                     BOOK SIXTH.


           "Is that a Death? and are there two?
            Is Death that woman's mate?

            Her skin was as white as leprosy,
            The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
            Who thicks man's blood with cold."
                                           -COLERIDGE.


                      CHAPTER I.

          THE TOWER OF ANTONIA- CELL No. VI.


OUR story moves forward now thirty days from the night Ben-Hur
left Antioch to go out with Sheik Ilderim into the desert.

A great change has befallen- great at least as respects the fortunes
of our hero. Valerius Gratus has been succeeded by Pontius Pilate!

The removal, it may be remarked, cost Simonides exactly five talents
Roman money in hand paid to Sejanus, who was then in height of power
as imperial favourite; the object being to help Ben-Hur, by
lessening his exposure while in and about Jerusalem attempting
discovery of his people. To such pious use the faithful servant put
the winnings from Drusus and his associates; all of whom, having
paid their wagers, became at once and naturally the enemies of
Messala, whose repudiation was yet an unsettled question in Rome.

Brief as the time was, already the Jews knew the change of rulers
was not for the better.

The cohorts sent to relieve the garrison of Antonia made their entry
into the city by night; next morning the first sight that greeted
the people resident in the neighbourhood was the walls of the old
Tower decorated with military ensigns, which unfortunately consisted
of busts of the emperor mixed with eagles and globes. A multitude,
in passion, marched to Caesarea, where Pilate was lingering, and
implored him to remove the detested images. Five days and nights
they beset his palace gates; at last he appointed a meeting with
them in the Circus. When they were assembled, he encircled them with
soldiers; instead of resisting, they offered him their lives, and
conquered. He recalled the images and ensigns to Caesarea, where
Gratus, with more consideration, had kept such abominations housed
during the eleven years of his reign.

The worst of men do once in a while vary their wickednesses by
good acts; so with Pilate. He ordered an inspection of all the prisons
in Judea, and a return of the names of the persons in custody, with
a statement of the crimes for which they had been committed.
Doubtless, the motive was the one so common with officials just
installed- dread of entailed responsibility; the people, however, in
thought of the good which might come of the measure, gave him
credit, and, for a period, were comforted. The revelations were
astonishing. Hundreds of persons were released against whom there were
no accusations; many others came to light who had long been
accounted dead; yet more amazing, there was opening of dungeons not
merely unknown at the time by the people, but actually forgotten by
the prison authorities. With one instance of the latter kind we have
now to deal; and, strange to say, it occurred in Jerusalem.

The Tower of Antonia, which will be remembered as occupying
two-thirds of the sacred area on Mount Moriah, was originally a castle
built by the Macedonians. Afterwards, John Hyrcanus erected the castle
into a fortress for the defence of the Temple, and in his day it was
considered impregnable to assault; but when Herod came with his bolder
genius, he strengthened its walls and extended them, leaving a vast
pile which included every appurtenance necessary for the stronghold he
intended it to be forever; such as offices, barracks, armories,
magazines, cisterns, and last, though not least, prisons of all
grades. He levelled the solid rock, and tapped it with deep
excavations, and built over them; connecting the whole great mass with
the Temple by a beautiful colonnade, from the roof of which one
could look down over the courts of the sacred structure. In such
condition the Tower fell at last out of his hands into those of the
Romans, who were quick to see its strength and advantages, and convert
it to uses becoming such masters. All through the administration of
Gratus it had been a garrisoned citadel and underground prison
terrible to revolutionists. Woe when the cohorts poured from its gates
to suppress disorder! Woe not less when a Jew passed the same gates
going in under arrest!

With this explanation, we hasten to our story.

                    *   *   *   *   *

The order of the new procurator requiring a report of the persons in
custody was received at the Tower of Antonia, and promptly executed;
and two days have gone since the last unfortunate was brought up for
examination. The tabulated statement, ready for forwarding, lies on
the table of the tribune in command; in five minutes more it will be
on the way to Pilate, sojourning in the palace up on Mount Zion.

The tribune's office is spacious and cool, and furnished in a
style suitable to the dignity of the commandant of a post in every
respect so important. Looking in upon him about the seventh hour of
the day, the officer appears weary and impatient; when the report is
despatched, he will to the roof of the colonnade for air and exercise,
and the amusement to be had watching the Jews over in the courts of
the Temple. His subordinates and clerks share his impatience.

In the spell of waiting a man appeared in a doorway leading to an
adjoining apartment. He rattled a bunch of keys, each heavy as a
hammer, and at once attracted the chief's attention.

"Ah, Gesius! come in," the tribune said.

As the new-comer approached the table behind which the chief sat
in an easy-chair, everybody present looked at him, and, observing a
certain expression of alarm and mortification on his face, became
silent that they might hear what he had to say.

"O tribune!" he began, bending low, "I fear to tell what now I bring
you."

"Another mistake- ha, Gesius?"

"If I could persuade myself it is but a mistake, I would not be
afraid."

"A crime then- or, worse, a breach of duty. Thou mayst laugh at
Caesar, or curse the gods, and live; but if the offence be to the
eagles- ah, thou knowest, Gesius- go on!"

"It is now about eight years since Valerius Gratus selected me to be
keeper of prisoners here in the Tower," said the man, deliberately. "I
remember the morning I entered upon the duties of my office. There had
been a riot the day before, and fighting in the streets. We slew
many Jews, and suffered on our side. The affair came, it was said,
of an attempt to assassinate Gratus, who had been knocked from his
horse by a tile thrown from a roof. I found him sitting where you
now sit, O tribune, his head swathed in bandages. He told me of my
selection, and gave me these keys, numbered to correspond with the
numbers of the cells; they were the badges of my office, he said,
and not to be parted with. There was a roll of parchment on the table.
Calling me to him, he opened the roll. 'Here are maps of the cells,'
said he. There were three of them. 'This one,' he went on, 'shows
the arrangement of the upper floor; this second one gives you the
second floor; and this last is of the lower floor. I give them to
you in trust.' I took them from his hand, and he said, further, 'Now
you have the keys and the maps; go immediately, and acquaint
yourself with the whole arrangement; visit each cell, and see to its
condition. When anything is needed for the security of a prisoner,
order it according to your judgment, for you are the master under
me, and no other."

"I saluted him, and turned to go away; he called me back. 'Ah, I
forgot,' he said. 'Give me the map of the third floor.' I gave it to
him, and he spread it upon the table. 'Here, Gesius,' he said, 'see
this cell.' He laid his finger on the one numbered V. 'There are three
men confined in that cell, desperate characters, who by some means got
hold of a state secret, and suffer for their curiosity, which'- he
looked at me severely- 'in such matters is worse than a crime.
Accordingly, they are blind and tongueless, and are placed there for
life. They shall have nothing but food and drink, to be given them
through a hole, which you will find in the wall covered by a slide. Do
you hear, Gesius?' I made him answer. 'It is well,' he continued. 'One
thing more which you shall not forget, or'- he looked at me
threateningly- 'The door of their cell- cell number V. on the same
floor- this one, Gesius'- he put his finger on the particular cell
to impress my memory- 'shall never be opened for any purpose,
neither to let one in nor out, not even yourself.' 'But if they
die?' I asked. 'If they die,' he said, 'the cell shall be their
tomb. They were put there to die, and be lost. The cell is leprous. Do
you understand?' With that he let me go."

Gesius stopped, and from the breast of his tunic drew three
parchments, all much yellowed by time and use; selecting one of
them, he spread it upon the table before the tribune, saying,
simply, "This is the lower floor."

The whole company looked at-


                     THE MAP

       |              PASSAGE            |

       |                                 |

       |--||----||------||-----||----||--|

       |     |      |       |      |     |

       |  V  |  IV  |  III  |  II  |  I  |


"This is exactly, O tribune, as I had it from Gratus. See, there
is cell number V.," said Gesius.

"I see," the tribune replied. "Go on now. The cell was leprous, he
said."

"I would like to ask you a question," remarked the keeper, modestly.

The tribune assented.

"Had I not a right, under the circumstances, to believe the map a
true one?"

"What else couldst thou?"

"Well, it is not a true one."

The chief looked up surprised.

"It is not a true one," the keeper repeated. "It shows but five
cells upon that floor, while there are six."

"Six sayest thou?"

"I will show you the floor as it is- or as I believe it to be."

Upon a page of his tablets, Gesius drew the following diagram, and
gave it to the tribune:-


       |                                 |

       |--||-----||-----||-----||----||--|

       |     |      |       |      |     |

       |  V  |  IV  |  III  |  II  |  I  |

       |--||-----------------------------|

       |                VI               |


"Thou hast done well," said the tribune, examining the drawing,
and thinking the narrative at an end. "I will have the map
corrected, or, better, I will have a new one made, and given thee.
Come for it in the morning."

So saying, he arose.

"But hear me further, O tribune."

"To-morrow, Gesius, to-morrow."

"That which I have yet to tell will not wait."

The tribune good-naturedly resumed his chair.

"I will hurry," said the keeper, humbly, "only let me ask another
question. Had I not a right to believe Gratus in what he further
told me as to the prisoners in cell number V.?"

"Yes, it was thy duty to believe there were three prisoners in the
cell- prisoners of state- blind and without tongues."

"Well," said the keeper, "that was not true either."

"No!" said the tribune, with returning interest.

"Hear, and judge for yourself, O tribune. As required I visited
all the cells, beginning with those on the first floor, and ending
with those on the lower. The order that the door of number V. should
not be opened had been respected; through all the eight years food and
drink for three men had been passed through a hole in the wall. I went
to the door yesterday, curious to see the wretches who, against all
expectation, had lived so long. The locks refused the key. We pulled a
little, and the door fell down, rusted from its hinges. Going in, I
found but one man, old, blind, tongueless, and naked. His hair dropped
in stiffen'd mats below his waist. His skin was like the parchment
there. He held his hands out, and the finger-nails curled and
twisted like the claws of a bird. I asked him where his companions
were. He shook his head in denial. Thinking to find the others, we
searched the cell. The floor was dry; so were the walls. If three
men had been shut in there, and two of them had died, at least their
bones would have endured."

"Wherefore thou thinkest- "

"I think, O tribune, there has been but one prisoner there in the
eight years."

The chief regarded the keeper sharply, and said, "Have a care;
thou art more than saying Valerius lied."

Gesius bowed, but said, "He might have been mistaken."

