                     BOOK EIGHTH.


        "Who could resist? Who in this universe?
         She did so breathe ambrosia, so immerse
         My fine existence in a golden clime.
         She took me like a child of suckling-time,
         And cradled me in roses. Thus condemn'd,
         The current of my former life was stemm'd,
         And to this arbitrary queen of sense
         I bow'd a tranced vassal."       -KEATS, Endymion.


          "I am the resurrection and the life."


                      CHAPTER I.

              GUESTS IN THE HOUSE OF HUR.


ESTHER- Esther! Speak to the servant below that he may bring me a
cup of water."

"Would you not rather have wine, father?"

"Let him bring both."

This was in the summer-house upon the roof of the old palace of
the Hurs in Jerusalem. From the parapet overlooking the courtyard
Esther called to a man in waiting there; at the same moment another
man-servant came up the steps and saluted respectfully.

"A package for the master," he said, giving her a letter enclosed in
linen cloth, tied and sealed.

For the satisfaction of the reader, we stop to say that it is the
twenty-first day of March, nearly three years after the annunciation
of the Christ at Bethabara.

In the meanwhile, Malluch, acting for Ben-Hur, who could not
longer endure the emptiness and decay of his father's house, had
bought it from Pontius Pilate; and, in process of repair, gates,
courts, lewens, stairways, terraces, rooms, and roof had been cleansed
and thoroughly restored; not only was there no reminder left of the
tragic circumstances so ruinous to the family, but the refurnishment
was in a style richer than before. At every point, indeed, a visitor
was met by evidences of the higher tastes acquired by the young
proprietor during his years of residence in the villa by Misenum and
in the Roman capital.

Now it should not be inferred from this explanation that Ben-Hur had
publicly assumed ownership of the property. In his opinion, the hour
for that was not yet come. Neither had he yet taken his proper name.
Passing the time in the labours of preparation in Galilee, he waited
patiently the action of the Nazarene, who became daily more and more a
mystery to him, and by prodigies done, often before his eyes, kept him
in a state of anxious doubt both as to his character and mission.
Occasionally he came up to the Holy City, stopping at the paternal
house; always, however, as a stranger and a guest.

The visits of Ben-Hur, it should also be observed, were for more
than mere rest from labour. Balthasar and Iras made their home in
the palace; and the charm of the daughter was still upon him with
all its original freshness, while the father, though feebler in
body, held him an unflagging listener to speeches of astonishing
power, urging the divinity of the wandering miracle-worker of whom
they were all so expectant.

As to Simonides and Esther, they had arrived from Antioch, only a
few days before this their reappearance- a wearisome journey to the
merchant, borne, as he had been, in a palanquin swung between two
camels, which, in their careening, did not always keep the same
step. But now that he was come, the good man, it seemed, could not see
enough of his native land. He delighted in the perch upon the roof,
and spent most of his day hours there seated in an arm-chair, the
duplicate of that one kept for him in the cabinet over the store-house
by the Orontes. In the shade of the summer-house he could drink
fully of the inspiring air lying lightly upon the familiar hills; he
could better watch the sun rise, run its course, and set as it, used
to in the far-gone, not a habit lost; and with Esther by him it was so
much easier, up there close to the sky, to bring back the other
Esther, his love in youth, his wife, dearer growing with the passage
of years. And yet he was not unmindful of business. Every day a
messenger brought him a despatch from Sanballat, in charge of the
big commerce behind; and every day a despatch left him for Sanballat
with directions of such minuteness of detail as to exclude all
judgment save his own, and all chances except those the Almighty has
refused to submit to the most mindful of men.

As Esther started in return to the summer-house, the sunlight fell
softly upon the dustless roof, showing her a woman now- small,
graceful in form, of regular features, rosy with youth and health,
bright with intelligence, beautiful with the outshining of a devoted
nature- a woman to be loved because loving was a habit of life
irrepressible with her.

She looked at the package as she turned, paused, looked at it a
second time more closely than at first; and the blood rose reddening
her cheeks- the seal was Ben-Hur's. With quickened steps she
hastened on.

Simonides held the package a moment while he also inspected the
seal. Breaking it open, he gave her the roll it contained.

"Read," he said.

His eyes were upon her as he spoke, and instantly a troubled
expression fell upon his own face.

"You know who it is from, I see, Esther."

"Yes- from- our master."

Though the manner was halting, she met his gaze with modest
sincerity. Slowly his chin sank into the roll of flesh puffed out
under it like a cushion.

"You love him, Esther?" he said, quietly.

"Yes," she answered.

"Have you thought well of what you do?"

"I have tried not to think of him, father, except as the master to
whom I am dutifully bound. The effort has not helped me to strength."

"A good girl, a good girl, even as thy mother was," he said,
dropping into reverie, from which she roused him by unrolling the
paper.

"The Lord forgive me, but- but thy love might not have been vainly
given had I kept fast hold of all I had, as I might have done- such
power is there in money!"

"It would have been worse for me had you done so, father; for then I
had been unworthy a look from him, and without pride in you. Shall I
not read now?"

"In a moment," he said. "Let me, for your sake, my child, show you
the worst. Seeing it with me may make it less terrible to you. His
love, Esther, is all bestowed."

