                     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.

              JERUSALEM UNDER THE ROMANS.


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.

Caesar 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; Caesarea 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 Caesarea 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 and 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 the 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 Caesars 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.

                  BEN-HUR AND MESSALA.


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 verandahs shading the doors and windows of the
lower storey, 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, grey-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
Caesar and his great enemies, a Messala had been the friend of Brutus.
After Philippi, without sacrifice of his honour, 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 honours. 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 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 armourers 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, 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 colour 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 Greek 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 loved you. The years are gone, and you
have come back to me accomplished and princely- I do not jest; and
yet- yet- I 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 practice of the art of
mystery, and Delphi will receive you as Apollo himself. At 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 humour; 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 humour, 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 a 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 Caesars? 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
dose 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.

                     A JUDEAN HOME.


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 storey in such manner as to overhang
the thoroughfares below. The gates were the only breaks of wall
externally visible in the first storey; 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-storey 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 mill-stones 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 storey, over which great awnings were
stretched as a defense 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 bed-room.

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 law-giver
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 north-west 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 STRANGE THINGS BEN-HUR WANTS TO KNOW.


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, "To-day, 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 answer."

"Gamaliel has been lecturing to-day," 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 honours; 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 to 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
Caesar'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 honours
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 valour 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 of
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 distinction 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 alt 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 honour 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 a 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.

             ROME AND ISRAEL- A COMPARISON.


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 fervour.

"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 lost 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
Caesar, 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 coloured 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 Daedalus appeared in
Attica, and with his wooden statues so transformed sculpture as to
make possible the schools of Corinth and AEgina, and their ultimate
triumphs, the Poecile and Capitolium- long before the age of Daedalus,
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 chiselled, 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- Hellel 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 pluck 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 Caesar, 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; 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 splendour quenching all other lights, even that of the
first and noblest of the Caesars. 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
clements 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 Caesar, 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 Caesar."

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 ACCIDENT TO GRATUS.


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 south-east 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- you dream 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 favours 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 favoured 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 paterae- chiefly valuable on
account of the imperial hand which had honourably 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 ear-ring, 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
country-women, 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 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 north-east 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 head-quarters 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 hastae
longae, or spears identical with those used in the duels between
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 street 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 breast-plates
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 demeanour, 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 honours.

The officer riding alone in the midst of the column was the other
attraction. His head was bare; otherwise he was in full armour. 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 Caesar, 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
lose from a man all whose strength was tasked to keep his hold. Her
cries were shrillest of all; cutting through the clamour, 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 someone say,
speaking loudly,

"That is he!"

Judah looked, and saw- Messala.

"What, the assassin- that?" said a tall man, in legionary armour
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 passage-way. 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 splendour,
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.

                     A GALLEY SLAVE.


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 chores 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-storey, 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 north-eastern 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 grey 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.

"Oh, 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 call 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 a 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 imbittered 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.