"No, he was right," said the tribune, warmly. "By thine own
statement he was right. Didst thou not say but now that for eight
years food and drink had been furnished three men?"

The bystanders approved the shrewdness of their chief; yet Gesius
did not seem discomfited.

"You have but half the story, O tribune. When you have it all, you
will agree with me. You know what I did with the man: that I sent
him to the bath, and had him shorn and clothed, and then took him to
the gate of the Tower, and bade him go free. I washed my hands of him.
To-day he came back, and was brought to me. By signs and tears he at
last made me understand he wished to return to his cell, and I so
ordered. As they were leading him off, he broke away and kissed my
feet, and, by piteous dumb imploration, insisted I should go with him;
and I went. The mystery of the three men stayed in my mind. I was
not satisfied about it. Now I am glad I yielded to his entreaty."

The whole company at this point became very still.

"When we were in the cell again, and the prisoner knew it, he caught
my hand eagerly, and led me to a hole like that through which we
were accustomed to pass him his food. Though large enough to push your
helmet through, it escaped me yesterday. Still holding my hand, he put
his face to the hole and gave a beastlike cry. A sound came faintly
back. I was astonished, and drew him away, and called out, 'Ho, here!'
At first there was no answer. I called again, and received back
these words, 'Be thou praised, O Lord!' Yet more astonishing, O
tribune, the voice was a woman's. And I asked 'Who are you?' and had
reply 'A woman of Israel, entombed here with her daughter. Help us
quickly, or we die.' I told them to be of cheer, and hurried here to
know your will."

The tribune arose hastily.

"Thou wert right, Gesius," he said, "and I see now. The map was a
lie, and so was the tale of the three men. There have been better
Romans than Valerius Gratus."

"Yes," said the keeper. "I gleaned from the prisoner that he had
regularly given the women of the food and drink he had received."

"It is accounted for," replied the tribune; and observing the
countenances of his friends, and reflecting how well it would be to
have witnesses, he added, "Let us rescue the women. Come all."

Gesius was pleased.

"We will have to pierce the wall," he said. "I found where a door
had been, but it was filled solidly with stones and mortar."

The tribune stayed to say to a clerk, "Send workmen after me with
tools. Make haste; but hold the report, for I see it will have to be
corrected."

In a short time they were gone.

                      CHAPTER II.

                      THE LEPERS.


"A WOMAN of Israel, entombed here with her daughter. Help us
quickly, or we die."

Such was the reply Gesius, the keeper, had from the cell which
appears on his amended map as VI. The reader, when he observed the
answer, knew who the unfortunates were, and, doubtless, said to
himself, "At last the mother of Ben-Hur, and Tirzah, his sister!"

And so it was.

The morning of their seizure, eight years before, they had been
carried to the Tower, where Gratus proposed to put them out of the
way. He had chosen the Tower for the purpose as more immediately in
his own keeping, and cell VI. because, first, it could be better
lost than any other; and, secondly, it was infected with leprosy;
for these prisoners were not merely to be put in a safe place, but
in a place to die. They were, accordingly, taken down by slaves in the
night-time when there were no witnesses of the deed; then, in
completion of the savage task, the same slaves walled up the door,
after which they were themselves separated, and sent away never to
be heard of more. To save accusation, and, in the event of
discovery, to leave himself such justification as might be allowed
in a distinction between the infliction of a punishment and the
commission of a double murder, Gratus preferred sinking his victims
where natural death was certain, though slow. That they might linger
along, he selected a convict who had been made blind and tongueless,
and sank him in the only connecting cell, there to serve them with
food and drink. Under no circumstances could the poor wretch tell
the tale or identify either the prisoners or their doomsman. So,
with a cunning partly due to Messala, the Roman, under colour of
punishing a brood of assassins, smoothed a path to confiscation of the
estate of the Hurs, of which no portion ever reached the imperial
coffers.

As the last step in the scheme, Gratus summarily removed the old
keeper of the prisons, not because he knew what had been done- for
he did not- but because, knowing the underground floors as he did,
it would be next to impossible to keep the transaction from him. Then,
with masterly ingenuity, the procurator had new maps drawn for
delivery to a new keeper, with the omission, as we have seen, of
cell VI. The instructions given the latter, taken with the omission on
the map, accomplished the design- the cell and its unhappy tenants
were all alike lost.

What may be thought of the life of the mother and daughter during
the eight years must have relation to their culture and previous
habits. Conditions are pleasant or grievous to us according to our
sensibilities. It is not extreme to say, if there was a sudden exit of
all men from the world, heaven, as prefigured in the Christian idea,
would not be a heaven to the majority; on the other hand, neither
would all suffer equally in the so-called Tophet. Cultivation has
its balances. As the mind is made intelligent, the capacity of the
soul for pure enjoyment is proportionally increased. Well,
therefore, if it be saved! If lost, however, alas that it ever had
cultivation! its capacity for enjoyment in the one case is the measure
of its capacity to suffer in the other. Wherefore repentance must be
something more than mere remorse for sins; it comprehends a change
of nature befitting heaven.

We repeat, to form an adequate idea of the suffering endured by
the mother of Ben-Hur, the reader must think of her spirit and its
sensibilities as much as, if not more than, of the conditions of the
immurement; the question being, not what the conditions were, but
how she was affected by them. And now we may be permitted to say it
was in anticipation of this thought that the scene in the summer-house
on the roof of the family palace was given so fully in the beginning
of the Second Book of our story. So, too, to be helpful when the
inquiry should come up, we ventured the elaborate description of the
palace of the Hurs.

In other words, let the serene, happy, luxurious life in the
princely house be recalled and contrasted with this existence in the
lower dungeon of the Tower of Antonia; then if the reader, in his
effort to realize the misery of the woman, persists in mere
reference to conditions physical, he cannot go amiss: as he is a lover
of his kind, tender of heart, he will be melted with much sympathy.
But will he go further; will he more than sympathize with her; will he
share her agony of mind and spirit; will he at least try to measure
it- let him recall her as she discoursed to her son of God, and
nations, and heroes; one moment a philosopher, the next a teacher, and
all the time a mother.

Would you hurt a man keenest, strike at his self-love; would you
hurt a woman worst, aim at her affections.

With quickened remembrance of these unfortunates- remembrance of
them as they were- let us go down and see them as they are.

The cell VI. was in form as Gesius drew it on his map. Of its
dimensions but little idea can be had; enough that it was a roomy,
roughened interior, with ledged and broken walls and floors.

In the beginning, the site of the Macedonian Castle was separated
from the site of the Temple by a narrow but deep cliff somewhat in
shape of a wedge. The workmen, wishing to hew out a series of
chambers, made their entry in the north face of the cleft, and
worked in, leaving a ceiling of the natural stone; delving farther,
they executed the cells V., IV., III., II., I., with no connection
with number VI. except through number V. In like manner, they
constructed the passage and stairs to the floor above. The process
of the work was precisely that resorted to in carving out the Tombs of
the Kings, yet to be seen a short distance north of Jerusalem; only
when the cutting was done, cell VI. was enclosed on its outer side
by a wall of prodigious stones, in which, for ventilation, narrow
apertures were left bevelled like modern portholes. Herod, when he
took hold of the Temple and Tower, put a facing yet more massive
upon this outer wall, and shut up all the apertures but one, which yet
admitted a little vitalizing air, and a ray of light not nearly strong
enough to redeem the room from darkness.

Such was cell VI.

Startle not now!

The description of the blind and tongueless wretch just liberated
from cell V. may be accepted to break the horror of what is coming.

The two women are grouped close by the aperture; one is seated,
the other is half reclining against her; there is nothing between them
and the bare rock. The light, slanting upwards, strikes them with
ghastly effect, and we cannot avoid seeing they are without vesture or
covering. At the same time we are helped to the knowledge that love is
there yet, for the two are in each other's arms. Riches take wings,
comforts vanish, hope withers away, but love stays with us. Love is
God.

Where the two are thus grouped the stony floor is polished
shining-smooth. Who shall say how much of the eight years they have
spent in that space there in front of the aperture, nursing their hope
of rescue by that timid yet friendly ray of light? When the brightness
came creeping in, they knew it was dawn; when it began to fade, they
knew the world was hushing for the night, which could not be
anywhere so long and utterly dark as with them. The world! Through
that crevice, as if it were broad and high as a king's gate, they went
to the world in thought, and passed the weary time going up and down
as spirits go, looking and asking, the one for her son, the other
for her brother. On the seas they sought him, and on the islands of
the seas; to-day he was in this city, to-morrow in that other; and
everywhere, and at all times, he was a flitting sojourner; for, as
they lived waiting for him, he lived looking for them. How often their
thoughts passed each other in the endless search, his coming, theirs
going! It was such sweet flattery for them to say to each other,
"While he lives, we shall not be forgotten; as long as he remembers
us, there is hope!" The strength one can eke from little, who knows
till he has been subjected to the trial?

Our recollections of them in former days enjoin us to be respectful;
their sorrows clothe them with sanctity. Without going too near,
across the dungeon, we see they have undergone a change of
appearance not to be accounted for by time or long confinement. The
mother was beautiful as a woman, the daughter beautiful as a child;
not even love could say so much now. Their hair is long, unkempt,
and strangely white; they make us shrink and shudder with an
indefinable repulsion, though the effect may be from an illusory
glozing of the light, glimmering dismally through the unhealthy
murk; or they may be enduring the tortures of hunger and thirst, not
having had to eat or drink since their servant, the convict, was taken
away- that is, since yesterday.

Tirzah, reclining against her mother in half-embrace, moans
piteously.

"Be quiet, Tirzah. They will come. God is good. We have been mindful
of him, and forgotten not to pray at every sounding of the trumpets
over in the Temple. The light, you see, is still bright; the sun is
standing in the south sky yet, and it is hardly more than the
seventh hour. Somebody will come to us. Let us have faith. God is
good."

Thus the mother. The words were simple and effective, although,
eight years being now to be added to the thirteen she had attained
when last we saw her, Tirzah was no longer a child.

"I will try and be strong, mother," she said. "Your suffering must
be great as mine; and I do so want to live for you and my brother! But
my tongue burns, my lips scorch. I wonder where he is, and if he
will ever, ever find us!"

There is something in the voices that strikes us singularly- an
unexpected tone, sharp, dry, metallic, unnatural.