"I know it," she said, calmly.

"The Egyptian has him in her net," he continued. "She has the
cunning of her race, with beauty to help her- much beauty, great
cunning; but, like her race again, no heart. The daughter who despises
her father will bring her husband to grief."

"Does she that?"

Simonides went on-

"Balthasar is a wise man who has been wonderfully favoured for a
Gentile, and his faith becomes him; yet she makes a jest of it. I
heard her say, speaking of him yesterday, 'The follies of youth are
excusable; nothing is admirable in the aged except wisdom, and when
that goes from them, they should die.' A cruel speech, fit for a
Roman. I applied it to myself, knowing a feebleness like her
father's will come to me also- nay, it is not far off. But you,
Esther, will never say of me- no, never- 'It were better he were
dead.' No, your mother was a daughter of Judah."

With half-formed tears she kissed him, and said, "I am my mother's
child."

"Yes, and my daughter- my daughter, who is to me all the Temple
was to Solomon."

After a silence, he laid his hand upon her shoulder, and resumed-
"When he has taken the Egyptian to wife, Esther, he will think of
you with repentance and much calling of the spirit; for at last he
will awake to find himself but the minister of her bad ambition.
Rome is the centre of all her dreams. To her he is the son of Arrius
the duumvir, not the son of Hur, Prince of Jerusalem."

Esther made no attempt to conceal the effect of these words.

"Save him, father! It is not too late!" she said, entreatingly.

He answered, with a dubious smile, "A man drowning may be saved; not
so a man in love."

"But you have influence with him. He is alone in the world. Show him
his danger. Tell him what a woman she is."

"That might save him from her. Would it give him to you, Esther?
No," and his brows fell darkly over his eyes. "I am a servant, as my
fathers were for generations; yet I could not say to him, 'Lo, master,
my daughter! She is fairer than the Egyptian, and loves thee
better.' I have caught too much from years of liberty and direction.
The words would blister my tongue. The stones upon the old hills
yonder would turn in their beds for shame when I go out to them. No,
by the patriarchs, Esther, I would rather lay us both with your mother
to sleep as she sleeps!"

A blush burned Esther's whole face.

"I did not mean you to tell him so, father. I was concerned for
him alone- for his happiness, not mine. Because I have dared love him,
I shall keep myself worthy his respect; so only can I excuse my folly.
Let me read his letter now."

"Yes, read it."

She began at once, in haste to conclude the distasteful subject.


                                                  "Nisan 8th day.

"On the road from Galilee to Jerusalem.

"The Nazarene is on the way also. With him, though without his
knowledge, I am bringing a full legion of mine. A second legion
follows. The Passover will excuse the multitude. He said upon
setting out, 'We will go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are
written by the prophets concerning me shall be accomplished.'

"Our waiting draws to an end.

"In haste.

"Peace to thee, Simonides. "BEN-HUR."


Esther returned the letter to her father, while a choking
sensation gathered in her throat. There was not a word in the
missive for her- not even in the salutation had she a share- and it
would have been so easy to have written "and to thine, peace." For the
first time in her life she felt the smart of a jealous sting.

"The eighth day," said Simonides, "the eighth day; and this, Esther,
this is the- "

"The ninth," she replied.

"Ah, then, they may be in Bethany now."

"And possibly we may see him to-night," she added, pleased into
momentary forgetfulness.

"It may be, it may be! To-morrow is the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
and he may wish to celebrate it; so may the Nazarene; and we may see
him- we may see both of them, Esther."

At this point the servant appeared with the wine and water. Esther
helped her father, and in the midst of the service Iras came upon
the roof.

To the Jewess the Egyptian never appeared so very, very beautiful as
at that moment. Her gauzy garments fluttered about her like a little
cloud of mist; her forehead, neck, and arms glittered with the massive
jewelry so affected by her people. Her countenance was suffused with
pleasure. She moved with buoyant steps, and self-conscious, though
without affectation. Esther at the sight shrank within herself, and
nestled closer to her father.

"Peace to you, Simonides, and to the pretty Esther peace," said
Iras, inclining her head to the latter. "You remind me, good master-
if I may say it without offence- you remind me of the priests in
Persia who climb their temples at the decline of day to send prayers
after the departing sun. Is there anything in the worship you do not
know, let me call my father. He is Magian-bred."

"Fair Egyptian," the merchant replied, nodding with grave
politeness, "your father is a good man who would not be offended if he
knew I told you his Persian lore is the least part of his wisdom."

Iras's lip curled slightly.

"To speak like a philosopher, as you invite me," she said, "the
least part always implies a greater. Let me ask what you esteem the
greater part of the rare quality you are pleased to attribute to him."

Simonides turned upon her somewhat sternly.

"Pure wisdom always directs itself towards God; the purest wisdom is
knowledge of God; and no man of my acquaintance has it in higher
degree, or makes it more manifest in speech and act, than the good
Balthasar."

To end the parley, he raised the cup and drank.

The Egyptian turned to Esther a little testily.

"A man who has millions in store, and fleets of ships at sea, cannot
discern in what simple women like us find amusement. Let us leave him.
By the wall yonder we can talk."

They went to the parapet then, stopping at the place where, years
before, Ben-Hur loosed the broken tile upon the head of Gratus.

