away, and walked
+noiselessly to the door, and went out; and none of the company saw her
+go.
+
+“The thoughts stirred by such things done under my eyes I leave you to
+imagine,” said Ben-Hur, continuing; “but my doubts, my misgivings, my
+amazement, were not yet at the full. The people of Galilee are, as you
+know, impetuous and rash; after years of waiting their swords burned
+their hands; nothing would do them but action. ‘He is slow to declare
+himself; let us force him,’ they cried to me. And I too became
+impatient. If he is to be king, why not now? The legions are ready. So
+as he was once teaching by the seaside we would have crowned him
+whether or not; but he disappeared, and was next seen on a ship
+departing from the shore. Good Simonides, the desires that make other
+men mad—riches, power, even kingships offered out of great love by a
+great people—move this one not at all. What say you?”
+
+The merchant’s chin was low upon his breast; raising his head, he
+replied, resolutely, “The Lord liveth, and so do the words of the
+prophets. Time is in the green yet; let to-morrow answer.”
+
+“Be it so,” said Balthasar, smiling.
+
+And Ben-Hur said, “Be it so.” Then he went on: “But I have not yet
+done. From these things, not too great to be above suspicion by such as
+did not see them in performance as I did, let me carry you now to
+others infinitely greater, acknowledged since the world began to be
+past the power of man. Tell me, has any one to your knowledge ever
+reached out and taken from Death what Death has made his own? Who ever
+gave again the breath of a life lost? Who but—”
+
+“God!” said Balthasar, reverently.
+
+Ben-Hur bowed.
+
+“O wise Egyptian! I may not refuse the name you lend me. What would
+you—or you, Simonides—what would you either or both have said had you
+seen as I did, a man, with few words and no ceremony, without effort
+more than a mother’s when she speaks to wake her child asleep, undo the
+work of Death? It was down at Nain. We were about going into the gate,
+when a company came out bearing a dead man. The Nazarene stopped to let
+the train pass. There was a woman among them crying. I saw his face
+soften with pity. He spoke to her, then went and touched the bier, and
+said to him who lay upon it dressed for burial, ‘Young man, I say unto
+thee, Arise!’ And instantly the dead sat up and talked.”
+
+“God only is so great,” said Balthasar to Simonides.
+
+“Mark you,” Ben-Hur proceeded, “I do but tell you things of which I was
+a witness, together with a cloud of other men. On the way hither I saw
+another act still more mighty. In Bethany there was a man named
+Lazarus, who died and was buried; and after he had lain four days in a
+tomb, shut in by a great stone, the Nazarene was shown to the place.
+Upon rolling the stone away, we beheld the man lying inside bound and
+rotting. There were many people standing by, and we all heard what the
+Nazarene said, for he spoke in a loud voice: ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ I
+cannot tell you my feelings when in answer, as it were, the man arose
+and came out to us with all his cerements about him. ‘Loose him,’ said
+the Nazarene next, ‘loose him, and let him go.’ And when the napkin was
+taken from the face of the resurrected, lo, my friends! the blood ran
+anew through the wasted body, and he was exactly as he had been in life
+before the sickness that took him off. He lives yet, and is hourly seen
+and spoken to. You may go see him to-morrow. And now, as nothing more
+is needed for the purpose, I ask you that which I came to ask, it being
+but a repetition of what you asked me, O Simonides, What more than a
+man is this Nazarene?”
+
+The question was put solemnly, and long after midnight the company sat
+and debated it; Simonides being yet unwilling to give up his
+understanding of the sayings of the prophets, and Ben-Hur contending
+that the elder disputants were both right—that the Nazarene was the
+Redeemer, as claimed by Balthasar, and also the destined king the
+merchant would have.
+
+“To-morrow we will see. Peace to you all.”
+
+So saying, Ben-Hur took his leave, intending to return to Bethany.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The first person to go out of the city upon the opening of the Sheep’s
+Gate next morning was Amrah, basket on arm. No questions were asked her
+by the keepers, since the morning itself had not been more regular in
+coming than she; they knew her somebody’s faithful servant, and that
+was enough for them.
+
+Down the eastern valley she took her way. The side of Olivet, darkly
+green, was spotted with white tents recently put up by people attending
+the feasts; the hour, however, was too early for the strangers to be
+abroad; still, had it not been so, no one would have troubled her. Past
+Gethsemane; past the tombs at the meeting of the Bethany roads; past
+the sepulchral village of Siloam she went. Occasionally the decrepit
+little body staggered; once she sat down to get her breath; rising
+shortly, she struggled on with renewed haste. The great rocks on either
+hand, if they had had ears, might have heard her mutter to herself;
+could they have seen, it would have been to observe how frequently she
+looked up over the Mount, reproving the dawn for its promptness; if it
+had been possible for them to gossip, not improbably they would have
+said to each other, “Our friend is in a hurry this morning; the mouths
+she goes to feed must be very hungry.”
+
+When at last she reached the King’s Garden she slackened her gait; for
+then the grim city of the lepers was in view, extending far round the
+pitted south hill of Hinnom.
+
+As the reader must by this time have surmised, she was going to her
+mistress, whose tomb, it will be remembered, overlooked the well
+En-Rogel.
+
+Early as it was, the unhappy woman was up and sitting outside, leaving
+Tirzah asleep within. The course of the malady had been terribly swift
+in the three years. Conscious of her appearance, with the refined
+instincts of her nature, she kept her whole person habitually covered.
+Seldom as possible she permitted even Tirzah to see her.
+
+This morning she was taking the air with bared head, knowing there was
+no one to be shocked by the exposure. The light was not full, but
+enough to show the ravages to which she had been subject. Her hair was
+snow-white and unmanageably coarse, falling over her back and shoulders
+like so much silver wire. The eyelids, the lips, the nostrils, the
+flesh of the cheeks, were either gone or reduced to fetid rawness. The
+neck was a mass of ash-colored scales. One hand lay outside the folds
+of her habit rigid as that of a skeleton; the nails had been eaten
+away; the joints of the fingers, if not bare to the bone, were swollen
+knots crusted with red secretion. Head, face, neck, and hand indicated
+all too plainly the condition of the whole body. Seeing her thus, it
+was easy to understand how the once fair widow of the princely Hur had
+been able to maintain her incognito so well through such a period of
+years.
+
+When the sun would gild the crest of Olivet and the Mount of Offence
+with light sharper and more brilliant in that old land than in the
+West, she knew Amrah would come, first to the well, then to a stone
+midway the well and the foot of the hill on which she had her abode,
+and that the good servant would there deposit the food she carried in
+the basket, and fill the water-jar afresh for the day. Of her former
+plentitude of happiness, that brief visit was all that remained to the
+unfortunate. She could then ask about her son, and be told of his
+welfare, with such bits of news concerning him as the messenger could
+glean. Usually the information was meagre enough, yet comforting; at
+times she heard he was at home; then she would issue from her dreary
+cell at break of day, and sit till noon, and from noon to set of sun, a
+motionless figure draped in white, looking, statue-like, invariably to
+one point—over the Temple to the spot under the rounded sky where the
+old house stood, dear in memory, and dearer because he was there.
+Nothing else was left her. Tirzah she counted of the dead; and as for
+herself, she simply waited the end, knowing every hour of life was an
+hour of dying—happily, of painless dying.
+
+The things of nature about the hill to keep her sensitive to the
+world’s attractions were wretchedly scant; beasts and birds avoided the
+place as if they knew its history and present use; every green thing
+perished in its first season; the winds warred upon the shrubs and
+venturous grasses, leaving to drought such as they could not uproot.
+Look where she would, the view was made depressingly suggestive by
+tombs—tombs above her, tombs below, tombs opposite her own tomb—all now
+freshly whitened in warning to visiting pilgrims. In the sky—clear,
+fair, inviting—one would think she might have found some relief to her
+ache of mind; but, alas! in making the beautiful elsewhere the sun
+served her never so unfriendly—it did but disclose her growing
+hideousness. But for the sun she would not have been the horror she was
+to herself, nor been waked so cruelly from dreams of Tirzah as she used
+to be. The gift of seeing can be sometimes a dreadful curse.
+
+Does one ask why she did not make an end to her sufferings?
+
+THE LAW FORBADE HER!
+
+A Gentile may smile at the answer; but so will not a son of Israel.
+
+While she sat there peopling the dusky solitude with thoughts even more
+cheerless, suddenly a woman came up the hill staggering and spent with
+exertion.
+
+The widow arose hastily, and covering her head, cried, in a voice
+unnaturally harsh, “Unclean, unclean!”
+
+In a moment, heedless of the notice, Amrah was at her feet. All the
+long-pent love of the simple creature burst forth: with tears and
+passionate exclamations she kissed her mistress’s garments, and for a
+while the latter strove to escape from her; then, seeing she could not,
+she waited till the violence of the paroxysm was over.
+
+“What have you done, Amrah?” she said. “Is it by such disobedience you
+prove your love for us? Wicked woman! You are lost; and he—your
+master—you can never, never go back to him.”
+
+Amrah grovelled sobbing in the dust.
+
+“The ban of the Law is upon you, too; you cannot return to Jerusalem.
+What will become of us? Who will bring us bread? O wicked, wicked
+Amrah! We are all, all undone alike!”
+
+“Mercy, mercy!” Amrah answered from the ground.
+
+“You should have been merciful to yourself, and by so doing been most
+merciful to us. Now where can we fly? There is no one to help us. O
+false servant! The wrath of the Lord was already too heavy upon us.”
+
+Here Tirzah, awakened by the noise, appeared at the door of the tomb.
+The pen shrinks from the picture she presented. In the half-clad
+apparition, patched with scales, lividly seamed, nearly blind, its
+limbs and extremities swollen to grotesque largeness, familiar eyes
+however sharpened by love could not have recognized the creature of
+childish grace and purity we first beheld her.
+
+“Is it Amrah, mother?”
+
+The servant tried to crawl to her also.
+
+“Stay, Amrah!” the widow cried, imperiously. “I forbid you touching
+her. Rise, and get you gone before any at the well see you here. Nay, I
+forgot—it is too late! You must remain now and share our doom. Rise, I
+say!”
+
+Amrah rose to her knees, and said, brokenly and with clasped hands, “O
+good mistress! I am not false—I am not wicked. I bring you good
+tidings.”
+
+“Of Judah?” and as she spoke, the widow half withdrew the cloth from
+her head.
+
+“There is a wonderful man,” Amrah continued, “who has power to cure
+you. He speaks a word, and the sick are made well, and even the dead
+come to life. I have come to take you to him.”
+
+“Poor Amrah!” said Tirzah, compassionately.
+
+“No,” cried Amrah, detecting the doubt underlying the expression—“no,
+as the Lord lives, even the Lord of Israel, my God as well as yours, I
+speak the truth. Go with me, I pray, and lose no time. This morning he
+will pass by on his way to the city. See! the day is at hand. Take the
+food here—eat, and let us go.”
+
+The mother listened eagerly. Not unlikely she had heard of the
+wonderful man, for by this time his fame had penetrated every nook in
+the land.
+
+“Who is he?” she asked.
+
+“A Nazarene.”
+
+“Who told you about him?”
+
+“Judah.”
+
+“Judah told you? Is he at home?”
+
+“He came last night.”
+
+The widow, trying to still the beating of her heart, was silent awhile.
+
+“Did Judah send you to tell us this?” she next asked.
+
+“No. He believes you dead.”
+
+“There was a prophet once who cured a leper,” the mother said
+thoughtfully to Tirzah; “but he had his power from God.” Then
+addressing Amrah, she asked, “How does my son know this man so
+possessed?”
+
+“He was travelling with him, and heard the lepers call, and saw them go
+away well. First there was one man; then there were ten; and they were
+all made whole.”
+
+The elder listener was silent again. The skeleton hand shook. We may
+believe she was struggling to give the story the sanction of faith,
+which is always an absolutist in demand, and that it was with her as
+with the men of the day, eye-witnesses of what was done by the Christ,
+as well as the myriads who have succeeded them. She did not question
+the performance, for her own son was the witness testifying through the
+servant; but she strove to comprehend the power by which work so
+astonishing could be done by a man. Well enough to make inquiry as to
+the fact; to comprehend the power, on the other hand, it is first
+necessary to comprehend God; and he who waits for that will die
+waiting. With her, however, the hesitation was brief. To Tirzah she
+said,
+
+“This must be the Messiah!”
+
+She spoke not coldly, like one reasoning a doubt away, but as a woman
+of Israel familiar with the promises of God to her race—a woman of
+understanding, ready to be glad over the least sign of the realization
+of the promises.
+
+“There was a time when Jerusalem and all Judea were filled with a story
+that he was born. I remember it. By this time he should be a man. It
+must be—it is he. Yes,” she said to Amrah, “we will go with you. Bring
+the water which you will find in the tomb in a jar, and set the food
+for us. We will eat and be gone.”
+
+The breakfast, partaken under excitement, was soon despatched, and the
+three women set out on their extraordinary journey. As Tirzah had
+caught the confident spirit of the others, there was but one fear that
+troubled the party. Bethany, Amrah said, was the town the man was
+coming from; now from that to Jerusalem there were three roads, or
+rather paths—one over the first summit of Olivet, a second at its base,
+a third between the second summit and the Mount of Offence. The three
+were not far apart; far enough, however, to make it possible for the
+unfortunates to miss the Nazarene if they failed the one he chose to
+come by.
+
+A little questioning satisfied the mother that Amrah knew nothing of
+the country beyond the Cedron, and even less of the intentions of the
+man they were going to see, if they could. She discerned, also, that
+both Amrah and Tirzah—the one from confirmed habits of servitude, the
+other from natural dependency—looked to her for guidance; and she
+accepted the charge.
+
+“We will go first to Bethphage,” she said to them. “There, if the Lord
+favor us, we may learn what else to do.”
+
+They descended the hill to Tophet and the King’s Garden, and paused in
+the deep trail furrowed through them by centuries of wayfaring.
+
+“I am afraid of the road,” the matron said. “Better that we keep to the
+country among the rocks and trees. This is feast-day, and on the
+hill-sides yonder I see signs of a great multitude in attendance. By
+going across the Mount of Offence here we may avoid them.”
+
+Tirzah had been walking with great difficulty; upon hearing this her
+heart began to fail her.
+
+“The mount is steep, mother; I cannot climb it.”
+
+“Remember, we are going to find health and life. See, my child, how the
+day brightens around us! And yonder are women coming this way to the
+well. They will stone us if we stay here. Come, be strong this once.”
+
+Thus the mother, not less tortured herself, sought to inspire the
+daughter; and Amrah came to her aid. To this time the latter had not
+touched the persons of the afflicted, nor they her; now, in disregard
+of consequences as well as of command, the faithful creature went to
+Tirzah, and put her arm over her shoulder, and whispered, “Lean on me.
+I am strong, though I am old; and it is but a little way off. There—now
+we can go.”
+
+The face of the hill they essayed to cross was somewhat broken with
+pits, and ruins of old structures; but when at last they stood upon the
+top to rest, and looked at the spectacle presented them over in the
+northwest—at the Temple and its courtly terraces, at Zion, at the
+enduring towers white beetling into the sky beyond—the mother was
+strengthened with a love of life for life’s sake.
+
+“Look, Tirzah,” she said—“look at the plates of gold on the Gate
+Beautiful. How they give back the flames of the sun, brightness for
+brightness! Do you remember we used to go up there? Will it not be
+pleasant to do so again? And think—home is but a little way off. I can
+almost see it over the roof of the Holy of Holies; and Judah will be
+there to receive us!”
+
+From the side of the middle summit garnished green with myrtle and
+olive trees, they saw, upon looking that way next, thin columns of
+smoke rising lightly and straight up into the pulseless morning, each a
+warning of restless pilgrims astir, and of the flight of the pitiless
+hours, and the need of haste.
+
+Though the good servant toiled faithfully to lighten the labor in
+descending the hill-side, not sparing herself in the least, the girl
+moaned at every step; sometimes in extremity of anguish she cried out.
+Upon reaching the road—that is, the road between the Mount of Offence
+and the middle or second summit of Olivet—she fell down exhausted.
+
+“Go on with Amrah, mother, and leave me here,” she said, faintly.