The mother draws the daughter closer to her breast, and says, "I
dreamed about him last night, and saw him as plainly, Tirzah, as I see
you. We must believe in dreams, you know, because our fathers did. The
Lord spoke to them so often. in that way. I thought we were in the
Women's Court just before the Gate Beautiful; there were many women
with us; and he came and stood in the shade of the Gate, and looked
here and there, at this one and that. My heart beat strong. I knew
he was looking for us, and stretched my arms to him, and ran,
calling him. He heard me and saw me, but he did not know me. In a
moment he was gone."

"Would it not be so, mother, if we were to meet him in fact? We
are so changed."

"It might be so; but- " The mother's head droops, and her face knits
as with a wrench of pain; recovering, however, she goes on- "but we
could make ourselves known to him."

Tirzah tossed her arms, and moaned again.

"Water, mother, water, though but a drop."

The mother stares around in blank helplessness. She has named God so
often, and so often promised in his name, the repetition is
beginning to have a mocking effect upon herself. A shadow passes
before her dimming the dim light, and she is brought down to think
of death as very near, waiting to come in as her faith goes out.
Hardly knowing what she does, speaking aimlessly, because speak she
must, she says again-

"Patience, Tirzah; they are coming- they are almost here."

She thought she heard a sound over by the little trap in the
partition-wall through which they held all their actual
communication with the world. And she was not mistaken. A moment,
and the cry of the convict rang through the cell. Tirzah heard it
also; and they both arose, still keeping hold of each other.

"Praised be the Lord forever!" exclaimed the mother, with the
fervour of restored faith and hope.

"Ho, there!" they heard next; and then, "Who are you?"

The voice was strange. What matter? Except from Tirzah, they were
the first and only words the mother had heard in eight years. The
revulsion was mighty- from death to life- and so instantly!

"A woman of Israel, entombed here with her daughter. Help us
quickly, or we die."

"Be of cheer. I will return."

The women sobbed aloud. They were found; help was coming. From
wish to wish hope flew as the twittering swallows fly. They were
found; they would be released. And restoration would follow-
restoration to all they had lost- home, society, property, son and
brother! The scanty light glozed them with the glory of day, and,
forgetful of pain, and thirst, and hunger, and of the menace of death,
they sank upon the floor and cried, keeping fast hold of each other
the while.

And this time they had not long to wait. Gesius, the keeper, told
his tale methodically, but finished it at last. The tribune was
prompt.

"Within there!" he shouted through the trap.

"Here!" said the mother, rising.

Directly she heard another sound in another place, as of blows on
the wall- blows quick, ringing, and delivered with iron tools. She did
not speak, nor did Tirzah, but they listened, well knowing the meaning
of it all- that a way to liberty was being made for them. So men a
long time buried in deep mines hear the coming of rescuers, heralded
by thrust of bar and beat of pick, answer gratefully with
heart-throbs, their eyes fixed upon the spot whence the sounds
proceed; and they cannot look away, lest the work should cease, and
they be returned to despair.

The arms outside were strong, the hands skilful, the will good. Each
instant the blows sounded more plainly; now and then a piece fell with
a crash; and liberty came nearer and nearer. Presently the workmen
could be heard speaking. Then- O happiness! through a crevice
flashed a red ray of torches. Into the darkness it cut incisive as
diamond brilliance, beautiful as if from a spear of the morning.

"It is he, mother, it is he! He has found us at last!" cried Tirzah,
with the quickened fancy of youth.

But the mother answered meekly, "God is good!"

A block fell inside, and another- then a great mass, and the door
was open. A man grimed with mortar and stone-dust stepped in, and
stopped, holding a torch over his head. Two or three others followed
with torches, and stood aside for the tribune to enter.

Respect for women is not all a conventionality, for it is the best
proof of their proper nature. The tribune stopped, because they fled
from him- not with fear, be it said, but shame; nor yet, O reader,
from shame alone! From the obscurity of their partial hiding he
heard these words, the saddest, most dreadful, most utterly despairing
of the human tongue-

"Come not near us- unclean, unclean!"

The men flared their torches while they stared at each other.

"Unclean, unclean!" came from the corner again, a slow tremulous
wail, exceedingly sorrowful. With such a cry we can imagine a spirit
vanishing from the gates of Paradise, looking back the while.

So the widow and mother performed her duty, and in the moment
realized that the freedom she had prayed for and dreamed of, fruit
of scarlet and gold seen afar, was but an apple of Sodom in the hand.

She and Tirzah were- LEPERS!

Possibly the reader does not know all the word means. Let him be
told it with reference to the Law of that time, only a little modified
in this.

"These four are accounted as dead- the blind, the leper, the poor,
and the childless." Thus the Talmud.

That is, to be a leper was to be treated as dead- to be excluded
from the city as a corpse; to be spoken to by the best beloved and
most loving only at a distance; to dwell with none but lepers; to be
utterly unprivileged; to be denied the rites of the Temple and the
synagogue; to go about in rent garments and with covered mouth, except
when crying, "Unclean, unclean!" to find home in the wilderness or
in abandoned tombs; to become a materialized spectre of Hinnom and
Gehenna; to be at all times less a living offence to others than a
breathing torment to self; afraid to die, yet without hope except in
death.

Once- she might not tell the day or the year, for down in the
haunted hell even time was lost- once the mother felt a dry scurf in
the palm of her right hand, a trifle which she tried to wash, away. It
clung to the member pertinaciously; yet she thought but little of
the sign till Tirzah complained that she, too, was attacked in the
same way. The supply of water was scant, and they denied themselves
drink that they might use it as a curative. At length the whole hand
was attacked; the skin cracked open, the finger-nails loosened from
the flesh. There was not much pain withal, chiefly a steadily
increasing discomfort. Later their lips began to parch and seam. One
day the mother, who was cleanly to godliness, and struggled against
the impurities of the dungeon with all ingenuity, thinking the enemy
was taking hold on Tirzah's face, led her to the light, and, looking
with the inspiration of a terrible dread, lo! the young girl's
eyebrows were white as snow.

Oh, the anguish of that assurance!

The mother sat awhile speechless, motionless, paralyzed of soul, and
capable of but one thought- leprosy, leprosy!

When she began to think, mother-like, it was not of herself, but her
child, and, mother-like, her natural tenderness turned to courage, and
she made ready for the last sacrifice of perfect heroism. She buried
her knowledge in her heart; hopeless herself, she redoubled her
devotion to Tirzah, and with wonderful ingenuity- wonderful chiefly in
its very inexhaustibility- continued to keep the daughter ignorant
of what they were beset with, and even hopeful that it was nothing.
She repeated her little games, and retold her stories, and invented
new ones, and listened with ever so much pleasure to the songs she
would have from Tirzah, while on her wasting lips the psalms of the
singing king of their race served to bring soothing of
forgetfulness, and keep alive in them both the recollection of the God
who would seem to have abandoned them- the world not more lightly or
utterly.

Slowly, steadily, with horrible certainty, the disease spread, after
a while bleaching their heads white, eating holes in their lips and
eyelids, and covering their bodies with scales; then it fell to
their throats, shrilling their voices, and to their joints,
hardening the tissues and cartileges- slowly, and, as the mother
well knew, past remedy, it was affecting their lungs and arteries
and bones, at each advance making the sufferers more and more
loathsome; and so it would continue till death, which might be years
before them.

Another day of dread at length came- the day the mother, under the
impulsion of duty, at last told Tirzah the name of their ailment;
and the two, in agony of despair, prayed that the end might come
quickly.

Still, as is the force of habit, these so afflicted grew in time not
merely to speak composedly of their disease; they beheld the hideous
transformation of their persons as of course, and in despite clung
to existence. One tie to earth remained to them; unmindful of their
own loneliness, they kept up a certain spirit by talking and
dreaming of Ben-Hur. The mother promised reunion with him to the
sister, and she to the mother, not doubting, either of them, that he
was equally faithful to them, and would be equally happy of the
meeting. And with the spinning and respinning of this slender thread
they found pleasure, and excused their not dying. In such manner as we
have seen, they were solacing themselves the moment Gesius called
them, at the end of twelve hours' fasting and thirst.

The torches flashed redly through the dungeon, and liberty was come.
"God is good," the widow cried- not for what had been, O reader, but
for what was. In thankfulness for present mercy, nothing so becomes us
as losing sight of past ills.

The tribune came directly; then in the corner to which she had fled,
suddenly a sense of duty smote the elder of the women, and straightway
the awful warning-

"Unclean, unclean!"

Ah, the pang the effort to acquit herself of that duty cost the
mother! Not all the selfishness of joy over the prospect could keep
her blind to the consequences of release, now that it was at hand. The
old happy life could never be again. If she went near the house called
home, it would be to stop at the gate and cry, "Unclean, unclean!" She
must go about with the yearnings of love alive in her breast strong as
ever, and more sensitive even, because return in kind could not be.
The boy of whom she had so constantly thought, and with all sweet
promises such as mothers find their purest delight in, must, at
meeting her, stand afar off. If he held out his hands to her, and
called "Mother, mother," for very love of him she must answer,
"Unclean, unclean!" And this other child, before whom, in want of
other covering, she was spreading her long tangled locks, bleached
unnaturally white- ah! that she was she must continue, sole partner of
her blasted remainder of life. Yet, O reader, the brave woman accepted
the lot, and took up the cry which had been its sign immemorially, and
which thenceforward was to be her salutation without change- "Unclean,
unclean!"

The tribune heard it with a tremor, but kept his place.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Two women dying of hunger and thirst. Yet"- the mother did not
falter- "come not near us, nor touch the floor or the wall. Unclean,
unclean!"

"Give me thy story, woman- thy name, and when thou wert put here,
and by whom, and for what."

"There was once in this City of Jerusalem a Prince Ben-Hur, the
friend of all generous Romans, and who had Caesar for his friend. I am
his widow, and this one with me is his child. How may I tell you for
what we were sunk here, when I do not know, unless it was because we
were rich? Valerius Gratus can tell you who our enemy was, and when
our imprisonment began. I cannot. See to what we have been reduced-
oh, see, and have pity!"

The air was heavy with the pest and the smoke of the torches, yet
the Roman called one of the torch-bearers to his side, and wrote the
answer nearly word for word. It was terse and comprehensive,
containing at once a history, an accusation, and a prayer. No common
person could have made it, and he could not but pity and believe.

"Thou shalt have relief, woman," he said, closing the tablets. "I
will send thee food and drink."

"And raiment, and purifying water, we pray you, O generous Roman!"