"You have not been to Rome?" Iras began, toying the while with one
of her unclasped bracelets.

"No," said Esther, demurely.

"Have you not wished to go?"

"No."

"Ah, how little there has been of your life!"

The sigh that succeeded the exclamation could not have been more
piteously expressive had the loss been the Egyptian's own. Next moment
her laugh might have been heard in the street below; and she said,
"Oh, oh, my pretty simpleton! The half-fledged birds nested in the ear
of the great bust on the Memphian sands know nearly as much as you."

Then, seeing Esther's confusion, she changed her manner, and said,
in a confiding tone, "You must not take offence. Oh, no! I was
playing. Let me kiss the hurt, and tell you what I would not to any
other- not if Simbel himself asked it of me, offering a lotus-cup of
the spray of the Nile!"

Another laugh, masking excellently the look she turned sharply
upon the Jewess, and she said, "The King is coming."

Esther gazed at her in innocent surprise.

"The Nazarene," Iras continued- "he whom our fathers have been
talking about so much, whom Ben-Hur has been serving and toiling for
so long"- her voice dropped several tones lower- "the Nazarene will be
here to-morrow, and Ben-Hur to-night."

Esther struggled to maintain her composure, but failed; her eyes
fell, the tale-tell blood surged to her cheek and forehead, and she
was saved sight of the triumphant smile that passed, like a gleam,
over the face of the Egyptian.

"See, here is his promise."

And from her girdle she took a roll.

"Rejoice with me, O my friend! He will be here to-night! On the
Tiber there is a house, a royal property, which he has pledged to
me; and to be its mistress is to be- "

A sound of someone walking swiftly along the street below
interrupted the speech, and she leaned over the parapet to see. Then
she drew back, and cried, with hands-clasped above her head, "Now
blessed be Isis! 'Tis he- Ben-Hur himself! That he should appear while
I had such thought of him! There are no gods if it be not a good omen.
Put your arms about me, Esther- and a kiss!"

The Jewess looked up. Upon each cheek there was a glow; her eyes
sparkled with a light more nearly of anger than ever her nature
emitted before. Her gentleness had been too roughly overridden. It was
not enough for her to be forbidden more than fugitive dreams of the
man she loved; a boastful rival must tell her in confidence of her
better success, and of the brilliant promises which were its
rewards. Of her, the servant of a servant, there had been no hint of
remembrance; this other could show his letter, leaving her to
imagine all it breathed. So she said-

"Dost thou love him so much then, or Rome so much better?"

The Egyptian drew back a step; then she bent her haughty head
quite near her questioner.

"What is he to thee, daughter of Simonides?"

Esther, all thrilling, began, "He is my- "

A thought blasting as lightning stayed the words: she paled,
trembled, recovered, and answered-

"He is my father's friend."

Her tongue had refused to admit her servile condition.

Iras laughed more lightly than before.

"Not more than that?" she said. "Ah, by the lover-gods of Egypt,
thou mayst keep thy kisses- keep them. Thou hast taught me but now
that there are others vastly more estimable waiting me here in
Judea; and"- she turned away, looking back over her shoulder- "I
will go get them. Peace to thee."

Esther saw her disappear down the steps, when, putting her hands
over her face, she burst into tears so they ran scalding through her
fingers- tears of shame and choking passion. And, to deepen the
paroxysm to her even temper so strange, up with a new meaning of
withering force rose her father's words- "Thy love might not have been
vainly given had I kept fast hold of all I had, as I might have done."

And all the stars were out, burning low above the city and the
dark wall of mountains about it, before she recovered enough to go
back to the summer-house, and in silence take her accustomed place
at her father's side, humbly waiting his pleasure. To such duty it
seemed her youth, if not her life, must be given. And, let the truth
be said, now that the pang was spent, she went not unwillingly back to
the duty.

                      CHAPTER II.

             BEN-HUR TELLS OF THE NAZARENE.


AN hour or thereabouts after the scene upon the roof, Balthasar
and Simonides, the latter attended by Esther, met in the great chamber
of the palace; and while they were talking, Ben-Hur and Iras came in
together.

The young Jew, advancing in front of his companion, walked first
to Balthasar, and saluted him, and received his reply; then he
turned to Simonides, but paused at sight of Esther.

It is not often we have hearts roomy enough for more than one of the
absorbing passions at the same time; in its blaze the others may
continue to live, but only as lesser lights. So with Ben-Hur, much
study of possibilities, indulgence of hopes and dreams, influences
born of the condition of his country, influences more direct- that
of Iras for example- had made him in the broadest worldly sense
ambitious; and as he had given the passion place, allowing it to
become a rule, and finally an imperious governor, the resolves and
impulses of former days faded imperceptibly out of being, and at
last almost out of recollection. It is at best so easy to forget our
youth; in his case it was but natural that his own sufferings and
the mystery darkening the fate of his family should move him less
and less as, in hope at least, he approached nearer and nearer the
goals which occupied all his visions. Only let us not judge him too
harshly.

He paused in surprise at seeing Esther a woman now, and so
beautiful; and as he stood looking at her a still voice reminded him
of broken vows and duties undone: almost his old self returned.