+
+“No, no, Tirzah. What would the gain be to me if I were healed and you
+not? When Judah asks for you, as he will, what would I have to say to
+him were I to leave you?”
+
+“Tell him I loved him.”
+
+The elder leper arose from bending over the fainting sufferer, and
+gazed about her with that sensation of hope perishing which is more
+nearly like annihilation of the soul than anything else. The supremest
+joy of the thought of cure was inseparable from Tirzah, who was not too
+old to forget, in the happiness of healthful life to come, the years of
+misery by which she had been so reduced in body and broken in spirit.
+Even as the brave woman was about leaving the venture they were engaged
+in to the determination of God, she saw a man on foot coming rapidly up
+the road from the east.
+
+“Courage, Tirzah! Be of cheer,” she said. “Yonder I know is one to tell
+us of the Nazarene.”
+
+Amrah helped the girl to a sitting posture, and supported her while the
+man advanced.
+
+“In your goodness, mother, you forget what we are. The stranger will go
+around us; his best gift to us will be a curse, if not a stone.”
+
+“We will see.”
+
+There was no other answer to be given, since the mother was too well
+and sadly acquainted with the treatment outcasts of the class to which
+she belonged were accustomed to at the hands of her countrymen.
+
+As has been said, the road at the edge of which the group was posted
+was little more than a worn path or trail, winding crookedly through
+tumuli of limestone. If the stranger kept it, he must meet them face to
+face; and he did so, until near enough to hear the cry she was bound to
+give. Then, uncovering her head, a further demand of the law, she
+shouted shrilly,
+
+“Unclean, unclean!”
+
+To her surprise, the man came steadily on.
+
+“What would you have?” he asked, stopping opposite them not four yards
+off.
+
+“Thou seest us. Have a care,” the mother said, with dignity.
+
+“Woman, I am the courier of him who speaketh but once to such as thou
+and they are healed. I am not afraid.”
+
+“The Nazarene?”
+
+“The Messiah,” he said.
+
+“Is it true that he cometh to the city to-day?”
+
+“He is now at Bethphage.”
+
+“On what road, master?”
+
+“This one.”
+
+She clasped her hands, and looked up thankfully.
+
+“For whom takest thou him?” the man asked, with pity.
+
+“The Son of God,” she replied.
+
+“Stay thou here then; or, as there is a multitude with him, take thy
+stand by the rock yonder, the white one under the tree; and as he goeth
+by fail not to call to him; call, and fear not. If thy faith but equal
+thy knowledge, he will hear thee though all the heavens thunder. I go
+to tell Israel, assembled in and about the city, that he is at hand,
+and to make ready to receive him. Peace to thee and thine, woman.”
+
+The stranger moved on.
+
+“Did you hear, Tirzah? Did you hear? The Nazarene is on the road, on
+this one, and he will hear us. Once more, my child—oh, only once! and
+let us to the rock. It is but a step.”
+
+Thus encouraged Tirzah took Amrah’s hand and arose; but as they were
+going, Amrah said, “Stay; the man is returning.” And they waited for
+him.
+
+“I pray your grace, woman,” he said, upon overtaking them. “Remembering
+that the sun will be hot before the Nazarene arrives, and that the city
+is near by to give me refreshment should I need it, I thought this
+water would do thee better than it will me. Take it and be of good
+cheer. Call to him as he passes.”
+
+He followed the words by offering her a gourd full of water, such as
+foot-travellers sometimes carried with them in their journeys across
+the hills; and instead of placing the gift on the ground for her to
+take up when he was at a safe distance, he gave it into her hand.
+
+“Art thou a Jew?” she asked, surprised.
+
+“I am that, and better; I am a disciple of the Christ who teacheth
+daily by word and example this thing which I have done unto you. The
+world hath long known the word charity without understanding it. Again
+I say peace and good cheer to thee and thine.”
+
+He went on, and they went slowly to the rock he had pointed out to
+them, high as their heads, and scarcely thirty yards from the road on
+the right. Standing in front of it, the mother satisfied herself they
+could be seen and heard plainly by passers-by whose notice they desired
+to attract. There they cast themselves under the tree in its shade, and
+drank of the gourd, and rested refreshed. Ere long Tirzah slept, and
+fearing to disturb her, the others held their peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+During the third hour the road in front of the resting-place of the
+lepers became gradually more and more frequented by people going in the
+direction of Bethphage and Bethany; now, however, about the
+commencement of the fourth hour, a great crowd appeared over the crest
+of Olivet, and as it defiled down the road thousands in number, the two
+watchers noticed with wonder that every one in it carried a palm-branch
+freshly cut. As they sat absorbed by the novelty, the noise of another
+multitude approaching from the east drew their eyes that way. Then the
+mother awoke Tirzah.
+
+“What is the meaning of it all?” the latter asked.
+
+“He is coming,” answered the mother. “These we see are from the city
+going to meet him; those we hear in the east are his friends bearing
+him company; and it will not be strange if the processions meet here
+before us.
+
+“I fear, if they do, we cannot be heard.”
+
+The same thought was in the elder’s mind.
+
+“Amrah,” she asked, “when Judah spoke of the healing of the ten, in
+what words did he say they called to the Nazarene?”
+
+“Either they said, ‘Lord, have mercy upon us,’ or ‘Master, have
+mercy.’”
+
+“Only that?”
+
+“No more that I heard.”
+
+“Yet it was enough,” the mother added, to herself.
+
+“Yes,” said Amrah, “Judah said he saw them go away well.”
+
+Meantime the people in the east came up slowly. When at length the
+foremost of them were in sight, the gaze of the lepers fixed upon a man
+riding in the midst of what seemed a chosen company which sang and
+danced about him in extravagance of joy. The rider was bareheaded and
+clad all in white. When he was in distance to be more clearly observed,
+these, looking anxiously, saw an olive-hued face shaded by long
+chestnut hair slightly sunburned and parted in the middle. He looked
+neither to the right nor left. In the noisy abandon of his followers he
+appeared to have no part; nor did their favor disturb him in the least,
+or raise him out of the profound melancholy into which, as his
+countenance showed, he was plunged. The sun beat upon the back of his
+head, and lighting up the floating hair gave it a delicate likeness to
+a golden nimbus. Behind him the irregular procession, pouring forward
+with continuous singing and shouting, extended out of view. There was
+no need of any one to tell the lepers that this was he—the wonderful
+Nazarene!
+
+“He is here, Tirzah,” the mother said; “he is here. Come, my child.”
+
+As she spoke she glided in front of the white rock and fell upon her
+knees.
+
+Directly the daughter and servant were by her side. Then at sight of
+the procession in the west, the thousands from the city halted, and
+began to wave their green branches, shouting, or rather chanting (for
+it was all in one voice),
+
+“Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord!”
+
+And all the thousands who were of the rider’s company, both those near
+and those afar, replied so the air shook with the sound, which was as a
+great wind threshing the side of the hill. Amidst the din, the cries of
+the poor lepers were not more than the twittering of dazed sparrows.
+
+The moment of the meeting of the hosts was come, and with it the
+opportunity the sufferers were seeking; if not taken, it would be lost
+forever, and they would be lost as well.
+
+“Nearer, my child—let us get nearer. He cannot hear us,” said the
+mother.
+
+She arose, and staggered forward. Her ghastly hands were up, and she
+screamed with horrible shrillness. The people saw her—saw her hideous
+face, and stopped awe-struck—an effect for which extreme human misery,
+visible as in this instance, is as potent as majesty in purple and
+gold. Tirzah, behind her a little way, fell down too faint and
+frightened to follow farther.
+
+“The lepers! the lepers!”
+
+“Stone them!”
+
+“The accursed of God! Kill them!”
+
+These, with other yells of like import, broke in upon the hosannas of
+the part of the multitude too far removed to see and understand the
+cause of the interruption. Some there were, however, near by familiar
+with the nature of the man to whom the unfortunates were appealing—some
+who, by long intercourse with him, had caught somewhat of his divine
+compassion: they gazed at him, and were silent while, in fair view, he
+rode up and stopped in front of the woman. She also beheld his
+face—calm, pitiful, and of exceeding beauty, the large eyes tender with
+benignant purpose.
+
+And this was the colloquy that ensued:
+
+“O Master, Master! Thou seest our need; thou canst make us clean. Have
+mercy upon us—mercy!”
+
+“Believest thou I am able to do this?” he asked.
+
+“Thou art he of whom the prophets spake—thou art the Messiah!” she
+replied.
+
+His eyes grew radiant, his manner confident.
+
+“Woman,” he said, “great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou
+wilt.”
+
+He lingered an instant after, apparently unconscious of the presence of
+the throng—an instant—then he rode away.
+
+To the heart divinely original, yet so human in all the better elements
+of humanity, going with sure prevision to a death of all the inventions
+of men the foulest and most cruel, breathing even then in the forecast
+shadow of the awful event, and still as hungry and thirsty for love and
+faith as in the beginning, how precious and ineffably soothing the
+farewell exclamation of the grateful woman:
+
+“To God in the highest, glory! Blessed, thrice blessed, the Son whom he
+hath given us!”
+
+Immediately both the hosts, that from the city and that from Bethphage,
+closed around him with their joyous demonstrations, with hosannas and
+waving of palms, and so he passed from the lepers forever. Covering her
+head, the elder hastened to Tirzah, and folded her in her arms, crying,
+“Daughter, look up! I have his promise; he is indeed the Messiah. We
+are saved—saved!” And the two remained kneeling while the procession,
+slowly going, disappeared over the mount. When the noise of its singing
+afar was a sound scarcely heard the miracle began.
+
+There was first in the hearts of the lepers a freshening of the blood;
+then it flowed faster and stronger, thrilling their wasted bodies with
+an infinitely sweet sense of painless healing. Each felt the scourge
+going from her; their strength revived; they were returning to be
+themselves. Directly, as if to make the purification complete, from
+body to spirit the quickening ran, exalting them to a very fervor of
+ecstasy. The power possessing them to this good end was most nearly
+that of a draught of swift and happy effect; yet it was unlike and
+superior in that its healing and cleansing were absolute, and not
+merely a delicious consciousness while in progress, but the planting,
+growing, and maturing all at once of a recollection so singular and so
+holy that the simple thought of it should be of itself ever after a
+formless yet perfect thanksgiving.
+
+To this transformation—for such it may be called quite as properly as a
+cure—there was a witness other than Amrah. The reader will remember the
+constancy with which Ben-Hur had followed the Nazarene throughout his
+wanderings; and now, recalling the conversation of the night before,
+there will be little surprise at learning that the young Jew was
+present when the leprous woman appeared in the path of the pilgrims. He
+heard her prayer, and saw her disfigured face; he heard the answer
+also, and was not so accustomed to incidents of the kind, frequent as
+they had been, as to have lost interest in them. Had such thing been
+possible with him, still the bitter disputation always excited by the
+simplest display of the Master’s curative gift would have sufficed to
+keep his curiosity alive. Besides that, if not above it as an
+incentive, his hope to satisfy himself upon the vexed question of the
+mission of the mysterious man was still upon him strong as in the
+beginning; we might indeed say even stronger, because of a belief that
+now quickly, before the sun went down, the man himself would make all
+known by public proclamation. At the close of the scene, consequently,
+Ben-Hur had withdrawn from the procession, and seated himself upon a
+stone to wait its passage.
+
+From his place he nodded recognition to many of the people—Galileans in
+his league, carrying short swords under their long abbas. After a
+little a swarthy Arab came up leading two horses; at a sign from
+Ben-Hur he also drew out.
+
+“Stay here,” the young master said, when all were gone by, even the
+laggards. “I wish to be at the city early, and Aldebaran must do me
+service.”
+
+He stroked the broad forehead of the horse, now in his prime of
+strength and beauty, then crossed the road towards the two women.
+
+They were to him, it should be borne in mind, strangers in whom he felt
+interest only as they were subjects of a superhuman experiment, the
+result of which might possibly help him to solution of the mystery that
+had so long engaged him. As he proceeded, he glanced casually at the
+figure of the little woman over by the white rock, standing there, her
+face hidden in her hands.
+
+“As the Lord liveth, it is Amrah!” he said to himself.
+
+He hurried on, and passing by the mother and daughter, still without
+recognizing them, he stopped before the servant.
+
+“Amrah,” he said to her, “Amrah, what do you here?”
+
+She rushed forward, and fell upon her knees before him, blinded by her
+tears, nigh speechless with contending joy and fear.
+
+“O master, master! Thy God and mine, how good he is!”
+
+The knowledge we gain from much sympathy with others passing through
+trials is but vaguely understood; strangely enough, it enables us,
+among other things, to merge our identity into theirs often so
+completely that their sorrows and their delights become our own. So
+poor Amrah, aloof and hiding her face, knew the transformation the
+lepers were undergoing without a word spoken to her—knew it, and shared
+all their feeling to the full. Her countenance, her words, her whole
+manner, betrayed her condition; and with swift presentiment he
+connected it with the women he had just passed: he felt her presence
+there at that time was in some way associated with them, and turned
+hastily as they arose to their feet. His heart stood still, he became
+rooted in his tracks—dumb past outcry—awe-struck.
+
+The woman he had seen before the Nazarene was standing with her hands
+clasped and eyes streaming, looking towards heaven. The mere
+transformation would have been a sufficient surprise; but it was the
+least of the causes of his emotion. Could he be mistaken? Never was
+there in life a stranger so like his mother; and like her as she was
+the day the Roman snatched her from him. There was but one difference
+to mar the identity—the hair of this person was a little streaked with
+gray; yet that was not impossible of reconcilement, since the
+intelligence which had directed the miracle might have taken into
+consideration the natural effects of the passage of years. And who was
+it by her side, if not Tirzah?—fair, beautiful, perfect, more mature,
+but in all other respects exactly the same in appearance as when she
+looked with him over the parapet the morning of the accident to Gratus.
+He had given them over as dead, and time had accustomed him to the
+bereavement; he had not ceased mourning for them, yet, as something
+distinguishable, they had simply dropped out of his plans and dreams.
+Scarcely believing his senses, he laid his hand upon the servant’s
+head, and asked, tremulously,
+
+“Amrah, Amrah—my mother! Tirzah! tell me if I see aright.”
+
+“Speak to them, O master, speak to them!” she said.
+
+He waited no longer, but ran, with outstretched arms, crying, “Mother!
+mother! Tirzah! Here I am!”
+
+They heard his call, and with a cry as loving started to meet him.
+Suddenly the mother stopped, drew back, and uttered the old alarm,
+
+“Stay, Judah, my son; come not nearer. Unclean, unclean!”
+
+The utterance was not from habit, grown since the dread disease struck
+her, as much as fear; and the fear was but another form of the
+ever-thoughtful maternal love. Though they were healed in person, the
+taint of the scourge might be in their garments ready for
+communication. He had no such thought. They were before him; he had
+called them, they had answered. Who or what should keep them from him
+now? Next moment the three, so long separated, were mingling their
+tears in each other’s arms.
+
+The first ecstasy over, the mother said, “In this happiness, O my
+children, let us not be ungrateful. Let us begin life anew by
+acknowledgment of him to whom we are all so indebted.”
+
+They fell upon their knees, Amrah with the rest; and the prayer of the
+elder outspoken was as a psalm.
+
+Tirzah repeated it word for word; so did Ben-Hur, but not with the same
+clear mind and questionless faith; for when they were risen, he asked,
+
+“In Nazareth, where the man was born, mother, they call him the son of
+a carpenter. What is he?”
+
+Her eyes rested upon him with all their old tenderness, and she
+answered as she had answered the Nazarene himself—
+
+“He is the Messiah.”
+
+“And whence has he his power?”
+
+“We may know by the use he makes of it. Can you tell me any ill he has
+done?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“By that sign then I answer, He has his power from God.”
+
+It is not an easy thing to shake off in a moment the expectations
+nurtured through years until they have become essentially a part of us;
+and though Ben-Hur asked himself what the vanities of the world were to
+such a one, his ambition was obdurate and would not down. He persisted
+as men do yet every day in measuring the Christ by himself. How much
+better if we measured ourselves by the Christ!
+
+Naturally, the mother was the first to think of the cares of life.
+
+“What shall we do now, my son? Where shall we go?”