"As thou wilt," he replied.

"God is good," said the widow, sobbing. "May his peace abide with
you!"

"And, further," he added, "I cannot see thee again. Make
preparation, and to-night I will have thee taken to the gate of the
Tower, and set free. Thou knowest the law. Farewell."

He spoke to the men, and went out the door.

Very shortly some slaves came to the cell with a large gurglet of
water, a basin and napkins, a platter with bread and meat, and some
garments of women's wear; and, setting them down within reach of the
prisoners, they ran away.

About the middle of the first watch, the two were conducted to the
gate, and turned into the street. So the Roman quit himself of them,
and in the city of their fathers they were once more free.

Up to the stars, twinkling merrily as of old, they looked; then they
asked themselves-

"What next? and where to?"

                      CHAPTER III.

                    JERUSALEM AGAIN.


ABOUT the hour Gesius, the keeper, made his appearance before the
tribune in the Tower of Antonia, a footman was climbing the eastern
face of Mount Olivet. The road was rough and dusty, and vegetation
on that side burned brown, for it was the dry season in Judea. Well
for the traveller that he had youth and strength, not to speak of
the cool flowing garments with which he was clothed.

He proceeded slowly, looking often to his right and left; not with
the vexed anxious expression which marks a man going forward uncertain
of the way, but rather the air with which one approaches an old
acquaintance after a long separation- half of pleasure, half of
inquiry; as if he were saying, "I am glad to be with you again; let me
see in what you are changed."

As he arose higher, he sometimes paused to look behind him over
the gradually widening view terminating in the mountains of Moab;
but when at length he drew near the summit, he quickened his step,
unmindful of fatigue, and hurried on without pause or turning of the
face. On the summit- to reach which he bent his steps somewhat right
of the beaten path- he came to a dead stop, arrested as if by a strong
hand. Then one might have seen his eyes dilate, his cheeks flush,
his breath quicken, effects all of one bright sweeping glance at
what lay before him.

The traveller, good reader, was no other than Ben-Hur; the
spectacle, Jerusalem.

Not the Holy City of today, but the Holy City as left by Herod-
the Holy City of the Christ. Beautiful yet, as seen from old Olivet,
what must it have been then?

Ben-Hur betook him to a stone and sat down, and, stripping his
head of the close white handkerchief which served it for covering,
made the survey at leisure.

The same has been done often since by a great variety of persons,
under circumstances surpassingly singular- by the son of Vespasian, by
the Islamite, by the Crusader, conquerors all of them; by many a
pilgrim from the great New World, which waited discovery nearly
fifteen hundred years after the time of our story; but of the
multitude probably not one has taken that view with sensations more
keenly poignant, more sadly sweet, more proudly bitter, than
Ben-Hur. He was stirred by recollections of his countrymen, their
triumphs and vicissitudes, their history the history of God. The
city was of their building, at once a lasting testimony of their
crimes and devotion, their weakness and genius, their religion and
their irreligion. Though he had seen Rome to familiarity, he was
gratified. The sight filled a measure of pride which would have made
him drunk with vain-glory but for the thought, princely as the
property was, it did not any longer belong to his countrymen; the
worship in the Temple was by permission of strangers; the hill where
David dwelt was a marbled cheat- an office in which the chosen of
the Lord were wrung and wrung for taxes, and scourged for very
deathlessness of faith. These, however, were pleasures and griefs of
patriotism common to every Jew of the period; in addition, Ben-Hur
brought with him a personal history which would not out of mind for
other consideration whatever, which the spectacle served only to
freshen and vivify.

A country of hills changes but little; where the hills are of
rock, it changes not at all. The scene Ben-Hur beheld is the same now,
except as respects the city. The failure is in the handiwork of man
alone.

The sun dealt more kindly by the west side of Olivet than by the
east, and men were certainly more loving towards it. The vines with
which it was partially dad, and the sprinkling of trees, chiefly
figs and old wild olives, were comparatively green. Down to the dry
bed of the Cedron the verdure extended, a refreshment to the vision;
there Olivet ceased and Moriah began- a wall of bluff boldness,
white as snow, founded by Solomon, completed by Herod. Up, up the wall
the eye climbed course by course of the ponderous rocks composing
it- up to Solomon's Porch, which was as the pedestal of the
monument, the hill being the plinth. Lingering there a moment, the eye
resumed its climbing, going next to the Gentiles' Court, then to the
Israelites' Court, then to the Women's Court, then to the Court of the
Priests, each a pillared tier of white marble, one above the other
in terraced retrocession; over them all a crown of crowns infinitely
sacred, infinitely beautiful, majestic in proportions, effulgent
with beaten gold- lo! the Tent, the Tabernacle, the Holy of Holies.
The Ark was not there, but Jehovah was- in the faith of every child of
Israel he was there a personal Presence. As a temple, as a monument,
there was nowhere anything of man's building to approach that
superlative apparition. Now, not a stone of it remains above
another. Who shall rebuild that building? When shall the rebuilding be
begun? So asks every pilgrim who has stood where Ben-Hur was- he asks,
knowing the answer is in the bosom of God, whose secrets are not least
marvellous in their well-keeping. And then the third question, What of
him who foretold the ruin which has so certainly befallen? God? Or man
of God? Or- enough that the question is for us to answer.

And still Ben-Hur's eyes climbed on and up- up over the roof of
the Temple, to the hill of Zion, consecrated to sacred memories,
inseparable from the anointed kings. He knew the Cheesemonger's Valley
dipped deep down between Moriah and Zion; that it was spanned by the
Xystus; that there were gardens and palaces in its depths; but over
them all his thoughts soared with his vision to the great grouping
on the royal hill- the house of Caiaphas, the Central Synagogue, the
Roman Praetorium, Hippicus the eternal, and the sad but mighty
cenotaphs Phasaelus and Mariamne- all relieved against Gareb,
purpling, in the distance. And when midst them he singled out the
palace of Herod, what could he but think of the King Who Was Coming,
to whom he was himself devoted, whose path he had undertaken to
smooth, whose empty hands he dreamed of filling? And forward ran his
fancy to the day the new King should come to claim his own and take
possession of it- of Moriah and its Temple; of Zion and its towers and
palaces; of Antonia, frowning darkly there just to the right of the
Temple; of the new unwalled city of Bezetha; of the millions of Israel
to assemble with palm-branches and banners, to sing rejoicing
because the Lord had conquered and given them the world.

Men speak of dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep.
They should know better. All results achieved by us are self-promised,
and all self-promises are made in dreams awake. Dreaming is the relief
of labour, the wine that sustains us in act. We learn to love
labour, not for itself, but for the opportunity it furnishes for
dreaming, which is the great under-monotone of real life, unheard,
unnoticed, because of its constancy' Living is dreaming. Only in the
grave are there no dreams. Let no one smile at Ben-Hur for doing
that which he himself would have done at that time and place under the
same circumstances.

The sun stooped low in its course. Awhile the flaring disc seemed to
perch itself on the far summit of the mountains in the west, brazening
all the sky above the city, and rimming the walls and towers with
the brightness of gold. Then it disappeared as with a plunge. The
quiet turned Ben-Hur's thought homeward. There was a point in the
sky a little north of the peerless front of the Holy of Holies upon
which he fixed his gaze: under it, straight as a lead-line would
have dropped, lay his father's house, if yet the house endured.

The mellowing influences of the evening mellowed his feelings,
and, putting his ambitions aside, he thought of the duty that was
bringing him to Jerusalem.

Out in the desert while with Ilderim, looking for strong places
and acquainting himself with it generally, as a soldier studies a
country in which he has projected a campaign, a messenger came one
evening with the news that Gratus was removed, and Pontius Pilate sent
to take his place.

Messala was disabled and believed him dead; Gratus was powerless and
gone; why should Ben-Hur longer defer the search for his mother and
sister? There was nothing to fear now. If he could not himself see
into the prisons of Judea, he could examine them with the eyes of
others. If the lost were found, Pilate could have no motive in holding
them in custody- none, at least, which could not be overcome by
purchase. If found, he would carry them to a place of safety, and
then, in calmer mind, his conscience at rest, this one first duty
done, he could give himself more entirely to the King Who Was
Coming. He resolved at once. That night he counselled with Ilderim,
and obtained his assent. Three Arabs came with him to Jericho, where
he left them and the horses, and proceeded alone and on foot.
Malluch was to meet him in Jerusalem.

Ben-Hur's scheme, be it observed, was as yet a generality.

In view of the future, it was advisable to keep himself in hiding
from the authorities, particularly the Romans. Malluch was shrewd
and trusty: the very man to charge with the conduct of the
investigation.

Where to begin was the first point. He had no clear idea about it.
His wish was to commence with the Tower of Antonia. Tradition not of
long standing planted the gloomy pile over a labyrinth of
prison-cells, which, more even than the strong garrison, kept it a
terror to the Jewish fancy. A burial, such as his people had been
subjected to, might be possible there. Besides, in such a strait,
the natural inclination is to start search at the place where the loss
occurred and he could not forget that his last sight of the loved ones
was as the guard pushed them along the street in the direction to
the Tower. If they were not there now, but had been, some record of
the fact must remain, a clue which had only to be followed
faithfully to the end.

Under this inclination, moreover, there was a hope which he could
not forgo. From Simonides, he knew Amrah, the Egyptian nurse, was
living. It will be remembered, doubtless, that the faithful
creature, the morning the calamity overtook the Hurs, broke from the
guard and ran back into the palace, where, along with other
chattels, she had been sealed up. During the years following,
Simonides kept her supplied; so she was there now, sole occupant of
the great house, which, with all his offers, Gratus had not been
able to sell. The story of its rightful owners sufficed to secure
the property from strangers, whether purchasers or mere occupants.
People going to and fro passed it with whispers. Its reputation was
that of a haunted house, derived probably from the infrequent glimpses
of poor old Amrah, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in a latticed
window. Certainly no more constant spirit ever abided than she; nor
was there ever a tenement so shunned and fitted for ghostly
habitation. Now, if he could get to her, Ben-Hur fancied she could
help him to knowledge which, though faint, might yet be serviceable.
Anyhow, sight of her in that place, so endeared by recollection, would
be to him a pleasure next to finding the objects of his solicitude.

So, first of all things, he would go to the old house, and look
for Amrah.