For an instant he was startled; but recovering, he went to Esther,
and said, "Peace to thee, sweet Esther- peace; and thou, Simonides"-
he looked to the merchant as he spoke- "the blessing of the Lord be
thine, if only because thou hast been a good father to the
fatherless."

Esther heard him with downcast face; Simonides answered-

"I repeat the welcome of the good Balthasar, son of Hur- welcome
to thy father's house; and sit, and tell us of thy travels, and of thy
work, and of the wonderful Nazarene- who he is, and what. If thou
art not at ease here, who shall be? Sit, I pray- there, between us,
that we may all hear."

Esther stepped out quickly and brought a covered stool, and set it
for him.

"Thanks," he said to her, gratefully.

When seated, after some other conversation he addressed himself to
the men.

"I have come to tell you of the Nazarene."

The two became instantly attentive.

"For many days now I have followed him with such watchfulness as one
may give another upon whom he is waiting so anxiously. I have seen him
under all circumstances said to be trials and tests of men; and
while I am certain he is a man as I am, not less certain am I that
he is something more."

"What more?" asked Simonides.

"I will tell you- "

Some one coming into the room interrupted him; he turned, and
arose with extended hands.

"Amrah! Dear old Amrah!" he cried.

She came forward; and they, seeing the joy in her face, thought
not once how wrinkled and tawny it was. She knelt at his feet, clasped
his knees, and kissed his hands over and over; and when he could he
put the lank grey hair from her cheeks, and kissed them, saying, "Good
Amrah, have you nothing, nothing of them- not a word- not one little
sign?"

Then she broke into sobbing which made him answer plainer ever
than the spoken word.

"God's will has been done," he next said, solemnly, in a tone to
make each listener know he had no hope more of finding his people.
In his eyes there were tears which he would not have them see, because
he was a man.

When he could again, he took seat, and said, "Come, sit by me,
Amrah- here. No? then at my feet; for I have much to say to these good
friends of a wonderful man come into the world."

But she went off, and stooping with her back to the wall, joined her
hands before her knees, content, they all thought, with seeing him.
Then Ben-Hur, bowing to the old men, began again-

"I fear to answer the question asked me about the Nazarene without
first telling you some of the things I have seen him do; and to that I
am the more inclined, my friends, because to-morrow he will come to
the city, and go up into the Temple, which he calls his father's
house, where, it is further said, he will proclaim himself. So,
whether you are right, O Balthasar, or you, Simonides, we and Israel
shall know to-morrow."

Balthasar rubbed his hands tremulously together, and asked, "Where
shall I go to see him?"

"The pressure of the crowd will be very great. Better, I think, that
you all go upon the roof above the cloisters- say upon the Porch of
Solomon."

"Can you be with us?"

"No," said Ben-Hur, "my friends will require me, perhaps, in the
procession."

"Procession!" exclaimed Simonides. "Does he travel in state?"

Ben-Hur saw the argument in mind.

"He brings twelve men with him, fishermen, tillers of the soil,
one a publican, all of the humbler class; and he and they make their
journeys on foot, careless of wind, cold, rain, or sun. Seeing them
stop by the wayside at nightfall to break bread or lie down to
sleep, I have been reminded of a party of shepherds going back to
their flocks from market, not of nobles and kings. Only when he
lifts the corners of his handkerchief to look at some' one or shake
the dust from his head, I am made known he is their teacher as well as
their companion- their superior not less than their friend.

"You are shrewd men," Ben-Hur resumed, after a pause. "You know what
creatures of certain master motives we are, and that it has become
little less than a law of our nature to spend life in eager pursuit of
certain objects; now appealing to that law as something by which we
may know ourselves, what would you say of a man who could be rich by
making gold of the stones under his feet, yet is poor of choice?"

"The Greeks would call him a philosopher," said Iras.

"Nay, daughter," said Balthasar, "the philosophers had never the
power to do such thing."

"How know you this man has?"

Ben-Hur answered quickly, "I saw him turn water into wine."

"Very strange, very strange," said Simonides; "but it is not so
strange to me as that he should prefer to live poor when he could be
so rich. Is he poor?"
 "He owns nothing, and envies nobody his owning. He pities the rich.
But passing that, what would you say to see a man multiply seven
loaves and two fishes, all his store, into enough to feed five
thousand people, and have full baskets over? That I saw the Nazarene
do."

"You saw it?" exclaimed Simonides.

"Ay, and ate of the bread and fish."

"More marvellous still," Ben-Hur continued, "what would you say of a
man in whom there is such healing virtue that the sick have but to
touch the hem of his garment to be cured, or cry to him afar? That,
too, I witnessed, not once, but many times. As we came out of
Jericho two blind men by the wayside called to the Nazarene, and he
touched their eyes, and they saw. So they brought a palsied man to
him, and he said merely, 'Go unto thy house,' and the man went away
well. What say you to these things?"

The merchant had no answer.

"Think you now, as I have heard others argue, that what I have
told you are tricks of jugglery? Let me answer by recalling greater
things which I have seen him do. Look first to that curse of God-
comfortless, as you all know, except by death- leprosy."

At these words Amrah dropped her hands to the floor, and in her
eagerness to hear him half arose.