+
+Then Ben-Hur, recalled to duty, observed how completely every trace of
+the scourge had disappeared from his restored people; that each had
+back her perfection of person; that, as with Naaman when he came up out
+of the water, their flesh had come again like unto the flesh of a
+little child; and he took off his cloak, and threw it over Tirzah.
+
+“Take it,” he said, smiling; “the eye of the stranger would have
+shunned you before, now it shall not offend you.”
+
+The act exposed a sword belted to his side.
+
+“Is it a time of war?” asked the mother, anxiously.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why, then, are you armed?”
+
+“It may be necessary to defend the Nazarene.”
+
+Thus Ben-Hur evaded the whole truth.
+
+“Has he enemies? Who are they?”
+
+“Alas, mother, they are not all Romans!”
+
+“Is he not of Israel, and a man of peace?”
+
+“There was never one more so; but in the opinion of the rabbis and
+teachers he is guilty of a great crime.”
+
+“What crime?”
+
+“In his eyes the uncircumcised Gentile is as worthy favor as a Jew of
+the strictest habit. He preaches a new dispensation.”
+
+The mother was silent, and they moved to the shade of the tree by the
+rock. Calming his impatience to have them home again and hear their
+story, he showed them the necessity of obedience to the law governing
+in cases like theirs, and in conclusion called the Arab, bidding him
+take the horses to the gate by Bethesda and await him there; whereupon
+they set out by the way of the Mount of Offence. The return was very
+different from the coming; they walked rapidly and with ease, and in
+good time reached a tomb newly made near that of Absalom, overlooking
+the depths of Cedron. Finding it unoccupied, the women took possession,
+while he went on hastily to make the preparations required for their
+new condition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Ben-Hur pitched two tents out on the Upper Cedron east a short space of
+the Tombs of the Kings, and furnished them with every comfort at his
+command; and thither, without loss of time, he conducted his mother and
+sister, to remain until the examining priest could certify their
+perfect cleansing.
+
+In course of the duty, the young man had subjected himself to such
+serious defilement as to debar him from participation in the ceremonies
+of the great feast, then near at hand. He could not enter the least
+sacred of the courts of the Temple. Of necessity, not less than choice,
+therefore, he stayed at the tents with his beloved people. There was a
+great deal to hear from them, and a great deal to tell them of himself.
+
+Stories such as theirs—sad experiences extending through a lapse of
+years, sufferings of body, acuter sufferings of mind—are usually long
+in the telling, the incidents seldom following each other in threaded
+connection. He listened to the narrative and all they told him, with
+outward patience masking inward feeling. In fact, his hatred of Rome
+and Romans reached a higher mark than ever; his desire for vengeance
+became a thirst which attempts at reflection only intensified. In the
+almost savage bitterness of his humor many mad impulses took hold of
+him. The opportunities of the highways presented themselves with
+singular force of temptation; he thought seriously of insurrection in
+Galilee; even the sea, ordinarily a retrospective horror to him,
+stretched itself map-like before his fancy, laced and interlaced with
+lines of passage crowded with imperial plunder and imperial travellers;
+but the better judgment matured in calmer hours was happily too firmly
+fixed to be supplanted by present passion however strong. Each mental
+venture in reach of new expedients brought him back to the old
+conclusion—that there could be no sound success except in a war
+involving all Israel in solid union; and all musing upon the subject,
+all inquiry, all hope, ended where they began—in the Nazarene and his
+purposes.
+
+At odd moments the excited schemer found a pleasure in fashioning a
+speech for that person:
+
+“Hear, O Israel! I am he, the promised of God, born King of the
+Jews—come to you with the dominion spoken of by the prophets. Rise now,
+and lay hold on the world!”
+
+Would the Nazarene but speak these few words, what a tumult would
+follow! How many mouths performing the office of trumpets would take
+them up and blow them abroad for the massing of armies!
+
+Would he speak them?
+
+And eager to begin the work, and answering in the worldly way, Ben-Hur
+lost sight of the double nature of the man, and of the other
+possibility, that the divine in him might transcend the human. In the
+miracle of which Tirzah and his mother were the witnesses even more
+nearly than himself, he saw and set apart and dwelt upon a power ample
+enough to raise and support a Jewish crown over the wrecks of the
+Italian, and more than ample to remodel society, and convert mankind
+into one purified happy family; and when that work was done, could any
+one say the peace which might then be ordered without hindrance was not
+a mission worthy a son of God? Could any one then deny the Redeemership
+of the Christ? And discarding all consideration of political
+consequences, what unspeakable personal glory there would then be to
+him as a man? It was not in the nature of any mere mortal to refuse
+such a career.
+
+Meantime down the Cedron, and in towards Bezetha, especially on the
+roadsides quite up to the Damascus Gate, the country filled rapidly
+with all kinds of temporary shelters for pilgrims to the Passover.
+Ben-Hur visited the strangers, and talked with them; and returning to
+his tents, he was each time more and more astonished at the vastness of
+their numbers. And when he further discovered that every part of the
+world was represented among them—cities upon both shores of the
+Mediterranean far off as the Pillars of the West, river-towns in
+distant India, provinces in northernmost Europe; and that, though they
+frequently saluted him with tongues unacquainted with a syllable of the
+old Hebrew of the fathers, these representatives had all the same
+object—celebration of the notable feast—an idea tinged mistily with
+superstitious fancy forced itself upon him. Might he not after all have
+misunderstood the Nazarene? Might not that person by patient waiting be
+covering silent preparation, and proving his fitness for the glorious
+task before him? How much better this time for the movement than that
+other when, by Gennesaret, the Galileans would have forced assumption
+of the crown? Then the support would have been limited to a few
+thousands; now his proclamation would be responded to by millions—who
+could say how many? Pursuing this theory to its conclusions, Ben-Hur
+moved amidst brilliant promises, and glowed with the thought that the
+melancholy man, under gentle seeming and wondrous self-denial, was in
+fact carrying in disguise the subtlety of a politician and the genius
+of a soldier.
+
+Several times also, in the meanwhile, low-set, brawny men, bareheaded
+and black-bearded, came and asked for Ben-Hur at the tent; his
+interviews with them were always apart; and to his mother’s question
+who they were he answered,
+
+“Some good friends of mine from Galilee.”
+
+Through them he kept informed of the movements of the Nazarene, and of
+the schemes of the Nazarene’s enemies, Rabbinical and Roman. That the
+good man’s life was in danger, he knew; but that there were any bold
+enough to attempt to take it at that time, he could not believe. It
+seemed too securely intrenched in a great fame and an assured
+popularity. The very vastness of the attendance in and about the city
+brought with it a seeming guaranty of safety. And yet, to say truth,
+Ben-Hur’s confidence rested most certainly upon the miraculous power of
+the Christ. Pondering the subject in the purely human view, that the
+master of such authority over life and death, used so frequently for
+the good of others, would not exert it in care of himself was simply as
+much past belief as it was past understanding.
+
+Nor should it be forgotten that all these were incidents of occurrence
+between the twenty-first day of March—counting by the modern
+calendar—and the twenty-fifth. The evening of the latter day Ben-Hur
+yielded to his impatience, and rode to the city, leaving behind him a
+promise to return in the night.
+
+The horse was fresh, and choosing his own gait, sped swiftly. The eyes
+of the clambering vines winked at the rider from the garden fences on
+the way; there was nothing else to see him, nor child nor woman nor
+man. Through the rocky float in the hollows of the road the agate hoofs
+drummed, ringing like cups of steel; but without notice from any
+stranger. In the houses passed there were no tenants; the fires by the
+tent-doors were out; the road was deserted; for this was the first
+Passover eve, and the hour “between the evenings” when the visiting
+millions crowded the city, and the slaughter of lambs in offering
+reeked the fore-courts of the Temple, and the priests in ordered lines
+caught the flowing blood and carried it swiftly to the dripping
+altars—when all was haste and hurry, racing with the stars fast coming
+with the signal after which the roasting and the eating and the singing
+might go on, but not the preparation more.
+
+Through the great northern gate the rider rode, and lo! Jerusalem
+before the fall, in ripeness of glory, illuminated for the Lord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Ben-Hur alighted at the gate of the khan from which the three Wise Men
+more than thirty years before departed, going down to Bethlehem. There,
+in keeping of his Arab followers, he left the horse, and shortly after
+was at the wicket of his father’s house, and in a yet briefer space in
+the great chamber. He called for Malluch first; that worthy being out,
+he sent a salutation to his friends the merchant and the Egyptian. They
+were being carried abroad to see the celebration. The latter, he was
+informed, was very feeble, and in a state of deep dejection.
+
+Young people of that time who were supposed hardly to know their own
+hearts indulged the habit of politic indirection quite as much as young
+people in the same condition indulge it in this time; so when Ben-Hur
+inquired for the good Balthasar, and with grave courtesy desired to
+know if he would be pleased to see him, he really addressed the
+daughter a notice of his arrival. While the servant was answering for
+the elder, the curtain of the doorway was drawn aside, and the younger
+Egyptian came in, and walked—or floated, upborne in a white cloud of
+the gauzy raiment she so loved and lived in—to the centre of the
+chamber, where the light cast by lamps from the seven-armed brazen
+stick planted upon the floor was the strongest. With her there was no
+fear of light.
+
+The servant left the two alone.
+
+In the excitement occasioned by the events of the few days past Ben-Hur
+had scarcely given a thought to the fair Egyptian. If she came to his
+mind at all, it was merely as a briefest pleasure, a suggestion of a
+delight which could wait for him, and was waiting.
+
+But now the influence of the woman revived with all its force the
+instant Ben-Hur beheld her. He advanced to her eagerly, but stopped and
+gazed. Such a change he had never seen!
+
+Theretofore she had been a lover studious to win him—in manner all
+warmth, each glance an admission, each action an avowal. She had
+showered him with incense of flattery. While he was present, she had
+impressed him with her admiration; going away, he carried the
+impression with him to remain a delicious expectancy hastening his
+return. It was for him the painted eyelids drooped lowest over the
+lustrous almond eyes; for him the love-stories caught from the
+professionals abounding in the streets of Alexandria were repeated with
+emphasis and lavishment of poetry; for him endless exclamations of
+sympathy, and smiles, and little privileges with hand and hair and
+cheek and lips, and songs of the Nile, and displays of jewelry, and
+subtleties of lace in veils and scarfs, and other subtleties not less
+exquisite in flosses of Indian silk. The idea, old as the oldest of
+peoples, that beauty is the reward of the hero had never such realism
+as she contrived for his pleasure; insomuch that he could not doubt he
+was her hero; she avouched it in a thousand artful ways as natural with
+her as her beauty—winsome ways reserved, it would seem, by the
+passionate genius of old Egypt for its daughters.
+
+Such the Egyptian had been to Ben-Hur from the night of the boat-ride
+on the lake in the Orchard of Palms. But now!
+
+Elsewhere in this volume the reader may have observed a term of
+somewhat indefinite meaning used reverently in a sacred connection; we
+repeat it now with a general application. There are few persons who
+have not a double nature, the real and the acquired; the latter a kind
+of addendum resulting from education, which in time often perfects it
+into a part of the being as unquestionable as the first. Leaving the
+thought to the thoughtful, we proceed to say that now the real nature
+of the Egyptian made itself manifest.
+
+It was not possible for her to have received a stranger with repulsion
+more incisive; yet she was apparently as passionless as a statue, only
+the small head was a little tilted, the nostrils a little drawn, and
+the sensuous lower lip pushed the upper the least bit out of its
+natural curvature.
+
+She was the first to speak.
+
+“Your coming is timely, O son of Hur,” she said, in a voice sharply
+distinct. “I wish to thank you for hospitality; after to-morrow I may
+not have the opportunity to do so.”
+
+Ben-Hur bowed slightly without taking his eyes from her.
+
+“I have heard of a custom which the dice-players observe with good
+result among themselves,” she continued. “When the game is over, they
+refer to their tablets and cast up their accounts; then they libate the
+gods and put a crown upon the happy winner. We have had a game—it has
+lasted through many days and nights. Why, now that it is at an end,
+shall not we see to which the chaplet belongs?”
+
+Yet very watchful, Ben-Hur answered, lightly, “A man may not balk a
+woman bent on having her way.”
+
+“Tell me,” she continued, inclining her head, and permitting the sneer
+to become positive—“tell me, O prince of Jerusalem, where is he, that
+son of the carpenter of Nazareth, and son not less of God, from whom so
+lately such mighty things were expected?”
+
+He waved his hand impatiently, and replied, “I am not his keeper.”
+
+The beautiful head sank forward yet lower.
+
+“Has he broken Rome to pieces?”
+
+Again, but with anger, Ben-Hur raised his hand in deprecation.
+
+“Where has he seated his capital?” she proceeded. “Cannot I go see his
+throne and its lions of bronze? And his palace—he raised the dead; and
+to such a one, what is it to raise a golden house? He has but to stamp
+his foot and say the word, and the house is, pillared like Karnak, and
+wanting nothing.”
+
+There was by this time slight ground left to believe her playing; the
+questions were offensive, and her manner pointed with unfriendliness;
+seeing which, he on his side became more wary, and said, with good
+humor, “O Egypt, let us wait another day, even another week, for him,
+the lions, and the palace.”
+
+She went on without noticing the suggestion.
+
+“And how is it I see you in that garb? Such is not the habit of
+governors in India or vice-kings elsewhere. I saw the satrap of Teheran
+once, and he wore a turban of silk and a cloak of cloth of gold, and
+the hilt and scabbard of his sword made me dizzy with their splendor of
+precious stones. I thought Osiris had lent him a glory from the sun. I
+fear you have not entered upon your kingdom—the kingdom I was to share
+with you.”
+
+“The daughter of my wise guest is kinder than she imagines herself; she
+is teaching me that Isis may kiss a heart without making it better.”
+
+Ben-Hur spoke with cold courtesy, and Iras, after playing with the
+pendent solitaire of her necklace of coins, rejoined, “For a Jew, the
+son of Hur is clever. I saw your dreaming Cæsar make his entry into
+Jerusalem. You told us he would that day proclaim himself King of the
+Jews from the steps of the Temple. I beheld the procession descend the
+mountain bringing him. I heard their singing. They were beautiful with
+palms in motion. I looked everywhere among them for a figure with a
+promise of royalty—a horseman in purple, a chariot with a driver in
+shining brass, a stately warrior behind an orbed shield, rivalling his
+spear in stature. I looked for his guard. It would have been pleasant
+to have seen a prince of Jerusalem and a cohort of the legions of
+Galilee.”
+
+She flung her listener a glance of provoking disdain, then laughed
+heartily, as if the ludicrousness of the picture in her mind were too
+strong for contempt.
+
+“Instead of a Sesostris returning in triumph or a Cæsar helmed and
+sworded—ha, ha, ha!—I saw a man with a woman’s face and hair, riding an
+ass’s colt, and in tears. The King! the Son of God! the Redeemer of the
+world! Ha, ha, ha!”
+
+In spite of himself, Ben-Hur winced.
+
+“I did not quit my place, O prince of Jerusalem,” she said, before he
+could recover. “I did not laugh. I said to myself, ‘Wait. In the Temple
+he will glorify himself as becomes a hero about to take possession of
+the world.’ I saw him enter the Gate of Shushan and the Court of the
+Women. I saw him stop and stand before the Gate Beautiful. There were
+people with me on the porch and in the courts, and on the cloisters and
+on the steps of the three sides of the Temple there were other people—I
+will say a million of people, all waiting breathlessly to hear his
+proclamation. The pillars were not more still than we. Ha, ha, ha! I
+fancied I heard the axles of the mighty Roman machine begin to crack.
+Ha, ha, ha! O prince, by the soul of Solomon, your King of the World
+drew his gown about him and walked away, and out by the farthest gate,
+nor opened his mouth to say a word; and—the Roman machine is running
+yet!”
+
+In simple homage to a hope that instant lost—a hope which, as it began
+to fall and while it was falling, he unconsciously followed with a
+parting look down to its disappearance—Ben-Hur lowered his eyes.