Thus resolved, he arose shortly after the going-down of the sun, and
began descent of the Mount by the road which, from the summit, bends a
little north of east. Down nearly at the foot, close by the bed of the
Cedron, he came to the intersection with the road leading south to the
village of Siloam and the pool of that name. There he fell in with a
herdsman driving some sheep to market. He spoke to the man, and joined
him, and in his company passed by Gethsemane on into the city
through the Fish Gate.

                      CHAPTER IV.

              BEN-HUR AT HIS FATHER'S GATE.


IT was dark when, parting with the drover inside the gate, Ben-Hur
turned into a narrow lane leading to the south. A few of the people
whom he met saluted him. The bouldering of the pavement was rough. The
houses on both sides were low, dark, and cheerless; the doors all
closed: from the roofs, occasionally, he heard women crooning to
children. The loneliness of his situation, the night, the
uncertainty cloaking the object of his coming, all affected him
cheerlessly. With feelings sinking lower and lower, he came directly
to the deep reservoir now known as the Pool of Bethesda, in which
the water reflected the overpending sky. Looking up, he beheld the
northern wall of the Tower of Antonia, a black frowning heap reared
into the dim steel-grey sky. He halted as if challenged by a
threatening sentinel.

The Tower stood up so high, and seemed so vast, resting apparently
upon foundations so sure, that he was constrained to acknowledge its
strength. If his mother were there in living burial, what could he
do for her? By the strong hand, nothing. An army might beat the
stony face with ballista and ram, and be laughed at. Against him
alone, the gigantic south-east turret looked down in the
self-containment of a hill. And he thought, cunning is so easily
baffled; and God, always the last resort of the helpless- God is
sometimes so slow to act!

In doubt and misgiving, he turned into the street in front of the
Tower, and followed it slowly on the west.

Over in Bezetha he knew there was a khan, where it was his intention
to seek lodgings while in the city; but just now he could not resist
the impulse to go home. His heart drew him that way.

The old formal salutation which he received from the few people
who passed him had never sounded so pleasantly. Presently, all the
eastern sky began to silver and shine, and objects before invisible in
the west- chiefly the tall towers on Mount Zion- emerged as from a
shadowy depth, and put on spectral distinctness, floating, as it were,
above the yawning blackness of the valley below, very castles in the
air.

He came, at length, to his father's house.

Of those who read this page, some there will be to divine his
feelings without prompting. They are such as had happy homes in
their youth, no matter how far that may have been back in time-
homes which are now the starting-points of all recollection; paradises
from which they went forth in tears, and which they would now return
to, if they could, as little children; places of laughter and singing,
and associations dearer than any or all the triumphs of after-life.

At the gate on the north side of the old house Ben-Hur stopped. In
the corners the wax used in the sealing-up was still plainly seen, and
across the valves was the board with the inscription-


               "THIS IS THE PROPERTY OF.
                     THE EMPEROR."


Nobody had gone in or out of the gate since the dreadful day of
the separation. Should he knock as of old? It was useless, he knew;
yet he could not resist the temptation. Amrah might hear, and look out
of one of the windows on that side. Taking a stone, he mounted the
broad stone step, and tapped three times. A dull echo replied. He
tried again, louder than before; and again, pausing each time to
listen. The silence was mocking. Retiring into the street, he
watched the windows; but they, too, were lifeless. The parapet on
the roof was defined sharply against the brightening sky; nothing
could have stirred upon it unseen by him, and nothing did stir.

From the north side he passed to the west, where there were four
windows which he watched long and anxiously, but with little effect.
At times his heart swelled with impotent wishes; at others, he
trembled at the deceptions of his own fancy. Amrah made no sign- not
even a ghost stirred.

Silently, then, he stole round to the south. There, too, the gate
was sealed and inscribed. The mellow splendour of the August moon,
pouring over the crest of Olivet, since termed the Mount of Offence,
brought the lettering boldly out; and he read, and was filled with
rage. All he could do was to wrench the board from its nailing, and
hurl it into the ditch. Then he sat upon the step, and prayed for
the New King, and that his coming might be hastened. As his blood
cooled, insensibly he yielded to the fatigue of long travel in the
summer heat, and sank down lower, and, at last, slept.

About that time two women came down the street from the direction of
the Tower of Antonia, approaching the palace of the Hurs. They
advanced stealthily, with timid steps, pausing often to listen. At the
corner of the rugged pile, one said to the other, in a low voice-

"This is it, Tirzah!"

And Tirzah, after a look, caught her mother's hand, and leaned
upon her heavily, sobbing, but silent.

"Let us go on, my child, because"- the mother hesitated and
trembled; then, with an effort to be calm, continued- "because when
morning comes they will put us out of the gate of the city to-
return no more."

Tirzah sank almost to the stones.

"Ah, yes!" she said, between sobs; "I forgot. I had the feeling of
going home. But we are lepers, and have no homes; we belong to the
dead!"

The mother stooped and raised her tenderly, saying, "We have nothing
to fear. Let us go on."

Indeed, lifting their empty hands, they could have run upon a legion
and put it to flight.

And, creeping in close to the rough wall, they glided on, like two
ghosts, till they came to the gate, before which they also paused.
Seeing the board, they stepped upon the stone in the scarce cold
tracks of Ben-Hur, and read the inscription- "This is the property
of the Emperor."

Then the mother clasped her hands, and, with upraised eyes, moaned
in unutterable anguish.

"What now, mother? You scare me!"

And the answer was, presently, "Oh, Tirzah, the poor are dead! He is
dead!"

"Who, mother?"
 "Your brother! They took everything from him- everything- even this
house!"

"Poor!" said Tirzah, vacantly.

"He will never be able to help us."

"And then, mother?"

"To-morrow, to-morrow, my child, we must find a seat by the wayside,
and beg alms as the lepers do; beg, or- "

Tirzah leaned upon her again, and said, whispering, "Let us- let
us die!"

"No!" the mother said, firmly. "The Lord has appointed our times,
and we are believers in the Lord. We will wait on him even in this.
Come away!"

She caught Tirzah's hand as, she spoke, and hastened to the west
corner of the house, keeping close to the wall. No one being in
sight there, they kept on to the next corner, and shrank from the
moonlight, which lay exceedingly bright over the whole south front,
and along a part of the street. The mother's will was strong.
Casting one look back and up to the windows on the west side, she
stepped out into the light, drawing Tirzah after her; and the extent
of their affliction was then to be seen- on their lips and cheeks,
in their bleared eyes, in their cracked hands; especially in the long,
snaky locks, stiff with loathsome ichor, and, like their eyebrows,
ghastly white. Nor was it possible to have told which was mother which
daughter; both alike seemed witch-like old.

"Hist!" said the mother. "There is someone lying upon the step- a
man. Let us go round him."

They crossed to the opposite side of the street quickly, and, in the
shade there, moved on till before the gate, where they stopped.

"He is asleep, Tirzah!" The man was very still.

The man was very still.

"Stay here, and I will try the gate."

So saying, the mother stole noiselessly across, and ventured to
touch the wicket; she never knew if it yielded, for that moment the
man sighed, and, turning restlessly, shifted the handkerchief on his
head in such a manner that the face was left upturned and fair in
the broad moonlight. She looked down at it and started; then looked
again, stooping a little, and arose and clasped her hands and raised
her eyes to heaven in mute appeal. An instant so, and she ran back
to Tirzah.

"As the Lord liveth, the man is my son- thy brother!" she said, in
an awe-inspiring whisper.

"My brother?- Judah?"

The mother caught her hand eagerly.

"Come!" she said, in the same enforced whisper, "let us look at
him together- once more- only once- then help thou thy servants,
Lord!"

They crossed the street hand in hand, ghostly-quick,
ghostly-still. When their shadows fell upon him, they stopped. One
of his hands was lying out upon the step palm up. Tirzah fell upon her
knees, and would have kissed it; but the mother drew her back.

"Not for thy life; not for thy life! Unclean, unclean!" she
whispered.

Tirzah shrank from him, as if he were the leprous one.

Ben-Hur was handsome as the manly are. His cheeks and forehead
were swarthy from exposure to the desert sun and air; yet under the
light moustache the lips were red, and the teeth shone white, and
the soft beard did not hide the full roundness of chin and throat. How
beautiful he appeared to the mother's eyes! How mightily she yearned
to put her arms about him, and take his head upon her bosom and kiss
him, as had been her wont in his happy childhood! Where got she the
strength to resist the impulse? From her love, O reader!- her
mother-love, which, if thou wilt observe well, hath this unlikeness to
any other love: tender to the object, it can be infinitely
tyrannical to itself, and thence all its power of self-sacrifice.
Not for restoration to health and fortune, not for any blessing of
life, not for life itself, would she have left her leprous kiss upon
his cheek! Yet touch him she must; in that instant of finding him
she must renounce him for ever! How bitter, bitter hard it was, let
some other mother say! She knelt down, and, crawling to his feet,
touched the sole of one of his sandals with her lips, yellow though it
was with the dust of the street- and touched it again and again; and
her very soul was in the kisses.

He stirred, and tossed his hand. They moved back, but heard him
mutter in his dream-

"Mother! Amrah! Where- "

He fell off into the deep sleep.

Tirzah stirred wistfully. The mother put her face in the dust,
struggling to suppress a sob so deep and strong it seemed her heart
was bursting. Almost she wished he might waken.

He had asked for her; she was not forgotten; in his sleep he was
thinking of her. Was it not enough?

Presently the mother beckoned to Tirzah, and they arose, and
taking one more look, as if to print his image past fading, hand in
hand they recrossed the street. Back in the shade of the wall there,
they retired and knelt, looking at him, waiting for him to wake-
waiting some revelation, they knew not what. Nobody has yet given us a
measure for the patience of a love like theirs.

By-and-by, the sleep being yet upon him, another woman appeared at
the corner of the palace. The two in the shade saw her plainly in
the light; a small figure, much-bent, dark-skinned, grey-haired,
dressed neatly in servant's garb, and carrying a basket full of
vegetables.

At sight of the man upon the step the new-comer stopped; then, as if
decided, she walked on- very lightly as she drew near the sleeper.
Passing round him, she went to the gate, slid the wicket latch
easily to one side, and put her hand in the opening. One of the
broad boards in the left valve swung ajar without noise. She put the
basket through, and was about to follow, when, yielding to
curiosity, she lingered to have one look at the stranger whose face
was below her in open view.