"What would you say," said Ben-Hur, with increased earnestness-
"what would you say to have seen that I now tell you? A leper came
to the Nazarene while I was with him down in Galilee, and said, 'Lord,
if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.' He heard the cry, and touched
the outcast with his hand, saying, 'Be thou clean;' and forthwith
the man was himself again, healthful as any of us who beheld the cure,
and we were a multitude."

Here Amrah arose, and with her gaunt fingers held the wiry locks
from her eyes. The brain of the poor creature had long since gone to
heart, and she was troubled to follow the speech.

"Then, again," said Ben-Hur, without stop, "ten lepers came to him
one day in a body, and falling at his feet, called out- I saw and
heard it all- called out, 'Master, Master, have mercy upon us!' He
told them, 'Go, show yourselves to the priest, as the law requires;
and before you are come there ye shall be healed.'"

"And were they?"

"Yes. On the road going their infirmity left them, so that there was
nothing to remind us of it except their polluted clothes."

"Such thing was never heard before- never in all Israel!" said
Simonides, in undertone.

And then, while he was speaking, Amrah turned away, and walked
noiselessly to the door, and went out; and none of the company saw her
go.

"The thoughts stirred by such things done under my eyes I leave
you to imagine," said Ben-Hur, continuing; "but my doubts, my
misgivings, my amazement, were not yet at the full. The people of
Galilee are, as you know, impetuous and rash; after years of waiting
their swords burned their hands; nothing would do them but action. 'He
is slow to declare himself; let us force him,' they cried to me. And I
too became impatient. If he is to be king, why not now? The legions
are ready. So as he was once teaching by the seaside we would have
crowned him whether or not; but he disappeared, and was next seen on a
ship departing from the shore. Good Simonides, the desires that make
other men mad- riches, power, even kingships offered out of great love
by a great people- move this one not at all. What say you?"

The merchant's chin was low upon his breast; raising his head, he
replied, resolutely, "The Lord liveth, and so do the words of the
prophets. Time is in the green yet; let to-morrow answer."

"Be it so," said Balthasar, smiling.

And Ben-Hur said, "Be it so." Then he went on- "But I have not yet
done. From these things, not too great to be above suspicion by such
as did not see them in performance as I did, let me carry you now to
others infinitely greater, acknowledged since the world began to be
past the power of man. Tell me, has any one to your knowledge ever
reached out and taken from Death what Death has made his own? Who ever
gave again the breath of a life lost? Who but- "

"God!" said Balthasar, reverently.

Ben-Hur bowed.

"O wise Egyptian! I may not refuse the name you lend me. What
would you- or you, Simonides- what would you either or both have
said had you seen as I did, a man, with few words and no ceremony,
without effort more than a mother's when she speaks to wake her
child asleep, undo the work of Death? It was down at Nain. We were
about going into the gate, when a company came out bearing a dead man.
The Nazarene stopped to let the train pass. There was a woman among
them crying. I saw his face soften with pity. He spoke to her, then
went and touched the bier, and said to him who lay upon it dressed for
burial, 'Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!' And instantly the dead
sat up and talked."

"God only is so great," said Balthasar to Simonides.

"Mark you," Ben-Hur proceeded, "I do but tell you things of which
I was a witness, together with a cloud of other men. On the way hither
I saw another act still more mighty. In Bethany there was a man
named Lazarus, who died and was buried; and after he had lain four
days in a tomb, shut in by a great stone, the Nazarene was shown to
the place. Upon rolling the stone away, we beheld the man lying inside
bound and rotting. There were many people standing by, and we all
heard what the Nazarene said, for he spoke in a loud voice,
'Lazarus, come forth!' I cannot tell you my feelings when in answer,
as it were, the man arose and came out to us with all his cerements
about him. 'Loose him,' said the Nazarene next, 'loose him, and let
him go.' And when the napkin was taken from the face of the
resurrected, lo, my friends! the blood ran anew through the wasted
body, and he was exactly as he had been in life before the sickness
that took him off. He lives yet, and is hourly seen and spoken to. You
may go see him to-morrow. And now, as nothing more is needed for the
purpose, I ask you that which I came to ask, it being but a repetition
of what you asked me O Simonides, What more than a man is this
Nazarene?"

The question was put solemnly, and long after midnight the company
sat and debated it; Simonides being yet unwilling to give up his
understanding of the sayings of the prophets, and Ben-Hur contending
that the elder disputants were both right- that the Nazarene was the
Redeemer, as claimed by Balthasar, and also the destined king the
merchant would have.

"To-morrow we will see. Peace to you all."

So saying, Ben-Hur took his leave, intending to return to Bethany.

                      CHAPTER III.

             THE LEPERS LEAVE THEIR TOMB.


THE first person to go out of the city upon the opening of the
Sheep's Gate next morning was Amrah, basket on arm. No questions
were asked her by the keepers, since the morning itself had not been
more regular in coming than she; they knew her somebody's faithful
servant, and that was enough for them.