+
+At no previous time, whether when Balthasar was plying him with
+arguments, or when miracles were being done before his face, had the
+disputed nature of the Nazarene been so plainly set before him. The
+best way, after all, to reach an understanding of the divine is by
+study of the human. In the things superior to men we may always look to
+find God. So with the picture given by the Egyptian of the scene when
+the Nazarene turned from the Gate Beautiful; its central theme was an
+act utterly beyond performance by a man under control of merely human
+inspirations. A parable to a parable-loving people, it taught what the
+Christ had so often asserted—that his mission was not political. There
+was not much more time for thought of all this than that allowed for a
+common respiration; yet the idea took fast hold of Ben-Hur, and in the
+same instant he followed his hope of vengeance out of sight, and the
+man with the woman’s face and hair, and in tears, came near to him—near
+enough to leave something of his spirit behind.
+
+“Daughter of Balthasar,” he said, with dignity, “if this be the game of
+which you spoke to me, take the chaplet—I accord it yours. Only let us
+make an end of words. That you have a purpose I am sure. To it, I pray,
+and I will answer you; then let us go our several ways, and forget we
+ever met. Say on; I will listen, but not to more of that which you have
+given me.”
+
+She regarded him intently a moment, as if determining what to
+do—possibly she might have been measuring his will—then she said,
+coldly, “You have my leave—go.”
+
+“Peace to you,” he responded, and walked away.
+
+As he was about passing out of the door, she called to him.
+
+“A word.”
+
+He stopped where he was, and looked back.
+
+“Consider all I know about you.”
+
+“O most fair Egyptian,” he said, returning, “what all do you know about
+me?”
+
+She looked at him absently.
+
+“You are more of a Roman, son of Hur, then any of your Hebrew
+brethren.”
+
+“Am I so unlike my countrymen?” he asked, indifferently.
+
+“The demi-gods are all Roman now,” she rejoined.
+
+“And therefore you will tell me what more you know about me?”
+
+“The likeness is not lost upon me. It might induce me to save you.”
+
+“Save me!”
+
+The pink-stained fingers toyed daintily with the lustrous pendant at
+the throat, and her voice was exceeding low and soft; only a tapping on
+the floor with her silken sandal admonished him to have a care.
+
+“There was a Jew, an escaped galley-slave, who killed a man in the
+Palace of Idernee,” she began, slowly.
+
+Ben-Hur was startled.
+
+“The same Jew slew a Roman soldier before the Market-place here in
+Jerusalem; the same Jew has three trained legions from Galilee to seize
+the Roman governor to-night; the same Jew has alliances perfected for
+war upon Rome, and Ilderim the Sheik is one of his partners.”
+
+Drawing nearer him, she almost whispered,
+
+“You have lived in Rome. Suppose these things repeated in ears we know
+of. Ah! you change color.”
+
+He drew back from her with somewhat of the look which may be imagined
+upon the face of a man who, thinking to play with a kitten, has run
+upon a tiger; and she proceeded:
+
+“You are acquainted in the antechamber, and know the Lord Sejanus.
+Suppose it were told him with the proofs in hand—or without the
+proofs—that the same Jew is the richest man in the East—nay, in all the
+empire. The fishes of the Tiber would have fattening other than that
+they dig out of its ooze, would they not? And while they were
+feeding—ha! son of Hur!—what splendor there would be on exhibition in
+the Circus! Amusing the Roman people is a fine art; getting the money
+to keep them amused is another art even finer; and was there ever an
+artist the equal of the Lord Sejanus?”
+
+Ben-Hur was not too much stirred by the evident baseness of the woman
+for recollection. Not unfrequently when all the other faculties are
+numb and failing memory does its offices with the greatest fidelity.
+The scene at the spring on the way to the Jordan reproduced itself; and
+he remembered thinking then that Esther had betrayed him, and thinking
+so now, he said calmly as he could,
+
+“To give you pleasure, daughter of Egypt, I acknowledge your cunning,
+and that I am at your mercy. It may also please you to hear me
+acknowledge I have no hope of your favor. I could kill you, but you are
+a woman. The Desert is open to receive me; and though Rome is a good
+hunter of men, there she would follow long and far before she caught
+me, for in its heart there are wildernesses of spears as well as
+wildernesses of sand, and it is not unlovely to the unconquered
+Parthian. In the toils as I am—dupe that I have been—yet there is one
+thing my due: who told you all you know about me? In flight or
+captivity, dying even, there will be consolation in leaving the traitor
+the curse of a man who has lived knowing nothing but wretchedness. Who
+told you all you know about me?”
+
+It might have been a touch of art, or might have been sincere—that as
+it may—the expression of the Egyptian’s face became sympathetic.
+
+“There are in my country, O son of Hur,” she said, presently, “workmen
+who make pictures by gathering vari-colored shells here and there on
+the sea-shore after storms, and cutting them up, and patching the
+pieces as inlaying on marble slabs. Can you not see the hint there is
+in the practice to such as go searching for secrets? Enough that from
+this person I gathered a handful of little circumstances, and from that
+other yet another handful, and that afterwhile I put them together, and
+was happy as a woman can be who has at disposal the fortune and life of
+a man whom”—she stopped, and beat the floor with her foot, and looked
+away as if to hide a sudden emotion from him; with an air of even
+painful resolution she presently finished the sentence—“whom she is at
+loss what to do with.”
+
+“No, it is not enough,” Ben-Hur said, unmoved by the play—“it is not
+enough. To-morrow you will determine what to do with me. I may die.”
+
+“True,” she rejoined quickly and with emphasis, “I had something from
+Sheik Ilderim as he lay with my father in a grove out in the Desert.
+The night was still, very still, and the walls of the tent, sooth to
+say, were poor ward against ears outside listening to—birds and beetles
+flying through the air.”
+
+She smiled at the conceit, but proceeded:
+
+“Some other things—bits of shell for the picture—I had from—”
+
+“Whom?”
+
+“The son of Hur himself.”
+
+“Was there no other who contributed?”
+
+“No, not one.”
+
+Hur drew a breath of relief, and said, lightly, “Thanks. It were not
+well to keep the Lord Sejanus waiting for you. The Desert is not so
+sensitive. Again, O Egypt, peace!”
+
+To this time he had been standing uncovered; now he took the
+handkerchief from his arm where it had been hanging, and adjusting it
+upon his head, turned to depart. But she arrested him; in her
+eagerness, she even reached a hand to him.
+
+“Stay,” she said.
+
+He looked back at her, but without taking the hand, though it was very
+noticeable for its sparkling of jewels; and he knew by her manner that
+the reserved point of the scene which was so surprising to him was now
+to come.
+
+“Stay, and do not distrust me, O son of Hur, if I declare I know why
+the noble Arrius took you for his heir. And, by Isis! by all the gods
+of Egypt! I swear I tremble to think of you, so brave and generous,
+under the hand of the remorseless minister. You have left a portion of
+your youth in the atria of the great capital; consider, as I do, what
+the Desert will be to you in contrast of life. Oh, I give you
+pity—pity! And if you but do what I say, I will save you. That, also, I
+swear, by our holy Isis!”
+
+Words of entreaty and prayer these, poured forth volubly and with
+earnestness and the mighty sanction of beauty.
+
+“Almost—almost I believe you,” Ben-Hur said, yet hesitatingly, and in a
+voice low and indistinct; for a doubt remained with him grumbling
+against the yielding tendency of the man—a good sturdy doubt, such a
+one as has saved many a life and fortune.
+
+“The perfect life for a woman is to live in love; the greatest
+happiness for a man is the conquest of himself; and that, O prince, is
+what I have to ask of you.”
+
+She spoke rapidly, and with animation; indeed, she had never appeared
+to him so fascinating.
+
+“You had once a friend,” she continued. “It was in your boyhood. There
+was a quarrel, and you and he became enemies. He did you wrong. After
+many years you met him again in the Circus at Antioch.”
+
+“Messala!”
+
+“Yes, Messala. You are his creditor. Forgive the past; admit him to
+friendship again; restore the fortune he lost in the great wager;
+rescue him. The six talents are as nothing to you; not so much as a bud
+lost upon a tree already in full leaf; but to him— Ah, he must go about
+with a broken body; wherever you meet him he must look up to you from
+the ground. O Ben-Hur, noble prince! to a Roman descended as he is
+beggary is the other most odious name for death. Save him from
+beggary!”
+
+If the rapidity with which she spoke was a cunning invention to keep
+him from thinking, either she never knew or else had forgotten that
+there are convictions which derive nothing from thought, but drop into
+place without leave or notice. It seemed to him, when at last she
+paused to have his answer, that he could see Messala himself peering at
+him over her shoulder; and in its expression the countenance of the
+Roman was not that of a mendicant or a friend; the sneer was as
+patrician as ever, and the fine edge of the hauteur as flawless and
+irritating.
+
+“The appeal has been decided then, and for once a Messala takes
+nothing. I must go and write it in my book of great occurrences—a
+judgment by a Roman against a Roman! But did he—did Messala send you to
+me with this request, O Egypt?”
+
+“He has a noble nature, and judged you by it.”
+
+Ben-Hur took the hand upon arm.
+
+“As you know him in such friendly way, fair Egyptian, tell me, would he
+do for me, there being a reversal of the conditions, that he asks of
+me? Answer, by Isis! Answer, for the truth’s sake!”
+
+There was insistence in the touch of his hand, and in his look also.
+
+“Oh!” she began, “he is—”
+
+“A Roman, you were about to say; meaning that I, a Jew, must not
+determine dues from me to him by any measure of dues from him to me;
+being a Jew, I must forgive him my winnings because he is a Roman. If
+you have more to tell me, daughter of Balthasar, speak quickly,
+quickly; for by the Lord God of Israel, when this heat of blood, hotter
+waxing, attains its highest, I may not be able longer to see that you
+are a woman, and beautiful! I may see but the spy of a master the more
+hateful because the master is a Roman. Say on, and quickly.”
+
+She threw his hand off and stepped back into the full light, with all
+the evil of her nature collected in her eyes and voice.
+
+“Thou drinker of lees, feeder upon husks! To think I could love thee,
+having seen Messala! Such as thou were born to serve him. He would have
+been satisfied with release of the six talents; but I say to the six
+thou shalt add twenty—twenty, dost thou hear? The kissings of my little
+finger which thou hast taken from him, though with my consent, shall be
+paid for; and that I have followed thee with affection of sympathy, and
+endured thee so long, enter into the account not less because I was
+serving him. The merchant here is thy keeper of moneys. If by to-morrow
+at noon he has not thy order acted upon in favor of my Messala for
+six-and-twenty talents—mark the sum!—thou shalt settle with the Lord
+Sejanus. Be wise and—farewell.”
+
+As she was going to the door, he put himself in her way.
+
+“The old Egypt lives in you,” he said. “Whether you see Messala
+to-morrow or the next day, here or in Rome, give him this message. Tell
+him I have back the money, even the six talents, he robbed me of by
+robbing my father’s estate; tell him I survived the galleys to which he
+had me sent, and in my strength rejoice in his beggary and dishonor;
+tell him I think the affliction of body which he has from my hand is
+the curse of our Lord God of Israel upon him more fit than death for
+his crimes against the helpless; tell him my mother and sister whom he
+had sent to a cell in Antonia that they might die of leprosy, are alive
+and well, thanks to the power of the Nazarene whom you so despise; tell
+him that, to fill my measure of happiness, they are restored to me, and
+that I will go hence to their love, and find in it more than
+compensation for the impure passions which you leave me to take to him;
+tell him—this for your comfort, O cunning incarnate, as much as
+his—tell him that when the Lord Sejanus comes to despoil me he will
+find nothing; for the inheritance I had from the duumvir, including the
+villa by Misenum, has been sold, and the money from the sale is out of
+reach, afloat in the marts of the world as bills of exchange; and that
+this house and the goods and merchandise and the ships and caravans
+with which Simonides plies his commerce with such princely profits are
+covered by imperial safeguards—a wise head having found the price of
+the favor, and the Lord Sejanus preferring a reasonable gain in the way
+of gift to much gain fished from pools of blood and wrong; tell him if
+all this were not so, if the money and property were all mine, yet
+should he not have the least part of it, for when he finds our Jewish
+bills, and forces them to give up their values, there is yet another
+resort left me—a deed of gift to Cæsar—so much, O Egypt, I found out
+in the atria of the great capital; tell him that along with my defiance
+I do not send him a curse in words, but, as a better expression of my
+undying hate, I send him one who will prove to him the sum of all
+curses; and when he looks at you repeating this my message, daughter of
+Balthasar, his Roman shrewdness will tell him all I mean. Go now—and I
+will go.”
+
+He conducted her to the door, and, with ceremonious politeness, held
+back the curtain while she passed out.
+
+“Peace to you,” he said, as she disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+When Ben-Hur left the guest-chamber, there was not nearly so much life
+in his action as when he entered it; his steps were slower, and he went
+along with his head quite upon his breast. Having made discovery that a
+man with a broken back may yet have a sound brain, he was reflecting
+upon the discovery.
+
+Forasmuch as it is easy after a calamity has befallen to look back and
+see the proofs of its coming strewn along the way, the thought that he
+had not even suspected the Egyptian as in Messala’s interest, but had
+gone blindly on through whole years putting himself and his friends
+more and more at her mercy, was a sore wound to the young man’s vanity.
+“I remember,” he said to himself, “she had no word of indignation for
+the perfidious Roman at the Fountain of Castalia! I remember she
+extolled him at the boat-ride on the lake in the Orchard of Palms! And,
+ah!”—he stopped, and beat his left hand violently with his right—“ah!
+that mystery about the appointment she made with me at the Palace of
+Idernee is no mystery now!”
+
+The wound, it should be observed, was to his vanity; and fortunately it
+is not often that people die of such hurts, or even continue a long
+time sick. In Ben-Hur’s case, moreover, there was a compensation; for
+presently he exclaimed aloud, “Praised be the Lord God that the woman
+took not a more lasting hold on me! I see I did not love her.”
+
+Then, as if he had already parted with not a little of the weight on
+his mind, he stepped forward more lightly; and, coming to the place on
+the terrace where one stairway led down to the court-yard below, and
+another ascended to the roof, he took the latter and began to climb. As
+he made the last step in the flight he stopped again.
+
+“Can Balthasar have been her partner in the long mask she has been
+playing? No, no. Hypocrisy seldom goes with wrinkled age like that.
+Balthasar is a good man.”
+
+With this decided opinion he stepped upon the roof. There was a full
+moon overhead, yet the vault of the sky at the moment was lurid with
+light cast up from the fires burning in the streets and open places of
+the city, and the chanting and chorusing of the old psalmody of Israel
+filled it with plaintive harmonies to which he could not but listen.
+The countless voices bearing the burden seemed to say, “Thus, O son of
+Judah, we prove our worshipfulness of the Lord God, and our loyalty to
+the land he gave us. Let a Gideon appear, or a David, or a Maccabaeus,
+and we are ready.”
+
+That seemed an introduction; for next he saw the man of Nazareth.
+
+In certain moods the mind is disposed to mock itself with inapposite
+fancies.
+
+The tearful woman-like face of the Christ stayed with him while he
+crossed the roof to the parapet above the street on the north side of
+the house, and there was in it no sign of war; but rather as the
+heavens of calm evenings look peace upon everything, so it looked,
+provoking the old question, What manner of man is he?
+
+Ben-Hur permitted himself one glance over the parapet, then turned and
+walked mechanically towards the summer-house.
+
+“Let them do their worst,” he said, as he went slowly on. “I will not
+forgive the Roman. I will not divide my fortune with him, nor will I
+fly from this city of my fathers. I will call on Galilee first, and
+here make the fight. By brave deeds I will bring the tribes to our
+side. He who raised up Moses will find us a leader, if I fail. If not
+the Nazarene, then some other of the many ready to die for freedom.”
+
+The interior of the summer-house, when Ben-Hur, slow sauntering, came
+to it, was murkily lighted. The faintest of shadows lay along the floor
+from the pillars on the north and west sides. Looking in, he saw the
+arm-chair usually occupied by Simonides drawn to a spot from which a
+view of the city over towards the Market-place could be best had.
+
+“The good man is returned. I will speak with him, unless he be asleep.”