The spectators across the street heard a low exclamation, and saw
the woman rub her eyes as if to renew their power, bend closer down,
clasp her hands, gaze wildly around, look at the sleeper, stoop and
raise the outlying hand, and kiss it fondly- that which they wished so
mightily to do, but dared not.

Awakened by the action, Ben-Hur instinctively withdrew the hand;
as he did so, his eyes met the woman's.

"Amrah! O Amrah, is it thou?" he said.

The good heart made no answer in words, but fell upon his neck,
crying for joy.

Gently he put her arms away, and lifting the dark face wet with
tears, kissed it, his joy only a little less than hers. Then those
across the way heard him say-

"Mother- Tirzah- O Amrah, tell me of them! Speak, speak, I pray
thee!"

Amrah only cried afresh.

"Thou hast seen them, Amrah. Thou knowest where they are; tell me
they are at home."

Tirzah moved, but the mother, divining her purpose, caught her and
whispered, "Do not go- not for life. Unclean, unclean!"

Her love was in a tyrannical mood. Though both their hearts broke,
he should not become what they were; and she conquered.

Meantime Amrah, so entreated, only wept the more.

"Wert thou going in?" he asked, presently, seeing the board swung
back. "Come, then. I will go with thee." He arose as he spoke. "The
Romans- be the curse of the Lord upon them!- the Romans lied. The
house is mine. Rise, Amrah, and let us go in."

A moment and they were gone, leaving the two in the shade to
behold the gate staring blankly at them- the gate which they might not
ever enter more. They nestled together in the dust.

They had done their duty.

Their love was proven.

Next morning they were found, and driven out the city with stones.

"Begone! Ye are of the dead; go to the dead!"

With the doom ringing in their ears, they went forth.

                      CHAPTER V.

            THE TOMB ABOVE THE KING'S GARDEN.


NOWADAYS travellers in the Holy Land looking for the famous place
with the beautiful name, the King's Garden, descend the bed of the
Cedron or the curve of Gihon and Hinnom as far as the old well
En-rogel, take a drink of the sweet living water, and stop, having
reached the limit of the interesting in that direction. They look at
the great stones with which the well is curbed, ask its depth, smile
at the primitive mode of drawing the purling treasure, and waste
some pity on the ragged wretch who presides over it; then, facing
about, they are enraptured with the mounts Moriah and Zion, both of
which slope towards them from the north, one terminating in Ophel, the
other in what used to be the site of the city of David. In the
background, up far in the sky, the garniture of the sacred places is
visible: here the Haram, with its graceful dome; yonder the stalwart
remains of Hippicus defiant even in ruins. When that view has been
enjoyed, and is sufficiently impressed upon the memory, the travellers
glance at the Mount of Offence standing in rugged stateliness at their
right hand, arid then at the Hill of Evil Counsel over on the left, in
which, if they be well up in Scriptural history and in the
traditions rabbinical and monkish, they will find a certain interest
not to be overcome by superstitious horror.

It were long to tell all the points of interest grouped round that
hill; for the present purpose, enough that its feet are planted in the
veritable orthodox Hell of the moderns- the Hell of brimstone and
fire- in the old nomenclature Gehenna; and that now, as in the days of
Christ, its bluff face opposite the city on the south and south-east
is seamed and pitted with tombs which have been immemorially the
dwelling-places of lepers, not singly, but collectively. There they
set up their government and established their society; there they
founded a city and dwelt by themselves, avoided as the accursed of
God.

The second morning after the incidents of the preceding chapter,
Amrah drew near the well En-rogel, and seated herself upon a stone.
One familiar with Jerusalem, looking at her, would have said she was
the favourite servant of some well-to-do family. She brought with
her a water-jar and a basket, the contents of the latter covered
with a snow-white napkin. Placing them on the ground at her side,
she loosened the shawl which fell from her head, knit her fingers
together in her lap, and gazed demurely up to where the hill drops
steeply down into the Aceldama and the Potter's Field.

It was very early, and she was the first to arrive at the well.
Soon, however, a man came bringing a rope and a leathern bucket.
Saluting the little dark-faced woman, he undid the rope, fixed it to
the bucket, and waited customers. Others who chose to do so might draw
water for themselves; he was a professional in the business, and would
fill the largest jar the stoutest woman could carry for a gerah.

Amrah sat still, and had nothing to say. Seeing the jar, the man
asked after a while if she wished it filled; she answered him civilly,
"Not now;" whereupon he gave her no more attention. When the dawn
was fairly defined over Olivet, his patrons began to arrive, and he
had all he could do to attend to them. All the time she kept her seat,
looking intently up at the hill.

The sun made its appearance, yet she sat watching and waiting; and
while she thus waits, let us see what her purpose is.

Her custom had been to go to market after nightfall. Stealing out
unobserved, she would seek the shops in the Tyropoeon, or those over
by the Fish Gate in the east, make her purchases of meat and
vegetables, and return and shut herself up again.

The pleasure she derived from the presence of Ben-Hur in the old
house once more may be imagined. She had nothing to tell him of her
mistress or Tirzah- nothing. He would have had her move to a place not
so lonesome; she refused. She would have had him take his own room
again, which was just as he had left it; but the danger of discovery
was too great, and he wished above all things to avoid inquiry. He
would come and see her often as possible. Coming in the night, he
would also go away in the night. She was compelled to be satisfied,
and at once occupied herself contriving ways to make him happy. That
he was a man now did not occur to her; nor did it enter her mind
that he might have put by or lost his boyish tastes; to please him,
she thought to go on her old round of services. He used to be fond
of confections; she remembered the things in that line which delighted
him most, and resolved to make them, and have a supply always ready
when he came. Could anything be happier? So next night, earlier than
usual, she stole out with her basket, and went over to the Fish Gate
Market. Wandering about, seeking the best honey, she chanced to hear a
man telling a story.

What the story was the reader can arrive at with sufficient
certainty when told that the narrator was one of the men who had
held torches for the commandant of the Tower of Antonia when, down
in cell VI., the Hurs were found. The particulars of the finding
were all told, and she heard them, with the names of the prisoners,
and the widow's account of herself.

The feelings with which Amrah listened to the recital were such as
became the devoted creature she was. She made her purchases, and
returned home in a dream. What a happiness she had in store for her
boy! She had found his mother!

She put the basket away, now laughing, now crying. Suddenly she
stopped and thought. It would kill him to be told that his mother
and Tirzah were lepers. He would go through the awful city over on the
Hill of Evil Counsel- into each infected tomb he would go without
rest, asking for them, and the disease would catch him, and their fate
would be his. She wrung her hands. What should she do?

Like many a one before her, and many a once since, she derived
inspiration, if not wisdom, from her affection, and came to a singular
conclusion.

The lepers, she knew, were accustomed of mornings to come down
from their sepulchral abodes in the hill, and take a supply of water
for the day from the well En-rogel. Bringing their jars, they would
set them on the ground and wait, standing afar until they were filled.
To that the mistress and Tirzah must come; for the law was inexorable,
and admitted no distinction. A rich leper was no better than a poor
one.

So Amrah decided not to speak to Ben-Hur of the story she had heard,
but go alone to the well and wait. Hunger and thirst would drive the
unfortunates thither, and she believed she could recognize them at
sight; if not, they might recognize her.

Meantime Ben-Hur came, and they talked much. To-morrow Malluch would
arrive; then the search should be immediately begun. He was
impatient to be about it. To amuse himself he would visit the sacred
places in the vicinity. The secret, we may be sure, weighed heavily on
the woman, but she held her peace.

When he was gone she busied herself in the preparation of things
good to eat, applying her utmost skill to the work. At the approach of
day, as signalled by the stars, she filled the basket, selected a jar,
and took the road to En-rogel, going out by the Fish Gate, which was
earliest open, and arriving as we have seen.

Shortly after sunrise, when business at the well was most
pressing, and the drawer of water most hurried; when, in fact,
half-a-dozen buckets were in use at the same time, everybody making
haste to get away before the cool of the morning melted into the
heat of the day, the tenantry of the hill began to appear and move
about the doors of their tombs. Somewhat later they were discernible
in groups, of which not a few were children so young that they
suggested the holiest relation. Numbers came momentarily around the
turn of the bluff- women with jars upon their shoulders, old and
very feeble men hobbling along on staffs and crutches. Some leaned
upon the shoulders of others; a few- the utterly helpless- lay, like
heaps of rags, upon litters. Even that community of superlative sorrow
had its love-light to make life endurable and attractive. Distance
softened without entirely veiling the misery of the outcasts.

From her seat by the well Amrah kept watch upon the spectral groups.
She scarcely moved. More than once she imagined she saw those she
sought. That they were there upon the hill she had no doubt; that they
must come down and near she knew; when the people at the well were all
served they would come.

Now, quite at the base of the bluff there was a tomb which had
more than once attracted Amrah by its wide gaping. A stone of large
dimensions stood near its mouth. The sun looked into it through the
hottest hours of the day, and altogether it seemed uninhabitable by
anything living, unless, perchance by some wild dogs returning from
scavenger duty down in Gehenna. Thence, however, and greatly to her
surprise, the patient Egyptian beheld two women come, one
half-supporting, half-leading the other. They were both
white-haired; both looked old; but their garments were not rent, and
they gazed about them as if the locality were new. The witness below
thought she even saw them shrink terrified at the spectacle offered by
the hideous assemblage of which they found themselves part. Slight
reasons, certainly, to make her heart beat faster, and draw her
attention to them exclusively; but so they did.

The two remained by the stone awhile; then they moved slowly,
painfully, and with much fear towards the well, whereat several voices
were raised to stop them; yet they kept on. The drawer of water picked
up some pebbles, and made ready to drive them back. The company cursed
them. The greater company on the hill shouted shrilly, "Unclean,
unclean!"

"Surely," thought Amrah of the two, as they kept coming- "surely,
they are strangers to the usage of lepers."

She arose, and went to meet them, taking the basket and jar. The
alarm at the well immediately subsided.

"What a fool," said one, laughing- "what a fool to give good bread
to the dead in that way!"

"And to think of her coming so far!" said another. "I would at least
make them meet me at the gate."

Amrah, with better impulse, proceeded. If she should be mistaken!
Her heart arose into her throat. And the farther she went the more
doubtful and confused she became. Four or five yards from where they
stood waiting for her she stopped.