Down the eastern valley she took her way. The side of Olivet, darkly
green, was spotted with white tents recently put up by people
attending the feasts; the hour, however, was too early for the
strangers to be abroad; still, had it not been so, no one would have
troubled her. Past Gethsemane; past the tombs at the meeting of the
Bethany roads; past the sepuchral village of Siloam she went.
Occasionally the decrepit little body staggered; once she sat down
to get her breath; rising shortly, she struggled on with renewed
haste. The great rocks on either hand, if they had had ears, might
have heard her mutter to herself; could they have seen, it would
have been to observe how frequently she looked up over the Mount,
reproving the dawn for its promptness; if it had been possible for
them to gossip, not improbably they would have said to each other,
"Our friend is in a hurry this morning; the mouths she goes to feed
must be very hungry."

When at last she reached the King's Garden she slackened her gait;
for then the grim city of the lepers was in view, extending far
round the pitted south hill of Hinnom.

As the reader must by this time have surmised, she was going to
her mistress, whose tomb, it will be remembered, overlooked the well
En-rogel.

Early as it was, the unhappy woman was up and sitting outside,
leaving Tirzah asleep within. The course of the malady had been
terribly swift in the three years. Conscious of her appearance, with
the refined instincts of her nature, she kept her whole person
habitually covered. Seldom as possible she permitted even Tirzah to
see her.

This morning she was taking the air with bared head, knowing there
was no one to be shocked by the exposure. The light was not full,
but enough to show the ravages to which she had been subject. Her hair
was snow-white and unmanageably coarse, falling over her back and
shoulders like so much silver wire. The eyelids, the lips, the
nostrils, the flesh of the cheeks, were either gone or reduced to
fetid rawness. The neck was a mass of ash-coloured scales. One hand
lay outside the folds of her habit rigid as that of a skeleton; the
nails had been eaten away; the joints of the fingers, if not bare to
the bone, were swollen knots crusted with red secretion. Head, face,
neck, and hand indicated all too plainly the condition of the whole
body. Seeing her thus, it was easy to understand how the once fair
widow of the princely Hur had been able to maintain her incognito so
well through such a period of years.

When the sun would gild the crest of Olivet and the Mount of Offence
with light sharper and more brilliant in that old land than in the
West, she knew Amrah would come, first to the well, then to a stone
midway the well and the foot of the hill on which she had her abode,
and that the good servant would there deposit the food she carried
in the basket, and fill the water-jar afresh for the day. Of her
former plentitude of happiness, that brief visit was all that remained
to the unfortunate. She could then ask about her son, and be told of
his welfare, with such bits of news concerning him as the messenger
could glean. Usually the information was meagre enough, yet
comforting; at times she heard he was at home; then she would issue
from her dreary cell at break of day, and sit till noon, and from noon
to set of sun, a motionless figure draped in white, looking,
statue-like, invariably to one point- over the Temple to the spot
under the rounded sky where the old house stood, dear in memory, and
dearer because he was there. Nothing else was left her. Tirzah she
counted of the dead; and as for herself, she simply waited the end,
knowing every hour of life was an hour of dying- happily, of
painless dying.

The things of nature about the hill to keep her sensitive to the
world's attractions were wretchedly scant; beasts and birds avoided
the place as if they knew its history and present use; every green
thing perished in its first season; the winds warred upon the shrubs
and venturous grasses, leaving to drought such as they could not
uproot. Look where she would, the view was made depressingly
suggestive by tombs- tombs above her, tombs below, tombs opposite
her own tomb- all now freshly whitened in warning to visiting
pilgrims. In the sky- clear, fair, inviting- one would think she might
have found some relief to her ache of mind; but, alas! in making the
beautiful elsewhere the sun served her never so unfriendly- it did but
disclose her growing hideousness. But for the sun she would not have
been the horror she was to herself, nor been waked so cruelly from
dreams of Tirzah as she used to be. The gift of seeing can be
sometimes a dreadful curse.

Does one ask why she did not make an end to her sufferings?

The Law forbade her!

A Gentile may smile at the answer; but so will not a son of Israel.

While she sat there peopling the dusky solitude with thoughts even
more cheerless, suddenly a woman came up the hill staggering and spent
with exertion.

The widow arose hastily, and covering her head, cried, in a voice
unnaturally harsh, "Unclean, unclean!"

In a moment, heedless of the notice, Amrah was at her feet. All
the long-pent love of the simple creature burst forth: with tears
and passionate exclamations she kissed her mistress's garments, and
for a while the latter strove to escape from her; then, seeing she
could not, she waited till the violence of the paroxysm was over.

"What have you done, Amrah?" she said. "Is it by such disobedience
you prove your love for us? Wicked woman! You are lost; and he- your
master- you can never, never go back to him."

Amrah grovelled sobbing in the dust.

"The ban of the Law is upon you, too; you cannot return to
Jerusalem. What will become of us? Who will bring us bread? O
wicked, wicked Amrah! We are all, all undone alike!"

"Mercy, mercy!" Amrah answered from the ground.

"You should have been merciful to yourself, and by so doing been
most merciful to us. Now where can we fly? There is no one to help us.
O false servant! The wrath of the Lord was already too heavy upon us."

Here Tirzah, awakened by the noise, appeared at the door of the
tomb. The pen shrinks from the picture she presented. In the half-clad
apparition, patched with scales, lividly seamed, nearly blind, its
limbs and extremities swollen to grotesque largeness, familiar eyes
however sharpened by love could not have recognized the creature of
grace and purity we first beheld her.

"Is it Amrah, mother?"

The servant tried to crawl to her also.