+
+He walked in, and with a quiet step approached the chair. Peering over
+the high back, he beheld Esther nestled in the seat asleep—a small
+figure snugged away under her father’s lap-robe. The hair dishevelled
+fell over her face. Her breathing was low and irregular. Once it was
+broken by a long sigh, ending in a sob. Something—it might have been
+the sigh or the loneliness in which he found her—imparted to him the
+idea that the sleep was a rest from sorrow rather than fatigue. Nature
+kindly sends such relief to children, and he was used to thinking
+Esther scarcely more than a child. He put his arms upon the back of the
+chair, and thought.
+
+“I will not wake her. I have nothing to tell her—nothing unless—unless
+it be my love.... She is a daughter of Judah, and beautiful, and so
+unlike the Egyptian; for there it is all vanity, here all truth; there
+ambition, here duty; there selfishness, here self-sacrifice.... Nay,
+the question is not do I love her, but does she love me? She was my
+friend from the beginning. The night on the terrace at Antioch, how
+child-like she begged me not to make Rome my enemy, and had me tell her
+of the villa by Misenum, and of the life there! That she should not see
+I saw her cunning drift I kissed her. Can she have forgotten the kiss!
+I have not. I love her.... They do not know in the city that I have
+back my people. I shrank from telling it to the Egyptian; but this
+little one will rejoice with me over their restoration, and welcome
+them with love and sweet services of hand and heart. She will be to my
+mother another daughter; in Tirzah she will find her other self. I
+would wake her and tell her these things, but—out on the sorceress of
+Egypt! Of that folly I could not command myself to speak. I will go
+away, and wait another and a better time. I will wait. Fair Esther,
+dutiful child, daughter of Judah!”
+
+He retired silently as he came.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The streets were full of people going and coming, or grouped about the
+fires roasting meat, and feasting and singing, and happy. The odor of
+scorching flesh mixed with the odor of cedar-wood aflame and smoking
+loaded the air; and as this was the occasion when every son of Israel
+was full brother to every other son of Israel, and hospitality was
+without bounds, Ben-Hur was saluted at every step, while the groups by
+the fires insisted, “Stay and partake with us. We are brethren in the
+love of the Lord.” But with thanks to them he hurried on, intending to
+take horse at the khan and return to the tents on the Cedron.
+
+To make the place, it was necessary for him to cross the thoroughfare
+so soon to receive sorrowful Christian perpetuation. There also the
+pious celebration was at its height. Looking up the street, he noticed
+the flames of torches in motion streaming out like pennons; then he
+observed that the singing ceased where the torches came. His wonder
+rose to its highest, however, when he became certain that amidst the
+smoke and dancing sparks he saw the keener sparkling of burnished
+spear-tips, arguing the presence of Roman soldiers. What were they, the
+scoffing legionaries, doing in a Jewish religious procession? The
+circumstance was unheard of, and he stayed to see the meaning of it.
+
+The moon was shining its best; yet, as if the moon and the torches, and
+the fires in the street, and the rays streaming from windows and open
+doors were not enough to make the way clear, some of the processionists
+carried lighted lanterns; and fancying he discovered a special purpose
+in the use of such equipments, Ben-Hur stepped into the street so close
+to the line of march as to bring every one of the company under view
+while passing. The torches and the lanterns were being borne by
+servants, each of whom was armed with a bludgeon or a sharpened stave.
+Their present duty seemed to be to pick out the smoothest paths among
+the rocks in the street for certain dignitaries among them—elders and
+priests; rabbis with long beards, heavy brows, and beaked noses; men of
+the class potential in the councils of Caiaphas and Hannas. Where could
+they be going? Not to the Temple, certainly, for the route to the
+sacred house from Zion, whence these appeared to be coming, was by the
+Xystus. And their business—if peaceful, why the soldiers?
+
+As the procession began to go by Ben-Hur, his attention was
+particularly called to three persons walking together. They were well
+towards the front, and the servants who went before them with lanterns
+appeared unusually careful in the service. In the person moving on the
+left of this group he recognized a chief policeman of the Temple; the
+one on the right was a priest; the middle man was not at first so
+easily placed, as he walked leaning heavily upon the arms of the
+others, and carried his head so low upon his breast as to hide his
+face. His appearance was that of a prisoner not yet recovered from the
+fright of arrest, or being taken to something dreadful—to torture or
+death. The dignitaries helping him on the right and left, and the
+attention they gave him, made it clear that if he were not himself the
+object moving the party, he was at least in some way connected with the
+object—a witness or a guide, possibly an informer. So if it could be
+found who he was the business in hand might be shrewdly guessed. With
+great assurance, Ben-Hur fell in on the right of the priest, and walked
+along with him. Now if the man would lift his head! And presently he
+did so, letting the light of the lanterns strike full in his face,
+pale, dazed, pinched with dread; the beard roughed; the eyes filmy,
+sunken, and despairing. In much going about following the Nazarene,
+Ben-Hur had come to know his disciples as well as the Master; and now,
+at sight of the dismal countenance, he cried out,
+
+“The ’Scariot!”
+
+Slowly the head of the man turned until his eyes settled upon Ben-Hur,
+and his lips moved as if he were about to speak; but the priest
+interfered.
+
+“Who art thou? Begone!” he said to Ben-Hur, pushing him away.
+
+The young man took the push good-naturedly, and, waiting an
+opportunity, fell into the procession again. Thus he was carried
+passively along down the street, through the crowded lowlands between
+the hill Bezetha and the Castle of Antonia, and on by the Bethesda
+reservoir to the Sheep Gate. There were people everywhere, and
+everywhere the people were engaged in sacred observances.
+
+It being Passover night, the valves of the Gate stood open. The keepers
+were off somewhere feasting. In front of the procession as it passed
+out unchallenged was the deep gorge of the Cedron, with Olivet beyond,
+its dressing of cedar and olive trees darker of the moonlight silvering
+all the heavens. Two roads met and merged into the street at the
+gate—one from the northeast, the other from Bethany. Ere Ben-Hur could
+finish wondering whether he were to go farther, and if so, which road
+was to be taken, he was led off down into the gorge. And still no hint
+of the purpose of the midnight march.
+
+Down the gorge and over the bridge at the bottom of it. There was a
+great clatter on the floor as the crowd, now a straggling rabble,
+passed over beating and pounding with their clubs and staves. A little
+farther, and they turned off to the left in the direction of an olive
+orchard enclosed by a stone wall in view from the road. Ben-Hur knew
+there was nothing in the place but old gnarled trees, the grass, and a
+trough hewn out of a rock for the treading of oil after the fashion of
+the country. While, yet more wonder-struck, he was thinking what could
+bring such a company at such an hour to a quarter so lonesome, they
+were all brought to a standstill. Voices called out excitedly in front;
+a chill sensation ran from man to man; there was a rapid falling-back,
+and a blind stumbling over each other. The soldiers alone kept their
+order.
+
+It took Ben-Hur but a moment to disengage himself from the mob and run
+forward. There he found a gateway without a gate admitting to the
+orchard, and he halted to take in the scene.
+
+A man in white clothes, and bareheaded, was standing outside the
+entrance, his hands crossed before him—a slender, stooping figure, with
+long hair and thin face—in an attitude of resignation and waiting.
+
+It was the Nazarene!
+
+Behind him, next the gateway, were the disciples in a group; they were
+excited, but no man was ever calmer than he. The torchlight beat redly
+upon him, giving his hair a tint ruddier than was natural to it; yet
+the expression of the countenance was as usual all gentleness and pity.
+
+Opposite this most unmartial figure stood the rabble, gaping, silent,
+awed, cowering—ready at a sign of anger from him to break and run. And
+from him to them—then at Judas, conspicuous in their midst—Ben-Hur
+looked—one quick glance, and the object of the visit lay open to his
+understanding. Here was the betrayer, there the betrayed; and these
+with clubs and staves, and the legionaries, were brought to take him.
+
+A man may not always tell what he will do until the trial is upon him.
+This was the emergency for which Ben-Hur had been for years preparing.
+The man to whose security he had devoted himself, and upon whose life
+he had been building so largely, was in personal peril; yet he stood
+still. Such contradictions are there in human nature! To say truth, O
+reader, he was not entirely recovered from the picture of the Christ
+before the Gate Beautiful as it had been given by the Egyptian; and,
+besides that, the very calmness with which the mysterious person
+confronted the mob held him in restraint by suggesting the possession
+of a power in reserve more than sufficient for the peril. Peace and
+good-will, and love and non-resistance, had been the burden of the
+Nazarene’s teaching; would he put his preaching into practice? He was
+master of life; he could restore it when lost; he could take it at
+pleasure. What use would he make of the power now? Defend himself? And
+how? A word—a breath—a thought were sufficient. That there would be
+some signal exhibition of astonishing force beyond the natural Ben-Hur
+believed, and in that faith waited. And in all this he was still
+measuring the Nazarene by himself—by the human standard.
+
+Presently the clear voice of the Christ arose.
+
+“Whom seek ye?”
+
+“Jesus of Nazareth,” the priest replied.
+
+“I am he.”
+
+At these simplest of words, spoken without passion or alarm, the
+assailants fell back several steps, the timid among them cowering to
+the ground; and they might have let him alone and gone away had not
+Judas walked over to him.
+
+“Hail, master!”
+
+With this friendly speech, he kissed him.
+
+“Judas,” said the Nazarene, mildly, “betrayest thou the Son of man with
+a kiss? Wherefore art thou come?”
+
+Receiving no reply, the Master spoke to the crowd again.
+
+“Whom seek ye?”
+
+“Jesus of Nazareth.”
+
+“I have told you that I am he. If, therefore, you seek me, let these go
+their way.”
+
+At these words of entreaty the rabbis advanced upon him; and, seeing
+their intent, some of the disciples for whom he interceded drew nearer;
+one of them cut off a man’s ear, but without saving the Master from
+being taken. And yet Ben-Hur stood still! Nay, while the officers were
+making ready with their ropes the Nazarene was doing his greatest
+charity—not the greatest in deed, but the very greatest in illustration
+of his forbearance, so far surpassing that of men.
+
+“Suffer ye thus far,” he said to the wounded man, and healed him with a
+touch.
+
+Both friends and enemies were confounded—one side that he could do such
+a thing, the other that he would do it under the circumstances.
+
+“Surely he will not allow them to bind him!”
+
+Thus thought Ben-Hur.
+
+“Put up thy sword into the sheath; the cup which my Father hath given
+me, shall I not drink it?” From the offending follower, the Nazarene
+turned to his captors. “Are you come out as against a thief, with
+swords and staves to take me? I was daily with you in the Temple, and
+you took me not; but this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”
+
+The posse plucked up courage and closed about him; and when Ben-Hur
+looked for the faithful they were gone—not one of them remained.
+
+The crowd about the deserted man seemed very busy with tongue, hand,
+and foot. Over their heads, between the torch-sticks, through the
+smoke, sometimes in openings between the restless men, Ben-Hur caught
+momentary glimpses of the prisoner. Never had anything struck him as so
+piteous, so unfriended, so forsaken! Yet, he thought, the man could
+have defended himself—he could have slain his enemies with a breath,
+but he would not. What was the cup his father had given him to drink?
+And who was the father to be so obeyed? Mystery upon mystery—not one,
+but many.
+
+Directly the mob started in return to the city, the soldiers in the
+lead. Ben-Hur became anxious; he was not satisfied with himself. Where
+the torches were in the midst of the rabble he knew the Nazarene was to
+be found. Suddenly he resolved to see him again. He would ask him one
+question.
+
+Taking off his long outer garment and the handkerchief from his head,
+he threw them upon the orchard wall, and started after the posse, which
+he boldly joined. Through the stragglers he made way, and by littles at
+length reached the man who carried the ends of the rope with which the
+prisoner was bound.
+
+The Nazarene was walking slowly, his head down, his hands bound behind
+him; the hair fell thickly over his face, and he stooped more than
+usual; apparently he was oblivious to all going on around him. In
+advance a few steps were priests and elders talking and occasionally
+looking back. When, at length, they were all near the bridge in the
+gorge, Ben-Hur took the rope from the servant who had it, and stepped
+past him.
+
+“Master, master!” he said, hurriedly, speaking close to the Nazarene’s
+ear. “Dost thou hear, master? A word—one word. Tell me—”
+
+The fellow from whom he had taken the rope now claimed it.
+
+“Tell me,” Ben-Hur continued, “goest thou with these of thine own
+accord?”
+
+The people were come up now, and in his own ears asking angrily, “Who
+art thou, man?”
+
+“O master,” Ben-Hur made haste to say, his voice sharp with anxiety, “I
+am thy friend and lover. Tell me, I pray thee, if I bring rescue, wilt
+thou accept it?”
+
+The Nazarene never so much as looked up or allowed the slightest sign
+of recognition; yet the something which when we are suffering is always
+telling it to such as look at us, though they be strangers, failed not
+now. “Let him alone,” it seemed to say; “he has been abandoned by his
+friends; the world has denied him; in bitterness of spirit, he has
+taken farewell of men; he is going he knows not where, and he cares
+not. Let him alone.”
+
+And to that Ben-Hur was now driven. A dozen hands were upon him, and
+from all sides there was shouting, “He is one of them. Bring him along;
+club him—kill him!”
+
+With a gust of passion which gave him many times his ordinary force,
+Ben-Hur raised himself, turned once about with arms outstretched, shook
+the hands off, and rushed through the circle which was fast hemming him
+in. The hands snatching at him as he passed tore his garments from his
+back, so he ran off the road naked; and the gorge, in keeping of the
+friendly darkness, darker there than elsewhere, received him safe.
+
+Reclaiming his handkerchief and outer garments from the orchard wall,
+he followed back to the city gate; thence he went to the khan, and on
+the good horse rode to the tents of his people out by the Tombs of the
+Kings.
+
+As he rode, he promised himself to see the Nazarene on the
+morrow—promised it, not knowing that the unfriended man was taken
+straightway to the house of Hannas to be tried that night.
+
+The heart the young man carried to his couch beat so heavily he could
+not sleep; for now clearly his renewed Judean kingdom resolved itself
+into what it was—only a dream. It is bad enough to see our castles
+overthrown one after another with an interval between in which to
+recover from the shock, or at least let the echoes of the fall die
+away; but when they go altogether—go as ships sink, as houses tumble in
+earthquakes—the spirits which endure it calmly are made of stuffs
+sterner than common, and Ben-Hur’s was not of them. Through vistas in
+the future, he began to catch glimpses of a life serenely beautiful,
+with a home instead of a palace of state, and Esther its mistress.
+Again and again through the leaden-footed hours of the night he saw the
+villa by Misenum, and with his little countrywoman strolled through the
+garden, and rested in the panelled atrium; overhead the Neapolitan sky,
+at their feet the sunniest of sun-lands and the bluest of bays.
+
+In plainest speech, he was entering upon a crisis with which to-morrow
+and the Nazarene will have everything to do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Next morning, about the second hour, two men rode full speed to the
+doors of Ben-Hur’s tents, and dismounting, asked to see him. He was not
+yet risen, but gave directions for their admission.
+
+“Peace to you, brethren,” he said, for they were of his Galileans, and
+trusted officers. “Will you be seated?”
+
+“Nay,” the senior replied, bluntly, “to sit and be at ease is to let
+the Nazarene die. Rise, son of Judah, and go with us. The judgment has
+been given. The tree of the cross is already at Golgotha.”
+
+Ben-Hur stared at them.
+
+“The cross!” was all he could for the moment say.
+
+“They took him last night, and tried him,” the man continued. “At dawn
+they led him before Pilate. Twice the Roman denied his guilt; twice he
+refused to give him over. At last he washed his hands, and said, ‘Be it
+upon you then;’ and they answered—”
+
+“Who answered?”
+
+“They—the priests and people—‘His blood be upon us and our children.’”
+
+“Holy father Abraham!” cried Ben-Hur; “a Roman kinder to an Israelite
+than his own kin! And if—ah, if he should indeed be the son of God,
+what shall ever wash his blood from their children? It must not be—’tis
+time to fight!”
+
+His face brightened with resolution, and he clapped his hands.
+
+“The horses—and quickly!” he said to the Arab who answered the signal.
+“And bid Amrah send me fresh garments, and bring my sword! It is time
+to die for Israel, my friends. Tarry without till I come.”
+
+He ate a crust, drank a cup of wine, and was soon upon the road.
+
+“Whither would you go first?” asked the Galilean.