That the mistress she loved! whose hand she had so often kissed in
gratitude! whose image of matronly loveliness she had treasured in
memory so faithfully! And that the Tirzah she had nursed through
babyhood! whose pains she had soothed, whose sports she had shared!
that the smiling, sweet-faced, songful Tirzah, the light of the
great house, the promised blessing of her old age! Her mistress, her
darling- they? The soul of the woman sickened at the sight.

"These are old women," she said to herself. "I never saw them
before. I will go back."

She turned away.

"Amrah," said one of the lepers.

The Egyptian dropped the jar, and looked back, trembling.

"Who called me?" she asked.

"Amrah."

The servant's wondering eyes settled upon the speaker's face.

"Who are you?" she cried.

"We are they you are seeking."

Amrah fell upon her knees.

"O my mistress, my mistress! As I have made your God my God, be he
praised that he has led me to you!"

And upon her knees the poor overwhelmed creature began moving
forward.

"Stay, Amrah! Come not nearer. Unclean, unclean!"

The words sufficed. Amrah fell upon her face, sobbing so loud the
people at the well heard her. Suddenly she arose upon her knees again.

"O my mistress, where is Tirzah!"

"Here I am, Amrah, here! Will you bring me a little water?"

The habit of the servant renewed itself. Putting back the coarse
hair fallen over her face, Amrah arose and went to the basket and
uncovered it.

"See," she said, "here are bread and meat."

She would have spread the napkin upon the ground, but the mistress
spoke again-

"Do not so, Amrah. Those yonder may stone you, and refuse us
drink. Leave the basket with me. Take up the jar and fill it, and
bring it here. We will carry them to the tomb with us. For this day
you will then have rendered all the service that is lawful. Haste,
Amrah."

The people under whose eyes all this had passed made way for the
servant, and even helped her fill the jar, so piteous was the grief
her countenance showed.

"Who are they?" a woman asked.

Amrah meekly answered, "They used to be good to me."

Raising the jar upon her shoulder, she hurried back. In
forgetfulness she would have gone to them, but the cry "Unclean,
unclean! Beware!" arrested her. Placing the water by the basket, she
stepped back, and stood off a little way.

"Thank you, Amrah," said the mistress, taking the articles into
possession. "This is very good of you."

"Is there nothing more I can do?" asked Amrah.

The mother's hand was upon the jar, and she was fevered with thirst;
yet she paused, and, rising, said firmly, "Yes, I know that Judah
has come home. I saw him at the gate the night before last, asleep
on the step. I saw you wake him."

Amrah clasped her hands.

"O my mistress! You saw it, and did not come!"

"That would have been to kill him. I can never take him in my arms
again. I can never kiss him more. O Amrah, Amrah, you love him, I
know!"

"Yes," said the true heart, bursting into tears again, and kneeling.
"I would die for him."

"Prove to me what you say, Amrah."

"I am ready."

"Then you shall not tell him where we are or that you have seen
us- only that, Amrah."

"But he is looking for you. He has come from afar to find you."

"He must not find us. He shall become what we are. Hear, Amrah.
You shall serve us as you have this day. You shall bring us the little
we need- not long now- not long. You shall come every morning and
evening thus, and- and"- the voice trembled, the strong will almost
broke down- "and you shall tell us of him, Amrah; but to him you shall
say nothing of us. Hear you?"

"Oh, it will be so hard to hear him speak of you, and see him
going about looking for you- to see all his love, and not tell him
so much as that you are alive!"

"Can you tell him we are well, Amrah?"

The servant bowed her head in her arms.

"No," the mistress continued; "wherefore be silent altogether. Go
now, and come this evening. We will look for you. Till then,
farewell."

"The burden will be heavy, O my mistress, and hard to bear," said
Amrah, falling upon her face.

"How much harder would it be to see him as we are," the mother
answered as she gave the basket to Tirzah. "Come again this
evening," she repeated, taking up the water, and starting for the
tomb.

Amrah waited kneeling until they had disappeared; then she took
the road sorrowfully home.

In the evening she returned and thereafter it became her custom to
serve them in the morning and evening, so that they wanted for nothing
needful. The tomb, though ever so stony and desolate, was less
cheerless than the cell in the Tower had been. Daylight gilded its
door, and it was in the beautiful world. Then, one can wait death with
so much more faith out under the open sky.

                      CHAPTER VI.

            A TRICK OF PILATE'S- THE COMBAT.


THE morning of the first day of the seventh month- Tishri in the
Hebrew, October in English- Ben-Hur arose from his couch in the khan
ill-satisfied with the whole world.

Little time had been lost in consultation upon the arrival of
Malluch. The latter began the search at the Tower of Antonia, and
began it boldly, by a direct inquiry of the tribune commanding. He
gave the officer a history of the Hurs, and all the particulars of the
accident to Gratus, describing the affair as wholly without
criminality. The object of the quest now, he said, was if any of the
unhappy family were discovered alive to carry a petition to the feet
of Caesar, praying restitution of the estate and return to their civil
rights. Such a petition, he had no doubt, would result in an
investigation by the imperial order, a proceeding of which the friends
of the family had no fear.

In reply the tribune stated circumstantially the discovery of the
women in the Tower, and permitted a reading of the memorandum he had
taken of their account of themselves; when leave to copy it was
prayed, he even permitted that.

Malluch thereupon hurried to Ben-Hur.

It were useless to attempt description of the effect the terrible
story had upon the young man. The pain was not relieved by tears or
passionate outcries! it was too deep for any expression. He sat
still a long time, with pallid face and labouring heart. Now and then,
as if to show the thoughts which were most poignant, he muttered-

"Lepers, lepers! They- my mother and Tirzah- they lepers! How
long, how long, O Lord!"

One moment he was torn by a virtuous rage of sorrow, next by a
longing for vengeance, which, it must be admitted, was scarcely less
virtuous.

At length he arose.

"I must look for them. They may be dying."

"Where will you look?" asked Malluch.

"There is but one place for them to go."

Malluch interposed, and finally prevailed so far as to have the
management of the further attempt intrusted to him. Together they went
to the gate over on the side opposite the Hill of Evil Counsel,
immemorially the lepers' begging-ground. There they stayed all day,
giving alms, asking for the two women, and offering rich rewards for
their discovery. So they did in repetition day after day through the
remainder of the fifth month, and all the sixth. There was diligent
scouring of the dread city on the hill by lepers to whom the rewards
offered were mighty incentives, for they were only dead in law. Over
and over again the gaping tomb down by the well was invaded, and its
tenants subjected to inquiry; but they kept their secret fast. The
result was failure. And now, the morning of the first day of the
seventh month, the extent of the additional information gained was
that not long before two leprous women had been stoned from the Fish
Gate by the authorities. A little pressing of the clue, together
with some shrewd comparison of dates, led to the sad assurance that
the sufferers were the Hurs, and left the old questions darker than
ever. Where were they? And what had become of them?

"It was not enough that my people should be made lepers," said the
son, over and over again, with what intensity of bitterness the reader
may imagine; "that was not enough. Oh no! They must be stoned from
their native city! My mother is dead! she has wandered to the
wilderness! she is dead! Tirzah is dead! I alone am left. And for
what? How long, O God, thou Lord God of my fathers, how long shall
this Rome endure?"

Angry, hopeless, vengeful, he entered the court of the khan, and
found it crowded with people come in during the night. While he ate
his breakfast, he listened to some of them. To one party he was
specially attracted. They were mostly young, stout, active, hardy men,
in manner and speech provincial. In their look, the certain
indefinable air, the pose of the head, glance of the eye, there was
a spirit which did not, as a rule, belong to the outward seeming of
the lower orders of Jerusalem; the spirit thought by some to be a
peculiarity of life in mountainous districts, but which may be more
surely traced to a life of healthful freedom. In a short time he
ascertained they were Galileans, in the city for various purposes, but
chiefly to take part in the Feast of Trumpets, set for that day.
They became to him at once objects of interest, as hailing from the
region in which he hoped to find readiest support in the work he was
shortly to set about.

While observing them, his mind running ahead in thought of
achievements possible to a legion of such spirits disciplined after
the severe Roman style, a man came into the court, his face much
flushed, his eyes bright with excitement.

"Why are you here?" he said to the Galileans. "The rabbis and elders
are going from the Temple to see Pilate. Come, make haste, and let
us go with them.

They surrounded him in a moment.

"To see Pilate! For what?"

"They have discovered a conspiracy. Pilate's new aqueduct is to be
paid for with money of the Temple."

"What, with the sacred treasure?"

They repeated the question to each other with flashing eyes.

"It is Corban- money of God. Let him touch a shekel of it if he
dare!"

"Come," cried the messenger. "The procession is by this time
across the bridge. The whole city is pouring after. We may be
needed. Make haste!"

As if the thought and the act were one, there was quick putting-away
of useless garments, and the party stood forth bareheaded, and in
the short sleeveless under-tunics they were used to wearing as reapers
in the field and boatmen on the lake- the garb in which they climbed
the hills following the herds, and plucked the ripened vintage,
careless of the sun. Lingering only to tighten their girdles, they
said, "We are ready."

Then Ben-Hur spoke to them.

"Men of Galilee," he said, "I am a son of Judah. Will you take me in
your company?"

"We may have to fight," they replied.

"Oh, then, I will not be first to run away!"

They took the retort in good-humour, and the messenger said-

"You seem stout enough. Come along."

Ben-Hur put off his outer garments.

"You think there may be fighting?" he asked, quietly, as he
tightened his girdle.

"Yes."

"With whom?"

"The guard."

"Legionaries?"

"Whom else can a Roman trust?"

"What have you to fight with?"

They looked at him silently.

"Well," he continued, "we will have to do the best we can; but had
we not better choose a leader? The legionaries always have one, and so
are able to act with one mind."

The Galileans stared more curiously, as if the idea were new to
them.

"Let us at least agree to stay together," he said. "Now I am
ready, if you are."

"Yes, let us go."

The khan, it should not be forgotten, was in Bezetha, the new
town; and to get to the Praetorium, as the Romans resonantly styled
the palace of Herod on Mount Zion, the party had to cross the lowlands
north and west of the Temple. By streets- if they may be so called-
trending north and south, with intersections hardly up to the
dignity of alleys, they passed rapidly round the Akra district to
the Tower of Mariamne, from which the way was short to the grand
gate of the walled heights. In going, they overtook, or were overtaken
by, people like themselves stirred to wrath by news of the proposed
desecration. When, at length, they reached the gate of the Praetorium,
the procession of elders and rabbis had passed in with a great
following, leaving a greater crowd clamouring outside.