"Stay, Amrah!' the widow cried, imperiously. "I forbid you
touching her. Rise, and get you gone before any at the well see you
here. Nay, I forgot- it is too late! You must remain now and share our
doom. Rise, I say!"

Amrah rose to her knees, and said, brokenly and with clasped
hands, "O good mistress! I am not false- I am not wicked. I bring
you good tidings."

"Of Judah?" and as she spoke, the widow half withdrew the cloth from
her head.

"There is a wonderful man," Amrah continued, "who has power to
cure you. He speaks a word, and the sick are made well, and even the
dead come to life. I have come to take you to him."

"Poor Amrah!" said Tirzah, compassionately.

"No," cried Amrah, detecting the doubt underlying the expression-
"no, as the Lord lives, even the Lord of Israel, my God as well as
yours, I speak the truth. Go with me, I pray, and lose no time. This
morning he will pass by on his way to the city. See! the day is at
hand. Take the food here- eat, and let us go."

The mother listened eagerly. Not unlikely she had heard of the
wonderful man, for by this time his fame had penetrated every nook
in the land.

"Who is he?" she asked.

"A Nazarene."

"Who told you about him?"

"Judah."

"Judah told you? Is he at home?"

"He came last night."

The widow, trying to still the beating of her heart, was silent
awhile.

"Did Judah send you to tell us this?" she next asked.

"No. He believes you dead."

"There was a prophet once who cured a leper," the mother said
thoughtfully to Tirzah; "but he had his power from God." Then
addressing Amrah, she asked, "How does my son know this man so
possessed?"

"He was travelling with him, and heard the lepers call, and saw them
go away well. First there was one man; then there were ten; and they
were all made whole."

The elder listener was silent again. The skeleton hand shook. We may
believe she was struggling to give the story the sanction of faith,
which is always an absolutist in demand, and that it was with her as
with the men of the day, eye-witnesses of what was done by the Christ,
as well as the myriads who have succeeded them. She did not question
the performance, for her own son was the witness testifying through
the servant; but she strove to comprehend the power by which work so
astonishing could be done by a man. Well enough to make inquiry as
to the fact; to comprehend the power, on the other hand, it is first
necessary to comprehend God; and he who waits for that will die
waiting. With her, however, the hesitation was brief. To Tirzah she
said-

"This must be the Messiah!"

She spoke not coldly, like one reasoning a doubt away, but as a
woman of Israel familiar with the promises of God to her race- a woman
of understanding, ready to be glad over the least sign of the
realization of the promises.

"There was a time when Jerusalem and all Judea were filled with a
story that he was born. I remember it. By this time he should be a
man. It must be- it is he. Yes," she said to Amrah, "we will go with
you. Bring the water which you will find in the tomb in a jar, and set
the food for us. We will eat and be gone."

The breakfast, partaken under excitement, was soon despatched, and
the three women set out on their extraordinary journey. As Tirzah
had caught the confident spirit of the others, there was but one
fear that troubled the party. Bethany, Amrah said, was the town the
man was coming from; now from that to Jerusalem there were three
roads, or rather paths- one over the first summit of Olivet, a
second at its base, a third between the second summit and the Mount of
Offence. The three were not far apart; far enough, however, to make it
possible for the unfortunates to miss the Nazarene if they failed
the one he chose to come by.

A little questioning satisfied the mother that Amrah knew nothing of
the country beyond the Cedron, and even less of the intentions of
the man they were going to see, if they could. She discerned, also,
that both Amrah and Tirzah- the one from confirmed habits of
servitude, the other from natural dependence- looked to her for
guidance; and she accepted the charge.

"We will go first to Bethphage," she said to them. "There, if the
Lord favour us, we may learn what else to do."

They descended the hill to Tophet and the King's Garden, and
paused in the deep trail furrowed through them by centuries of
wayfaring.

"I am afraid of the road," the matron said. "Better that we keep
to the country among the rocks and trees. This is feast-day, and on
the hill-sides yonder I see signs of a great multitude in
attendance. By going across the Mount of Offence here we may avoid
them."

Tirzah had been walking with great difficulty; upon hearing this her
heart began to fail her.

"The mount is steep, mother! I cannot climb it."

"Remember, we are going to find health and life. See, my child,
how the day brightens around us! And yonder are women coming this
way to the well. They will stone us if we stay here. Come, be strong
this once."

Thus the mother, not less tortured herself, sought to inspire the
daughter; and Amrah came to her aid. To this time the latter had not
touched the persons of the afflicted, nor they her; now, in
disregard of consequences as well as of command, the faithful creature
went to Tirzah, and put her arm over her shoulder, and whispered,
"Lean on me. I am strong, though I am old; and it is but a little
way off. There- now we can go."

The face of the hill they essayed to cross was somewhat broken
with pits, and ruins of old structures; but when at last they stood
upon the top to rest, and looked at the spectacle presented them
over in the north-west- at the Temple and its courtly terraces, at
Zion, at the enduring towers white beetling into the sky beyond- the
mother was strengthened with a love of life for life's sake.

"Look, Tirzah," she said- "look at the plates of gold on the Gate
Beautiful. How they give back the flames of the sun, brightness for
brightness! Do you remember we used to go up there? Will it not be
pleasant to do so again? And think- home is but a little way off. I
can almost see it over the roof of the Holy of Holies; and Judah
will be there to receive us!"