+
+“To collect the legions.”
+
+“Alas!” the man replied, throwing up his hands.
+
+“Why alas?”
+
+“Master”—the man spoke with shame—“master, I and my friend here are all
+that are faithful. The rest do follow the priests.”
+
+“Seeking what?” and Ben-Hur drew rein.
+
+“To kill him.”
+
+“Not the Nazarene?”
+
+“You have said it.”
+
+Ben-Hur looked slowly from one man to the other. He was hearing again
+the question of the night before: “The cup my Father hath given me,
+shall I not drink it?” In the ear of the Nazarene he was putting his
+own question, “If I bring thee rescue, wilt thou accept it?” He was
+saying to himself, “This death may not be averted. The man has been
+travelling towards it with full knowledge from the day he began his
+mission: it is imposed by a will higher than his; whose but the Lord’s!
+If he is consenting, if he goes to it voluntarily, what shall another
+do?” Nor less did Ben-Hur see the failure of the scheme he had built
+upon the fidelity of the Galileans; their desertion, in fact, left
+nothing more of it. But how singular it should happen that morning of
+all others! A dread seized him. It was possible his scheming, and
+labor, and expenditure of treasure might have been but blasphemous
+contention with God. When he picked up the reins and said, “Let us go,
+brethren,” all before him was uncertainty. The faculty of resolving
+quickly, without which one cannot be a hero in the midst of stirring
+scenes, was numb within him.
+
+“Let us go, brethren; let us to Golgotha.”
+
+They passed through excited crowds of people going south, like
+themselves. All the country north of the city seemed aroused and in
+motion.
+
+Hearing that the procession with the condemned might be met with
+somewhere near the great white towers left by Herod, the three friends
+rode thither, passing round southeast of Akra. In the valley below the
+Pool of Hezekiah, passage-way against the multitude became impossible,
+and they were compelled to dismount, and take shelter behind the corner
+of a house and wait.
+
+The waiting was as if they were on a river bank, watching a flood go
+by, for such the people seemed.
+
+There are certain chapters in the First Book of this story which were
+written to give the reader an idea of the composition of the Jewish
+nationality as it was in the time of Christ. They were also written in
+anticipation of this hour and scene; so that he who has read them with
+attention can now see all Ben-Hur saw of the going to the crucifixion—a
+rare and wonderful sight!
+
+Half an hour—an hour—the flood surged by Ben-Hur and his companions,
+within arm’s reach, incessant, undiminished. At the end of that time he
+could have said, “I have seen all the castes of Jerusalem, all the
+sects of Judea, all the tribes of Israel, and all the nationalities of
+earth represented by them.” The Libyan Jew went by, and the Jew of
+Egypt, and the Jew from the Rhine; in short, Jews from all East
+countries and all West countries, and all islands within commercial
+connection; they went by on foot, on horseback, on camels, in litters
+and chariots, and with an infinite variety of costumes, yet with the
+same marvellous similitude of features which to-day particularizes the
+children of Israel, tried as they have been by climates and modes of
+life; they went by speaking all known tongues, for by that means only
+were they distinguishable group from group; they went by in
+haste—eager, anxious, crowding—all to behold one poor Nazarene die, a
+felon between felons.
+
+These were the many, but they were not all.
+
+Borne along with the stream were thousands not Jews—thousands hating
+and despising them—Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Syrians, Africans, Egyptians,
+Easterns. So that, studying the mass, it seemed the whole world was to
+be represented, and, in that sense, present at the crucifixion.
+
+The going was singularly quiet. A hoof-stroke upon a rock, the glide
+and rattle of revolving wheels, voices in conversation, and now and
+then a calling voice, were all the sounds heard above the rustle of the
+mighty movement. Yet was there upon every countenance the look with
+which men make haste to see some dreadful sight, some sudden wreck, or
+ruin, or calamity of war. And by such signs Ben-Hur judged that these
+were the strangers in the city come up to the Passover, who had had no
+part in the trial of the Nazarene, and might be his friends.
+
+At length, from the direction of the great towers, Ben-Hur heard, at
+first faint in the distance, a shouting of many men.
+
+“Hark! they are coming now,” said one of his friends.
+
+The people in the street halted to hear; but as the cry rang on over
+their heads, they looked at each other, and in shuddering silence moved
+along.
+
+The shouting drew nearer each moment; and the air was already full of
+it and trembling, when Ben-Hur saw the servants of Simonides coming
+with their master in his chair, and Esther walking by his side; a
+covered litter was next behind them.
+
+“Peace to you, O Simonides—and to you, Esther,” said Ben-Hur, meeting
+them. “If you are for Golgotha, stay until the procession passes; I
+will then go with you. There is room to turn in by the house here.”
+
+The merchant’s large head rested heavily upon his breast; rousing
+himself, he answered, “Speak to Balthasar; his pleasure will be mine.
+He is in the litter.”
+
+Ben-Hur hastened to draw aside the curtain. The Egyptian was lying
+within, his wan face so pinched as to appear like a dead man’s. The
+proposal was submitted to him.
+
+“Can we see him?” he inquired, faintly.
+
+“The Nazarene? yes; he must pass within a few feet of us.”
+
+“Dear Lord!” the old man cried, fervently. “Once more, once more! Oh,
+it is a dreadful day for the world!”
+
+Shortly the whole party were in waiting under shelter of the house.
+They said but little, afraid, probably, to trust their thoughts to each
+other; everything was uncertain, and nothing so much so as opinions.
+Balthasar drew himself feebly from the litter, and stood supported by a
+servant; Esther and Ben-Hur kept Simonides company.
+
+Meantime the flood poured along, if anything, more densely than before;
+and the shouting came nearer, shrill up in the air, hoarse along the
+earth, and cruel. At last the procession was up.
+
+“See!” said Ben-Hur, bitterly; “that which cometh now is Jerusalem.”
+
+The advance was in possession of an army of boys, hooting and
+screaming, “The King of the Jews! Room, room for the King of the Jews!”
+
+Simonides watched them as they whirled and danced along, like a cloud
+of summer insects, and said, gravely, “When these come to their
+inheritance, son of Hur, alas for the city of Solomon!”
+
+A band of legionaries fully armed followed next, marching in sturdy
+indifference, the glory of burnished brass about them the while.
+
+Then came the NAZARENE!
+
+He was nearly dead. Every few steps he staggered as if he would fall. A
+stained gown badly torn hung from his shoulders over a seamless
+undertunic. His bare feet left red splotches upon the stones. An
+inscription on a board was tied to his neck. A crown of thorns had been
+crushed hard down upon his head, making cruel wounds from which streams
+of blood, now dry and blackened, had run over his face and neck. The
+long hair, tangled in the thorns, was clotted thick. The skin, where it
+could be seen, was ghastly white. His hands were tied before him. Back
+somewhere in the city he had fallen exhausted under the transverse beam
+of his cross, which, as a condemned person, custom required him to bear
+to the place of execution; now a countryman carried the burden in his
+stead. Four soldiers went with him as a guard against the mob, who
+sometimes, nevertheless, broke through, and struck him with sticks, and
+spit upon him. Yet no sound escaped him, neither remonstrance nor
+groan; nor did he look up until he was nearly in front of the house
+sheltering Ben-Hur and his friends, all of whom were moved with quick
+compassion. Esther clung to her father; and he, strong of will as he
+was, trembled. Balthasar fell down speechless. Even Ben-Hur cried out,
+“O my God! my God!” Then, as if he divined their feelings or heard the
+exclamation, the Nazarene turned his wan face towards the party, and
+looked at them each one, so they carried the look in memory through
+life. They could see he was thinking of them, not himself, and the
+dying eyes gave them the blessing he was not permitted to speak.
+
+“Where are thy legions, son of Hur?” asked Simonides, aroused.
+
+“Hannas can tell thee better than I.”
+
+“What, faithless?”
+
+“All but these two.”
+
+“Then all is lost, and this good man must die!”
+
+The face of the merchant knit convulsively as he spoke, and his head
+sank upon his breast. He had borne his part in Ben-Hur’s labors well,
+and he had been inspired by the same hopes, now blown out never to be
+rekindled.
+
+Two other men succeeded the Nazarene bearing cross-beams.
+
+“Who are these?” Ben-Hur asked of the Galileans.
+
+“Thieves appointed to die with the Nazarene,” they replied.
+
+Next in the procession stalked a mitred figure clad all in the golden
+vestments of the high-priest. Policemen from the Temple curtained him
+round about; and after him, in order, strode the sanhedrim, and a long
+array of priests, the latter in their plain white garments, overwrapped
+by abnets of many folds and gorgeous colors.
+
+“The son-in-law of Hannas,” said Ben-Hur, in a low voice.
+
+“Caiaphas! I have seen him,” Simonides replied, adding, after a pause
+during which he thoughtfully watched the haughty pontiff, “And now am I
+convinced. With such assurance as proceeds from clear enlightenment of
+the spirit—with absolute assurance—now know I that he who first goes
+yonder with the inscription about his neck is what the inscription
+proclaims him—KING OF THE JEWS. A common man, an impostor, a felon, was
+never thus waited upon. For look! Here are the nations—Jerusalem,
+Israel. Here is the ephod, here the blue robe with its fringe, and
+purple pomegranates, and golden bells, not seen in the street since the
+day Jaddua went out to meet the Macedonian—proofs all that this
+Nazarene is King. Would I could rise and go after him!”
+
+Ben-Hur listened surprised; and directly, as if himself awakening to
+his unusual display of feeling, Simonides said, impatiently,
+
+“Speak to Balthasar, I pray you, and let us begone. The vomit of
+Jerusalem is coming.”
+
+Then Esther spoke.
+
+“I see some women there, and they are weeping. Who are they?”
+
+Following the pointing of her hand, the party beheld four women in
+tears; one of them leaned upon the arm of a man of aspect not unlike
+the Nazarene’s. Presently Ben-Hur answered,
+
+“The man is the disciple whom the Nazarene loves the best of all; she
+who leans upon his arm is Mary, the Master’s mother; the others are
+friendly women of Galilee.”
+
+Esther pursued the mourners with glistening eyes until the multitude
+received them out of sight.
+
+It may be the reader will fancy the foregoing snatches of conversation
+were had in quiet; but it was not so. The talking was, for the most
+part, like that indulged by people at the seaside under the sound of
+the surf; for to nothing else can the clamor of this division of the
+mob be so well likened.
+
+The demonstration was the forerunner of those in which, scarce thirty
+years later, under rule of the factions, the Holy City was torn to
+pieces; it was quite as great in numbers, as fanatical and
+bloodthirsty; boiled and raved, and had in it exactly the same
+elements—servants, camel-drivers, marketmen, gate-keepers, gardeners,
+dealers in fruits and wines, proselytes, and foreigners not proselytes,
+watchmen and menials from the Temple, thieves, robbers, and the myriad
+not assignable to any class, but who, on such occasions as this,
+appeared no one could say whence, hungry and smelling of caves and old
+tombs—bareheaded wretches with naked arms and legs, hair and beard in
+uncombed mats, and each with one garment the color of clay; beasts with
+abysmal mouths, in outcry effective as lions calling each other across
+desert spaces. Some of them had swords; a greater number flourished
+spears and javelins; though the weapons of the many were staves and
+knotted clubs, and slings, for which latter selected stones were stored
+in scrips, and sometimes in sacks improvised from the foreskirts of
+their dirty tunics. Among the mass here and there appeared persons of
+high degree—scribes, elders, rabbis, Pharisees with broad fringing,
+Sadducees in fine cloaks—serving for the time as prompters and
+directors. If a throat tired of one cry, they invented another for it;
+if brassy lungs showed signs of collapse, they set them going again;
+and yet the clamor, loud and continuous as it was, could have been
+reduced to a few syllables—King of the Jews! Room for the King of the
+Jews!—Defiler of the Temple!—Blasphemer of God!—Crucify him, crucify
+him! And of these cries the last one seemed in greatest favor, because,
+doubtless, it was more directly expressive of the wish of the mob, and
+helped to better articulate its hatred of the Nazarene.
+
+“Come,” said Simonides, when Balthasar was ready to proceed—“come, let
+us forward.”
+
+Ben-Hur did not hear the call. The appearance of the part of the
+procession then passing, its brutality and hunger for life, were
+reminding him of the Nazarene—his gentleness, and the many charities he
+had seen him do for suffering men. Suggestions beget suggestions; so he
+remembered suddenly his own great indebtedness to the man; the time he
+himself was in the hands of a Roman guard going, as was supposed, to a
+death as certain and almost as terrible as this one of the cross; the
+cooling drink he had at the well by Nazareth, and the divine expression
+of the face of him who gave it; the later goodness, the miracle of
+Palm-Sunday; and with these recollections, the thought of his present
+powerlessness to give back help for help or make return in kind stung
+him keenly, and he accused himself. He had not done all he might; he
+could have watched with the Galileans, and kept them true and ready;
+and this—ah! this was the moment to strike! A blow well given now would
+not merely disperse the mob and set the Nazarene free; it would be a
+trumpet-call to Israel, and precipitate the long-dreamt-of war for
+freedom. The opportunity was going; the minutes were bearing it away;
+and if lost! God of Abraham! Was there nothing to be done—nothing?
+
+That instant a party of Galileans caught his eye. He rushed through the
+press and overtook them.
+
+“Follow me,” he said. “I would have speech with you.”
+
+The men obeyed him, and when they were under shelter of the house, he
+spoke again:
+
+“You are of those who took my swords, and agreed with me to strike for
+freedom and the King who was coming. You have the swords now, and now
+is the time to strike with them. Go, look everywhere, and find our
+brethren, and tell them to meet me at the tree of the cross making
+ready for the Nazarene. Haste all of you! Nay, stand not so! The
+Nazarene is the King, and freedom dies with him.”
+
+They looked at him respectfully, but did not move.
+
+“Hear you?” he asked.
+
+Then one of them replied,
+
+“Son of Judah”—by that name they knew him—“son of Judah, it is you who
+are deceived, not we or our brethren who have your swords. The Nazarene
+is not the King; neither has he the spirit of a king. We were with him
+when he came into Jerusalem; we saw him in the Temple; he failed
+himself, and us, and Israel; at the Gate Beautiful he turned his back
+upon God and refused the throne of David. He is not King, and Galilee
+is not with him. He shall die the death. But hear you, son of Judah. We
+have your swords, and we are ready now to draw them and strike for
+freedom; and so is Galilee. Be it for freedom, O son of Judah, for
+freedom! and we will meet you at the tree of the cross.”
+
+The sovereign moment of his life was upon Ben-Hur. Could he have taken
+the offer and said the word, history might have been other than it is;
+but then it would have been history ordered by men, not God—something
+that never was, and never will be. A confusion fell upon him; he knew
+not how, though afterwards he attributed it to the Nazarene; for when
+the Nazarene was risen, he understood the death was necessary to faith
+in the resurrection, without which Christianity would be an empty husk.
+The confusion, as has been said, left him without the faculty of
+decision; he stood helpless—wordless even. Covering his face with his
+hand, he shook with the conflict between his wish, which was what he
+would have ordered, and the power that was upon him.
+
+“Come; we are waiting for you,” said Simonides, the fourth time.
+
+Thereupon he walked mechanically after the chair and the litter. Esther
+walked with him. Like Balthasar and his friends, the Wise Men, the day
+they went to the meeting in the desert, he was being led along the way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+When the party—Balthasar, Simonides, Ben-Hur, Esther, and the two
+faithful Galileans—reached the place of crucifixion, Ben-Hur was in
+advance leading them. How they had been able to make way through the
+great press of excited people, he never knew; no more did he know the
+road by which they came or the time it took them to come. He had walked
+in total unconsciousness, neither hearing nor seeing anybody or
+anything, and without a thought of where he was going, or the
+ghostliest semblance of a purpose in his mind. In such condition a
+little child could have done as much as he to prevent the awful crime
+he was about to witness. The intentions of God are always strange to
+us; but not more so than the means by which they are wrought out, and
+at last made plain to our belief.
+
+Ben-Hur came to a stop; those following him also stopped. As a curtain
+rises before an audience, the spell holding him in its sleep-awake
+rose, and he saw with a clear understanding.