A centurion kept the entrance with the guard drawn up full armed
under the beautiful marble battlements. The sun struck the soldiers
fervidly on helm and shield; but they kept their ranks indifferent
alike to its dazzle and to the mouthings of the rabble. Through the
open bronze gates a current of citizens poured in, while a much lesser
one poured out.

"What is going on?" one of the Galileans asked an outcomer.

"Nothing," was the reply. "The rabbis are before the door of the
palace asking to see Pilate. He has refused to come out. They have
sent one to tell him they will not go away till he has heard them.
They are waiting."

"Let us go in," said Ben-Hur, in his quiet way, seeing what his
companions probably did not, that there was not only a disagreement
between the suitors and the governor, but an issue joined, and a
serious question as to who should have his will.

Inside the gate there was a row of trees in leaf, with seats under
them. The people, whether going or coming, carefully avoided the shade
cast gratefully upon the white, clean-swept pavement; for, strange
as it may seem, a rabbinical ordinance, alleged to have been derived
from the law, permitted no green thing to be grown within the walls of
Jerusalem. Even the wise king, it was said, wanting a garden for his
Egyptian bride, was constrained to found it down in the
meeting-place of the valleys above En-rogel.

Through the tree-tops shone the outer fronts of the palace.
Turning to the right, the party proceeded a short distance to a
spacious square, on the west side of which stood the residence of
the governor. An excited multitude filled the square. Every face was
directed towards a portico built over a broad doorway which was
closed. Under the portico there was another array of legionaries.

The throng was so close the friends could not well have advanced
if such had been their desire; they remained therefore in the rear,
observers of what was going on. About the portico they could see the
high turbans of the rabbis, whose impatience communicated at times
to the mass behind them; a cry was frequent to the effect, "Pilate, if
thou be a governor, come forth, come forth!"

Once a man coming out pushed through the crowd, his face red with
anger.

"Israel is of no account here," he said, in a loud voice. "On this
holy ground we are no better than dogs of Rome."

"Will he not come out, think you?"

"Come? Has he not thrice refused?"

"What will the rabbis do?"

"As at Caesarea- camp here till he gives them ear."

"He will not dare touch the treasure, will he?" asked one of the
Galileans.

"Who can say? Did not a Roman profane the Holy of Holies? Is there
anything sacred from Romans?"

An hour passed, and though Pilate deigned them no answer, the rabbis
and crowd remained. Noon came, bringing a shower from the west, but no
change in the situation, except that the multitude was larger and much
noisier, and the feeling more decidedly angry. The shouting was almost
continuous, Come forth, come forth! The cry was sometimes with
disrespectful variations. Meanwhile Ben-Hur held his Galilean
friends together. He judged the pride of the Roman would eventually
get the better of his discretion, and that the end could not be far
off. Pilate was but waiting for the people to furnish him an excuse
for resort to violence.

And at last the end came. In the midst of the assemblage there was
heard the sound of blows, succeeded instantly by yells of pain and
rage, and a most furious commotion. The venerable men in front of
the portico faced about aghast. The common people in the rear at first
pushed forward; in the centre, the effort was to get out; and for a
short time the pressure of opposing forces was terrible. A thousand
voices made inquiry, raised all at once; as no one had time to answer,
the surprise speedily became a panic.

Ben-Hur kept his senses.

"You cannot see," he said to one of the Galileans.

"No."

"I will raise you up."

He caught the man about the middle, and lifted him bodily.

"What is it?"

"I see now," said the man. "There are some armed with dubs, and they
are beating the people. They are dressed like Jews."

"Who are they?"

"Romans, as the Lord liveth! Romans in disguise. Their clubs fly
like flails! There, I saw a rabbi struck down- an old man! They
spare nobody!"

Ben-Hur let the man down.

"Men of Galilee," he said, "it is a trick of Pilate's. Now, will you
do what I say, we will get even with the club-men."

The Galilean spirit arose.

"Yes, yes!" they answered.

"Let us go back to the trees by the gate, and we may find the
planting of Herod, though unlawful, has some good in it after all.
Come!"

They ran back all of them fast as they could; and, by throwing their
united weight upon the limbs, tore them from the trunks. In a brief
time they, too, were armed. Returning, at the corner of the square
they met the crowd rushing madly for the gate. Behind, the clamour
continued- a medley of shrieks, groans, and execrations.

"To the wall!" Ben-Hur shouted. "To the wall!- and let the herd go
by!"

So, clinging to the masonry at their right hand, they escaped the
might of the rush, and little by little made headway until, at last,
the square was reached.

"Keep together now, and follow me!"

By this time Ben-Hur's leadership was perfect; and as he pushed into
the seething mob his party closed after him in a body. And when the
Romans, clubbing the people and making merry as they struck them down,
came hand to hand with the Galileans, lithe of limb, eager for the
fray, and equally armed, they were in turn surprised. Then the
shouting was close and fierce; the crash of sticks rapid and deadly;
the advance furious as hate could make it. No one performed his part
as well as Ben-Hur, whose training served him admirably; for, not
merely he knew to strike and guard; his long arm, perfect action,
and incomparable strength helped him, also, to success in every
encounter. He was at the same time fighting-man and leader. The club
he wielded was of goodly length and weighty, so had need to strike a
man but once. He seemed, moreover, to have eyes for each combat of his
friends, and the faculty of being at the right moment exactly where he
was most needed. In his fighting cry there were inspiration for his
party and alarm for his enemies. Thus surprised and equally matched,
the Romans at first retired, but finally turned their backs and fled
to the portico. The impetuous Galileans would have pursued them to the
steps, but Ben-Hur wisely restrained them.

"Stay, my men!" he said. "The centurion yonder is coming with the
guard. They have swords and shields; we cannot fight them. We have
done well; let us get back and out of the gate while we may."

They obeyed him, though slowly; for they had frequently to step over
their countrymen lying where they had been felled; some writhing and
groaning, some praying help, others mute as the dead. But the fallen
were not all Jews. In that there was consolation.

The centurion shouted to them as they went off; Ben-Hur laughed at
him, and replied in his own tongue, "If we are dogs of Israel, you are
Jackals of Rome. Remain here and we will come again."

The Galileans cheered, and, laughing, went on.

Outside the gate there was a multitude the like of which Ben-Hur had
never seen, not even in the circus at Antioch. The house-tops, the
streets, the slope of the hill, appeared densely covered with people
wailing and praying. The air was filled with their cries and
imprecations.

The party were permitted to pass without challenge by the outer
guard. But hardly were they out before the centurion in charge at
the portico appeared, and in the gateway called to Ben-Hur-

"Ho, insolent! Art thou a Roman or a Jew?"

Ben-Hur answered, "I am a son of Judah, born here. What wouldst thou
with me?"

"Stay and fight."

"Singly?"

"As thou wilt!"

Ben-Hur laughed derisively.

"O brave Roman! Worthy son of the bastard Roman Jove! I have no
arms."

"Thou shalt have mine," the centurion answered. "I will borrow of
the guard here."

The people in hearing of the colloquy became silent; and from them
the hush spread afar. But lately Ben-Hur had beaten a Roman under
the eyes of Antioch and the Farther East; now, could he beat another
one under the eyes of Jerusalem, the honour might be vastly profitable
to the cause of the New King. He did not hesitate. Going frankly to
the centurion, he said, "I am. willing. Lend me thy sword and shield."

"And the helm and breastplate?" asked the Roman.

"Keep them. They might not fit me."

The arms were as frankly delivered, and directly the centurion was
ready. All this time the soldiers in rank close by the gate never
moved; they simply listened. As to the multitude, only when the
combatants advanced to begin the fight the question sped from mouth to
mouth, "Who is he?" And no one knew.

Now the Roman supremacy in arms lay in three things- submission to
discipline, the legionary formation of battle, and a peculiar use of
the short sword. In combat, they never struck, or cut; from first to
last they thrust- they advanced thrusting, they retired thrusting; and
generally their aim was at the foeman's face. All this was well
known to Ben-Hur. As they were about to engage he said-

"I told thee I was a son of Judah; but I did not tell that I am
lanista-taught. Defend thyself!"

At the last word Ben-Hur closed with his antagonist. A moment,
standing foot to foot, they glared at each other over the rims of
their embossed shields; then the Roman pushed forward and feinted an
under-thrust. The Jew laughed at him. A thrust at the face followed.
The Jew stepped lightly to the left; quick as the thrust was, the step
was quicker. Under the lifted arm of the foe he slid his shield,
advancing it until the sword and sword-arm were both caught on its
upper surface; another step, this time forward and left, and the man's
whole right side was offered to the point. The centurion fell
heavily on his breast, clanging the pavement, and Ben-Hur had won.
With his foot upon his enemy's back, he raised his shield overhead
after a gladiatorial custom, and saluted the imperturbable soldiers by
the gate.

When the people realized the victory they behaved like mad. On the
houses far as the Xystus, fast as the word could fly, they waved their
shawls and handkerchiefs and shouted; and if he had consented, the
Galileans would have carried Ben-Hur off upon their shoulders.

To a petty officer who then advanced from the gate he said, "Thy
comrade died like a soldier. I leave him undespoiled. Only his sword
and shield are mine."

With that he walked away. Off a little he spoke to the Galileans-

"Brethren, you have behaved well. Let us now separate, lest we be
pursued. Meet me to-night at the khan in Bethany. I have something
to propose to you of great interest to Israel."

"Who are you?" they asked him.

"A son of Judah," he answered, simply.

A throng eager to see him surged around the party.

"Will you come to Bethany?" he asked. "Yes, we will come." "Then
bring with you this sword and shield, that I may know you."

Pushing brusquely through the increasing crowd, he speedily
disappeared.

At the instance of Pilate, the people went up from the city and
carried off their dead and wounded, and there was much mourning for
them; but the grief was greatly lightened by the victory of the
unknown champion, who was everywhere sought, and by every one
extolled. The fainting spirit of the nation was revived by the brave
deed; insomuch that in the streets and up in the Temple even, amidst
the solemnities of the feast, old tales of the Maccabees were told
again, and thousands shook their heads, whispering wisely-

"A little longer, only a little longer, brethren, and Israel will
come to her own. Let there be faith in the Lord, and patience."

In such manner Ben-Hur obtained hold on Galilee, and paved the way
to greater services in the cause of the King Who Was Coming.

And with what result we shall see.