+
+There was a space upon the top of a low knoll rounded like a skull, and
+dry, dusty, and without vegetation, except some scrubby hyssop. The
+boundary of the space was a living wall of men, with men behind
+struggling, some to look over, others to look through it. An inner wall
+of Roman soldiery held the dense outer wall rigidly to its place. A
+centurion kept eye upon the soldiers. Up to the very line so vigilantly
+guarded Ben-Hur had been led; at the line he now stood, his face to the
+northwest. The knoll was the old Aramaic Golgotha—in Latin, Calvaria;
+anglicized, Calvary; translated, The Skull.
+
+On its slopes, in the low places, on the swells and higher hills, the
+earth sparkled with a strange enamelling. Look where he would outside
+the walled space, he saw no patch of brown soil, no rock, no green
+thing; he saw only thousands of eyes in ruddy faces; off a little way
+in the perspective only ruddy faces without eyes; off a little farther
+only a broad, broad circle, which the nearer view instructed him was
+also of faces. And this was the ensemble of three millions of people;
+under it three millions of hearts throbbing with passionate interest in
+what was taking place upon the knoll; indifferent as to the thieves,
+caring only for the Nazarene, and for him only as he was an object of
+hate or fear or curiosity—he who loved them all, and was about to die
+for them.
+
+In the spectacle of a great assemblage of people there are always the
+bewilderment and fascination one feels while looking over a stretch of
+sea in agitation, and never had this one been exceeded; yet Ben-Hur
+gave it but a passing glance, for that which was going on in the space
+described would permit no division of his interest.
+
+Up on the knoll so high as to be above the living wall, and visible
+over the heads of an attending company of notables, conspicuous because
+of his mitre and vestments and his haughty air, stood the high priest.
+Up the knoll still higher, up quite to the round summit, so as to be
+seen far and near, was the Nazarene, stooped and suffering, but silent.
+The wit among the guard had complemented the crown upon his head by
+putting a reed in his hand for a sceptre. Clamors blew upon him like
+blasts—laughter—execrations—sometimes both together indistinguishably.
+A man—ONLY a man, O reader, would have charged the blasts with the
+remainder of his love for the race, and let it go forever.
+
+All the eyes then looking were fixed upon the Nazarene. It may have
+been pity with which he was moved; whatever the cause, Ben-Hur was
+conscious of a change in his feelings. A conception of something better
+than the best of this life—something so much better that it could serve
+a weak man with strength to endure agonies of spirit as well as of
+body; something to make death welcome—perhaps another life purer than
+this one—perhaps the spirit-life which Balthasar held to so fast, began
+to dawn upon his mind clearer and clearer, bringing to him a certain
+sense that, after all, the mission of the Nazarene was that of guide
+across the boundary for such as loved him; across the boundary to where
+his kingdom was set up and waiting for him. Then, as something borne
+through the air out of the almost forgotten, he heard again, or seemed
+to hear, the saying of the Nazarene,
+
+“I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE.”
+
+And the words repeated themselves over and over, and took form, and the
+dawn touched them with its light, and filled them with a new meaning.
+And as men repeat a question to grasp and fix the meaning, he asked,
+gazing at the figure on the hill fainting under its crown, Who the
+Resurrection? and who the Life?
+
+“I AM,”
+
+the figure seemed to say—and say it for him; for instantly he was
+sensible of a peace such as he had never known—the peace which is the
+end of doubt and mystery, and the beginning of faith and love and clear
+understanding.
+
+From this dreamy state Ben-Hur was aroused by the sound of hammering.
+On the summit of the knoll he observed then what had escaped him
+before—some soldiers and workmen preparing the crosses. The holes for
+planting the trees were ready, and now the transverse beams were being
+fitted to their places.
+
+“Bid the men make haste,” said the high-priest to the centurion.
+“These”—and he pointed to the Nazarene—“must be dead by the going-down
+of the sun, and buried that the land may not be defiled. Such is the
+Law.”
+
+With a better mind, a soldier went to the Nazarene and offered him
+something to drink, but he refused the cup. Then another went to him
+and took from his neck the board with the inscription upon it, which he
+nailed to the tree of the cross—and the preparation was complete.
+
+“The crosses are ready,” said the centurion to the pontiff, who
+received the report with a wave of the hand and the reply,
+
+“Let the blasphemer go first. The Son of God should be able to save
+himself. We will see.”
+
+The people to whom the preparation in its several stages was visible,
+and who to this time had assailed the hill with incessant cries of
+impatience, permitted a lull which directly became a universal hush.
+The part of the infliction most shocking, at least to the thought, was
+reached—the men were to be nailed to their crosses. When for that
+purpose the soldiers laid their hands upon the Nazarene first, a
+shudder passed through the great concourse; the most brutalized shrank
+with dread. Afterwards there were those who said the air suddenly
+chilled and made them shiver.
+
+“How very still it is!” Esther said, as she put her arm about her
+father’s neck.
+
+And remembering the torture he himself had suffered, he drew her face
+down upon his breast, and sat trembling.
+
+“Avoid it, Esther, avoid it!” he said. “I know not but all who stand
+and see it—the innocent as well as the guilty—may be cursed from this
+hour.”
+
+Balthasar sank upon his knees.
+
+“Son of Hur,” said Simonides, with increasing excitement—“son of Hur,
+if Jehovah stretch not forth his hand, and quickly, Israel is lost—and
+we are lost.”
+
+Ben-Hur answered, calmly, “I have been in a dream, Simonides, and heard
+in it why all this should be, and why it should go on. It is the will
+of the Nazarene—it is God’s will. Let us do as the Egyptian here—let us
+hold our peace and pray.”
+
+As he looked up on the knoll again, the words were wafted to him
+through the awful stillness—
+
+“I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE.”
+
+He bowed reverently as to a person speaking.
+
+Up on the summit meantime the work went on. The guard took the
+Nazarene’s clothes from him; so that he stood before the millions
+naked. The stripes of the scourging he had received in the early
+morning were still bloody upon his back; yet he was laid pitilessly
+down, and stretched upon the cross—first, the arms upon the transverse
+beam; the spikes were sharp—a few blows, and they were driven through
+the tender palms; next, they drew his knees up until the soles of the
+feet rested flat upon the tree; then they placed one foot upon the
+other, and one spike fixed both of them fast. The dulled sound of the
+hammering was heard outside the guarded space; and such as could not
+hear, yet saw the hammer as it fell, shivered with fear. And withal not
+a groan, or cry, or word of remonstrance from the sufferer: nothing at
+which an enemy could laugh; nothing a lover could regret.
+
+“Which way wilt thou have him faced?” asked a soldier, bluntly.
+
+“Towards the Temple,” the pontiff replied. “In dying I would have him
+see the holy house hath not suffered by him.”
+
+The workmen put their hands to the cross, and carried it, burden and
+all, to the place of planting. At a word, they dropped the tree into
+the hole; and the body of the Nazarene also dropped heavily, and hung
+by the bleeding hands. Still no cry of pain—only the exclamation
+divinest of all recorded exclamations,
+
+“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
+
+The cross, reared now above all other objects, and standing singly out
+against the sky, was greeted with a burst of delight; and all who could
+see and read the writing upon the board over the Nazarene’s head made
+haste to decipher it. Soon as read, the legend was adopted by them and
+communicated, and presently the whole mighty concourse was ringing the
+salutation from side to side, and repeating it with laughter and
+groans,
+
+“King of the Jews! Hail, King of the Jews!”
+
+The pontiff, with a clearer idea of the import of the inscription,
+protested against it, but in vain; so the titled King, looking from the
+knoll with dying eyes, must have had the city of his fathers at rest
+below him—she who had so ignominiously cast him out.
+
+The sun was rising rapidly to noon; the hills bared their brown breasts
+lovingly to it; the more distant mountains rejoiced in the purple with
+which it so regally dressed them. In the city, the temples, palaces,
+towers, pinnacles, and all points of beauty and prominence seemed to
+lift themselves into the unrivalled brilliance, as if they knew the
+pride they were giving the many who from time to time turned to look at
+them. Suddenly a dimness began to fill the sky and cover the earth—at
+first no more than a scarce perceptible fading of the day; a twilight
+out of time; an evening gliding in upon the splendors of noon. But it
+deepened, and directly drew attention; whereat the noise of the
+shouting and laughter fell off, and men, doubting their senses, gazed
+at each other curiously: then they looked to the sun again; then at the
+mountains, getting farther away; at the sky and the near landscape,
+sinking in shadow; at the hill upon which the tragedy was enacting; and
+from all these they gazed at each other again, and turned pale, and
+held their peace.
+
+“It is only a mist or passing cloud,” Simonides said soothingly to
+Esther, who was alarmed. “It will brighten presently.”
+
+Ben-Hur did not think so.
+
+“It is not a mist or a cloud,” he said. “The spirits who live in the
+air—the prophets and saints—are at work in mercy to themselves and
+nature. I say to you, O Simonides, truly as God lives, he who hangs
+yonder is the Son of God.”
+
+And leaving Simonides lost in wonder at such a speech from him, he went
+where Balthasar was kneeling near by, and laid his hand upon the good
+man’s shoulder.
+
+“O wise Egyptian, hearken! Thou alone wert right—the Nazarene is indeed
+the Son of God.”
+
+Balthasar drew him down to him, and replied, feebly, “I saw him a child
+in the manger where he was first laid; it is not strange that I knew
+him sooner than thou; but oh that I should live to see this day! Would
+I had died with my brethren! Happy Melchior! Happy, happy Gaspar!”
+
+“Comfort thee!” said Ben-Hur. “Doubtless they too are here.”
+
+The dimness went on deepening into obscurity, and that into positive
+darkness, but without deterring the bolder spirits upon the knoll. One
+after the other the thieves were raised on their crosses, and the
+crosses planted. The guard was then withdrawn, and the people set free
+closed in upon the height, and surged up it, like a converging wave. A
+man might take a look, when a new-comer would push him on, and take his
+place, to be in turn pushed on—and there were laughter and ribaldry and
+revilements, all for the Nazarene.
+
+“Ha, ha! If thou be King of the Jews, save thyself,” a soldier shouted.
+
+“Ay,” said a priest, “if he will come down to us now, we will believe
+in him.”
+
+Others wagged their heads wisely, saying, “He would destroy the Temple,
+and rebuild it in three days, but cannot save himself.”
+
+Others still: “He called himself the Son of God; let us see if God will
+have him.”
+
+What all there is in prejudice no one has ever said. The Nazarene had
+never harmed the people; far the greater part of them had never seen
+him except in this his hour of calamity; yet—singular contrariety!—they
+loaded him with their curses, and gave their sympathy to the thieves.
+
+The supernatural night, dropped thus from the heavens, affected Esther
+as it began to affect thousands of others braver and stronger.
+
+“Let us go home,” she prayed—twice, three times—saying, “It is the
+frown of God, father. What other dreadful things may happen, who can
+tell? I am afraid.”
+
+Simonides was obstinate. He said little, but was plainly under great
+excitement. Observing, about the end of the first hour, that the
+violence of the crowding up on the knoll was somewhat abated, at his
+suggestion the party advanced to take position nearer the crosses.
+Ben-Hur gave his arm to Balthasar; yet the Egyptian made the ascent
+with difficulty. From their new stand, the Nazarene was imperfectly
+visible, appearing to them not more than a dark suspended figure. They
+could hear him, however—hear his sighing, which showed an endurance or
+exhaustion greater than that of his fellow-sufferers; for they filled
+every lull in the noises with their groans and entreaties.
+
+The second hour after the suspension passed like the first one. To the
+Nazarene they were hours of insult, provocation, and slow dying. He
+spoke but once in the time. Some women came and knelt at the foot of
+his cross. Among them he recognized his mother with the beloved
+disciple.
+
+“Woman,” he said, raising his voice, “behold thy son!” And to the
+disciple, “Behold thy mother!”
+
+The third hour came, and still the people surged round the hill, held
+to it by some strange attraction, with which, in probability, the night
+in midday had much to do. They were quieter than in the preceding hour;
+yet at intervals they could be heard off in the darkness shouting to
+each other, multitude calling unto multitude. It was noticeable, also,
+that coming now to the Nazarene, they approached his cross in silence,
+took the look in silence, and so departed. This change extended even to
+the guard, who so shortly before had cast lots for the clothes of the
+crucified; they stood with their officers a little apart, more watchful
+of the one convict than of the throngs coming and going. If he but
+breathed heavily, or tossed his head in a paroxysm of pain, they were
+instantly on the alert. Most marvellous of all, however, was the
+altered behavior of the high-priest and his following, the wise men who
+had assisted him in the trial in the night, and, in the victim’s face,
+kept place by him with zealous approval. When the darkness began to
+fall, they began to lose their confidence. There were among them many
+learned in astronomy, and familiar with the apparitions so terrible in
+those days to the masses; much of the knowledge was descended to them
+from their fathers far back; some of it had been brought away at the
+end of the Captivity; and the necessities of the Temple service kept it
+all bright. These closed together when the sun commenced to fade before
+their eyes, and the mountains and hills to recede; they drew together
+in a group around their pontiff, and debated what they saw. “The moon
+is at its full,” they said, with truth, “and this cannot be an
+eclipse.” Then, as no one could answer the question common with them
+all—as no one could account for the darkness, or for its occurrence at
+that particular time, in their secret hearts they associated it with
+the Nazarene, and yielded to an alarm which the long continuance of the
+phenomenon steadily increased. In their place behind the soldiers, they
+noted every word and motion of the Nazarene, and hung with fear upon
+his sighs, and talked in whispers. The man might be the Messiah, and
+then— But they would wait and see!
+
+In the meantime Ben-Hur was not once visited by the old spirit. The
+perfect peace abode with him. He prayed simply that the end might be
+hastened. He knew the condition of Simonides’ mind—that he was
+hesitating on the verge of belief. He could see the massive face
+weighed down by solemn reflection. He noticed him casting inquiring
+glances at the sun, as seeking the cause of the darkness. Nor did he
+fail to notice the solicitude with which Esther clung to him,
+smothering her fears to accommodate his wishes.
+
+“Be not afraid,” he heard him say to her; “but stay and watch with me.
+Thou mayst live twice the span of my life, and see nothing of human
+interest equal to this; and there may be revelations more. Let us stay
+to the close.”
+
+When the third hour was about half gone, some men of the rudest
+class—wretches from the tombs about the city—came and stopped in front
+of the centre cross.
+
+“This is he, the new King of the Jews,” said one of them.
+
+The others cried, with laughter, “Hail, all hail, King of the Jews!”
+
+Receiving no reply, they went closer.
+
+“If thou be King of the Jews, or Son of God, come down,” they said,
+loudly.
+
+At this, one of the thieves quit groaning, and called to the Nazarene,
+“Yes, if thou be Christ, save thyself and us.”
+
+The people laughed and applauded; then, while they were listening for a
+reply, the other felon was heard to say to the first one, “Dost thou
+not fear God? We receive the due rewards of our deeds; but this man
+hath done nothing amiss.”
+
+The bystanders were astonished; in the midst of the hush which ensued,
+the second felon spoke again, but this time to the Nazarene:
+
+“Lord,” he said, “remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”
+
+Simonides gave a great start. “When thou comest into thy kingdom!” It
+was the very point of doubt in his mind; the point he had so often
+debated with Balthasar.
+
+“Didst thou hear?” said Ben-Hur to him. “The kingdom cannot be of this
+world. Yon witness saith the King is but going to his kingdom; and, in
+effect, I heard the same in my dream.”
+
+“Hush!” said Simonides, more imperiously than ever before in speech to
+Ben-Hur. “Hush, I pray thee! If the Nazarene should answer—”
+
+And as he spoke the Nazarene did answer, in a clear voice, full of
+confidence:
+
+“Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise!”
+
+Simonides waited to hear if that were all; then he folded his hands and
+said, “No more, no more, Lord! The darkness is gone; I see with other
+eyes—even as Balthasar, I see with eyes of perfect faith.”
+
+The faithful servant had at last his fitting reward. His broken body
+might never be restored; nor was there riddance of the recollection of
+his sufferings, or recall of the years embittered by them; but suddenly
+a new life was shown him, with assurance that it was for him—a new life
+lying just beyond this one—and its name was Paradise. There he would
+find the Kingdom of which he had been dreaming, and the King. A perfect
+peace fell upon him.
+
+Over the way, in front of the cross, however, there were surprise and
+consternation. The cunning casuists there put the assumption underlying
+the question and the admission underlying the answer together. For
+saying through the land that he was the Messiah, they had brought the
+Nazarene to the cross; and, lo! on the cross, more confidently than
+ever, he had not only reasserted himself, but promised enjoyment of his
+Paradise to a malefactor. They trembled at what they were doing. The
+pontiff, with all his pride, was afraid. Where got the man his
+confidence except from Truth? And what should the Truth be but God? A
+very little now would put them all to flight.
+
+The breathing of the Nazarene grew harder, his sighs became great
+gasps. Only three hours upon the cross, and he was dying!
+
+The intelligence was carried from man to man, until every one knew it;
+and then everything hushed; the breeze faltered and died; a stifling
+vapor loaded the air; heat was superadded to darkness; nor might any
+one unknowing the fact have thought that off the hill, out under the
+overhanging pall, there were three millions of people waiting
+awe-struck what should happen next—they were so still!
+
+Then there went out through the gloom, over the heads of such as were
+on the hill within hearing of the dying man, a cry of despair, if not
+reproach:
+
+“My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?”
+
+The voice startled all who heard it. One it touched uncontrollably.
+
+The soldiers in coming had brought with them a vessel of wine and
+water, and set it down a little way from Ben-Hur. With a sponge dipped
+into the liquor, and put on the end of a stick, they could moisten the
+tongue of a sufferer at their pleasure. Ben-Hur thought of the draught
+he had had at the well near Nazareth; an impulse seized him; catching
+up the sponge, he dipped it into the vessel, and started for the cross.
+
+“Let him be!” the people in the way shouted, angrily. “Let him be!”
+
+Without minding them, he ran on, and put the sponge to the Nazarene’s
+lips.
+
+Too late, too late!
+
+The face then plainly seen by Ben-Hur, bruised and black with blood and
+dust as it was, lighted nevertheless with a sudden glow; the eyes
+opened wide, and fixed upon some one visible to them alone in the far
+heavens; and there were content and relief, even triumph, in the shout
+the victim gave.
+
+“It is finished! It is finished!”
+
+So a hero, dying in the doing a great deed, celebrates his success with
+a last cheer.
+
+The light in the eyes went out; slowly the crowned head sank upon the
+laboring breast. Ben-Hur thought the struggle over; but the fainting
+soul recollected itself, so that he and those around him caught the
+other and last words, spoken in a low voice, as if to one listening
+close by:
+
+“Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”
+
+A tremor shook the tortured body; there was a scream of fiercest
+anguish, and the mission and the earthly life were over at once. The
+heart, with all its love, was broken; for of that, O reader, the man
+died!
+
+Ben-Hur went back to his friends, saying, simply, “It is over; he is
+dead.”
+
+In a space incredibly short the multitude was informed of the
+circumstance. No one repeated it aloud; there was a murmur which spread
+from the knoll in every direction; a murmur that was little more than a
+whispering, “He is dead! he is dead!” and that was all. The people had
+their wish; the Nazarene was dead; yet they stared at each other
+aghast. His blood was upon them! And while they stood staring at each
+other, the ground commenced to shake; each man took hold of his
+neighbor to support himself; in a twinkling the darkness disappeared,
+and the sun came out; and everybody, as with the same glance, beheld
+the crosses upon the hill all reeling drunken-like in the earthquake.
+They beheld all three of them; but the one in the centre was arbitrary;
+it alone would be seen; and for that it seemed to extend itself
+upwards, and lift its burden, and swing it to and fro higher and higher
+in the blue of the sky. And every man among them who had jeered at the
+Nazarene; every one who had struck him; every one who had voted to
+crucify him; every one who had marched in the procession from the city;
+every one who had in his heart wished him dead, and they were as ten to
+one, felt that he was in some way individually singled out from the
+many, and that if he would live he must get away quickly as possible
+from that menace in the sky. They started to run; they ran with all
+their might; on horseback, and camels, and in chariots they ran, as
+well as on foot; but then as if it were mad at them for what they had
+done, and had taken up the cause of the unoffending and friendless
+dead, the earthquake pursued them, and tossed them about, and flung
+them down, and terrified them yet more by the horrible noise of great
+rocks grinding and rending beneath them. They beat their breasts and
+shrieked with fear. His blood was upon them! The home-bred and the
+foreign, priest and layman, beggar, Sadducee, Pharisee, were overtaken
+in the race, and tumbled about indiscriminately. If they called on the
+Lord, the outraged earth answered for him in fury, and dealt them all
+alike. It did not even know wherein the high-priest was better than his
+guilty brethren; overtaking him, it tripped him up also, and smirched
+the fringing of his robe, and filled the golden bells with sand, and
+his mouth with dust. He and his people were alike in the one thing at
+least—the blood of the Nazarene was upon them all!
+
+When the sunlight broke upon the crucifixion, the mother of the
+Nazarene, the disciple, and the faithful women of Galilee, the
+centurion and his soldiers, and Ben-Hur and his party, were all who
+remained upon the hill. These had not time to observe the flight of the
+multitude; they were too loudly called upon to take care of themselves.
+
+“Seat thyself here,” said Ben-Hur to Esther, making a place for her at
+her father’s feet. “Now cover thine eyes and look not up; but put thy
+trust in God, and the spirit of yon just man so foully slain.”
+
+“Nay,” said Simonides, reverently, “let us henceforth speak of him as
+the Christ.”
+
+“Be it so,” said Ben-Hur.
+
+Presently a wave of the earthquake struck the hill. The shrieks of the
+thieves upon the reeling crosses were terrible to hear. Though giddy
+with the movements of the ground, Ben-Hur had time to look at
+Balthasar, and beheld him prostrate and still. He ran to him and
+called—there was no reply. The good man was dead! Then Ben-Hur
+remembered to have heard a cry in answer, as it were, to the scream of
+the Nazarene in his last moment; but he had not looked to see from whom
+it had proceeded; and ever after he believed the spirit of the Egyptian
+accompanied that of his Master over the boundary into the kingdom of
+Paradise. The idea rested not only upon the cry heard, but upon the
+exceeding fitness of the distinction. If faith were worthy reward in
+the person of Gaspar, and love in that of Melchior, surely he should
+have some special meed who through a long life and so excellently
+illustrated the three virtues in combination—Faith, Love, and Good
+Works.
+
+The servants of Balthasar had deserted their master; but when all was
+over, the two Galileans bore the old man in his litter back to the
+city.
+
+It was a sorrowful procession that entered the south gate of the palace
+of the Hurs about the set of sun that memorable day. About the same
+hour the body of the Christ was taken down from the cross.
+
+The remains of Balthasar were carried to the guest-chamber. All the
+servants hastened weeping to see him; for he had the love of every
+living thing with which he had in anywise to do; but when they beheld
+his face, and the smile upon it, they dried their tears, saying, “It is
+well. He is happier this evening than when he went out in the morning.”
+
+Ben-Hur would not trust a servant to inform Iras what had befallen her
+father. He went himself to see her and bring her to the body. He
+imagined her grief; she would now be alone in the world; it was a time
+to forgive and pity her. He remembered he had not asked why she was not
+of the party in the morning, or where she was; he remembered he had not
+thought of her; and, from shame, he was ready to make any amends, the
+more so as he was about to plunge her into such acute grief.
+
+He shook the curtains of her door; and though he heard the ringing of
+the little bells echoing within, he had no response; he called her
+name, and again he called—still no answer. He drew the curtain aside
+and went into the room; she was not there. He ascended hastily to the
+roof in search of her; nor was she there. He questioned the servants;
+none of them had seen her during the day. After a long quest everywhere
+through the house, Ben-Hur returned to the guest-chamber, and took the
+place by the dead which should have been hers; and he bethought him
+there how merciful the Christ had been to his aged servant. At the gate
+of the kingdom of Paradise happily the afflictions of this life, even
+its desertions, are left behind and forgotten by those who go in and
+rest.
+
+When the gloom of the burial was nigh gone, on the ninth day after the
+healing, the law being fulfilled, Ben-Hur brought his mother and Tirzah
+home; and from that day, in that house the most sacred names possible
+of utterance by men were always coupled worshipfully together,
+
+GOD THE FATHER AND CHRIST THE SON.
+
+————
+
+About five years after the crucifixion, Esther, the wife of Ben-Hur,
+sat in her room in the beautiful villa by Misenum. It was noon, with a
+warm Italian sun making summer for the roses and vines outside.
+Everything in the apartment was Roman, except that Esther wore the
+garments of a Jewish matron. Tirzah and two children at play upon a
+lion skin on the floor were her companions; and one had only to observe
+how carefully she watched them to know that the little ones were hers.
+
+Time had treated her generously. She was more than ever beautiful, and
+in becoming mistress of the villa, she had realized one of her
+cherished dreams.
+
+In the midst of this simple, home-like scene, a servant appeared in the
+doorway, and spoke to her.
+
+“A woman in the atrium to speak with the mistress.”
+
+“Let her come. I will receive her here.”
+
+Presently the stranger entered. At sight of her the Jewess arose, and
+was about to speak; then she hesitated, changed color, and finally drew
+back, saying, “I have known you, good woman. You are—”
+
+“I was Iras, the daughter of Balthasar.”
+
+Esther conquered her surprise, and bade the servant bring the Egyptian
+a seat.
+
+“No,” said Iras, coldly. “I will retire directly.”
+
+The two gazed at each other. We know what Esther presented—a beautiful
+woman, a happy mother, a contented wife. On the other side, it was very
+plain that fortune had not dealt so gently with her former rival. The
+tall figure remained with some of its grace; but an evil life had
+tainted the whole person. The face was coarse; the large eyes were red
+and pursed beneath the lower lids; there was no color in her cheeks.
+The lips were cynical and hard, and general neglect was leading rapidly
+to premature old age. Her attire was ill chosen and draggled. The mud
+of the road clung to her sandals. Iras broke the painful silence.
+
+“These are thy children?”
+
+Esther looked at them, and smiled.
+
+“Yes. Will you not speak to them?”
+
+“I would scare them,” Iras replied. Then she drew closer to Esther, and
+seeing her shrink, said, “Be not afraid. Give thy husband a message for
+me. Tell him his enemy is dead, and that for the much misery he brought
+me I slew him.”
+
+“His enemy!”
+
+“The Messala. Further, tell thy husband that for the harm I sought to
+do him I have been punished until even he would pity me.”
+
+Tears arose in Esther’s eyes, and she was about to speak.
+
+“Nay,” said Iras, “I do not want pity or tears. Tell him, finally, I
+have found that to be a Roman is to be a brute. Farewell.”
+
+She moved to go. Esther followed her.
+
+“Stay, and see my husband. He has no feeling against you. He sought for
+you everywhere. He will be your friend. I will be your friend. We are
+Christians.”
+
+The other was firm.
+
+“No; I am what I am of choice. It will be over shortly.”
+
+“But”—Esther hesitated—“have we nothing you would wish; nothing to—to—”
+
+The countenance of the Egyptian softened; something like a smile played
+about her lips. She looked at the children upon the floor.
+
+“There is something,” she said.
+
+Esther followed her eyes, and with quick perception answered, “It is
+yours.”
+
+Iras went to them, and knelt on the lion’s skin, and kissed them both.
+Rising slowly, she looked at them; then passed to the door and out of
+it without a parting word. She walked rapidly, and was gone before
+Esther could decide what to do.
+
+Ben-Hur, when he was told of the visit, knew certainly what he had long
+surmised—that on the day of the crucifixion Iras had deserted her
+father for Messala. Nevertheless, he set out immediately and hunted for
+her vainly; they never saw her more, or heard of her. The blue bay,
+with all its laughing under the sun, has yet its dark secrets. Had it a
+tongue, it might tell us of the Egyptian.
+
+Simonides lived to be a very old man. In the tenth year of Nero’s
+reign, he gave up the business so long centred in the warehouse at
+Antioch. To the last he kept a clear head and a good heart, and was
+successful.
+
+One evening, in the year named, he sat in his arm-chair on the terrace
+of the warehouse. Ben-Hur and Esther, and their three children, were
+with him. The last of the ships swung at mooring in the current of the
+river; all the rest had been sold. In the long interval between this
+and the day of the crucifixion but one sorrow had befallen them: that
+was when the mother of Ben-Hur died; and then and now their grief would
+have been greater but for their Christian faith.
+
+The ship spoken of had arrived only the day before, bringing
+intelligence of the persecution of Christians begun by Nero in Rome,
+and the party on the terrace were talking of the news when Malluch, who
+was still in their service, approached and delivered a package to
+Ben-Hur.
+
+“Who brings this?” the latter asked, after reading.
+
+“An Arab.”
+
+“Where is he?”
+
+“He left immediately.”
+
+“Listen,” said Ben-Hur to Simonides.
+
+He read then the following letter:
+
+“I, Ilderim, the son of Ilderim the Generous, and sheik of the tribe of
+Ilderim, to Judah, son of Hur.
+
+“Know, O friend of my father’s, how my father loved you. Read what is
+herewith sent, and you will know. His will is my will; therefore what
+he gave is thine.
+
+“All the Parthians took from him in the great battle in which they slew
+him I have retaken—this writing, with other things, and vengeance, and
+all the brood of that Mira who in his time was mother of so many stars.
+
+“Peace be to you and all yours.
+
+“This voice out of the desert is the voice of
+
+“Ilderim, Shiek.”
+
+
+Ben-Hur next unrolled a scrap of papyrus yellow as a withered mulberry
+leaf. It required the daintiest handling. Proceeding, he read:
+
+“Ilderim, surnamed the Generous, sheik of the tribe of Ilderim, to the
+son who succeeds me.
+
+“All I have, O son, shall be thine in the day of thy succession, except
+that property by Antioch known as the Orchard of Palms; and it shall be
+to the son of Hur who brought us such glory in the Circus—to him and
+his forever.
+
+“Dishonor not thy father. ILDERIM THE GENEROUS, Sheik.”
+
+
+“What say you?” asked Ben-Hur, of Simonides.
+
+Esther took the papers pleased, and read them to herself. Simonides
+remained silent. His eyes were upon the ship; but he was thinking. At
+length he spoke.
+
+“Son of Hur,” he said, gravely, “the Lord has been good to you in these
+later years. You have much to be thankful for. Is it not time to decide
+finally the meaning of the gift of the great fortune now all in your
+hand, and growing?”
+
+“I decided that long ago. The fortune was meant for the service of the
+Giver; not a part, Simonides, but all of it. The question with me has
+been, How can I make it most useful in his cause? And of that tell me,
+I pray you.”
+
+Simonides answered,
+
+“The great sums you have given to the Church here in Antioch, I am
+witness to. Now, instantly almost with this gift of the generous
+sheik’s, comes the news of the persecution of the brethren in Rome. It
+is the opening of a new field. The light must not go out in the
+capital.”
+
+“Tell me how I can keep it alive.”
+
+“I will tell you. The Romans, even this Nero, hold two things sacred—I
+know of no others they so hold—they are the ashes of the dead and all
+places of burial. If you cannot build temples for the worship of the
+Lord above ground, then build them below the ground; and to keep them
+from profanation, carry to them the bodies of all who die in the
+faith.”
+
+Ben-Hur arose excitedly.
+
+“It is a great idea,” he said. “I will not wait to begin it. Time
+forbids waiting. The ship that brought the news of the suffering of our
+brethren shall take me to Rome. I will sail to-morrow.”
+
+He turned to Malluch.
+
+“Get the ship ready, Malluch, and be thou ready to go with me.”
+
+“It is well,” said Simonides.
+
+“And thou, Esther, what sayest thou?” asked Ben-Hur.
+
+Esther came to his side, and put her hand on his arm, and answered,
+
+“So wilt thou best serve the Christ. O my husband, let me not hinder,
+but go with thee and help.”
+
+
+If any of my readers, visiting Rome, will make the short journey to the
+Catacomb of San Calixto, which is more ancient than that of San
+Sebastiano, he will see what became of the fortune of Ben-Hur, and give
+him thanks. Out of that vast tomb Christianity issued to supersede the
+Cæsars.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEN-HUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST ***
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