From the side of the middle summit, garnished green with myrtle
and olive trees, they saw, upon looking that way next, thin columns of
smoke rising lightly and straight up into the pulseless morning,
each a warning of restless pilgrims astir, and of the flight of the
pitiless hours, and the need of haste.

Though the good servant toiled faithfully to lighten the labour in
descending the hill-side, not sparing herself in the least, the girl
moaned at every step; sometimes in extremity of anguish she cried out.
Upon reaching the road- that is, the road between the Mount of Offence
and the middle or second summit of Olivet- she fell down exhausted.

"Go on with Amrah, mother, and leave me here," she said, faintly.

"No, no, Tirzah. What would the gain be to me if I were healed and
you not? When Judah asks for you, as he will, what would I have to say
to him were I to leave you?"

"Tell him I loved him."

The elder leper arose from bending over the fainting sufferer, and
gazed about her with that sensation of hope perishing which is more
nearly like annihilation of the soul than anything else. The supremest
joy of the thought of cure was inseparable from Tirzah, who was not
too old to forget, in the happiness of healthful life to come, the
years of misery by which she had been so reduced in body and broken in
spirit. Even as the brave woman was about leaving the venture they
were engaged in to the determination of God, she saw a man on foot
coming rapidly up the road from the east.

"Courage, Tirzah! Be of cheer," she said. "Yonder I know is one to
tell us of the Nazarene."

Amrah helped the girl to a sitting posture, and supported her
while the man advanced.

"In your goodness, mother, you forget what we are. The stranger will
go around us; his best gift to us will be a curse, if not a stone."

"We will see."

There was no other answer to be given, since the mother was too well
and sadly acquainted with the treatment outcasts of the class to which
she belonged were accustomed to at the hands of her countrymen.

As has been said, the road at the edge of which the group was posted
was little more than a worn path or trail, winding crookedly through
tumuli of limestone. If the stranger kept it, he must meet them face
to face; and he did so, until near enough to hear the cry she was
bound to give. Then, uncovering her head, a further demand of the law,
she shouted shrilly-

"Unclean! unclean!"

To her surprise, the man came steadily on.

"What would you have?" he asked, stopping opposite them not four
yards off.

"Thou seest us. Have a care," the mother said, with dignity.

"Woman, I am the courier of him who speaketh but once to such as
thou and they are healed. I am not afraid."

"The Nazarene?"

"The Messiah," he said.

"Is it true that he cometh to the city to-day?"

"He is now at Bethphage."

"On what road, master?"

"This one."

She clasped her hands, and looked up thankfully.

"For whom takest thou him?" the man asked, with pity.

"The Son of God," she replied.

"Stay thou here then; or, as there is a multitude with him, take thy
stand by the rock yonder, the white one under the tree; and as he
goeth by fail not to call to him; call, and fear not. If thy faith but
equal thy knowledge, he will hear thee though all the heavens thunder.
I go to tell Israel, assembled in and about the city, that he is at
hand, and to make ready to receive him. Peace to thee and thine,
woman."

The stranger moved on.

"Did you hear, Tirzah? Did you hear? The Nazarene is on the road, on
this one, and he will hear us. Once more, my child- oh, only once! and
let us to the rock. It is but a step."

Thus encouraged, Tirzah took Amrah's hand and arose; but as they
were going, Amrah said, "Stay; the man is returning." And they
waited for him.

"I pray your grace, woman," he said, upon overtaking them.
"Remembering that the sun will be hot before the Nazarene arrives, and
that the city is near by to give me refreshment should I need it, I
thought this water would do thee better than it will me. Take it and
be of good cheer. Call to him as he passes."

He followed the words by offering her a gourd full of water, such as
foot-travellers sometimes carried with them in their journeys across
the hills; and instead of placing the gift on the ground for her to
take up when he was at a safe distance, he gave it into her hand.

"Art thou a Jew?" she asked, surprised.

"I am that, and better; I am a disciple of the Christ who teacheth
daily by word and example this thing which I have done unto you. The
world hath long known the word charity without understanding it. Again
I say, peace and good cheer to thee and thine."

He went on, and they went slowly to the rock he had pointed out to
them, high as their heads, and scarcely thirty yards from the road
on the right. Standing in front of it, the mother satisfied herself
they could be seen and heard plainly by passers-by whose notice they
desired to attract. There they cast themselves under the tree in its
shade, and drank of the gourd, and rested refreshed. Ere long Tirzah
slept, and fearing to disturb her, the others held their peace.

                      CHAPTER IV.

                      THE MIRACLE.


DURING the third hour the road in front of the resting-place of
the lepers became gradually more and more frequented by people going
in the direction of Bethphage and Bethany; now, however, about the
commencement of the fourth hour, a great crowd appeared over the crest
of Olivet, and as it defiled down the road thousands in number, the
two watchers noticed with wonder that every one in it carried a
palm-branch freshly cut. As they sat absorbed by the novelty, the
noise of another multitude approaching from the east drew their eyes
that way. Then the mother awoke Tirzah.

"What is the meaning of it all?" the latter asked.

"He is coming," answered the mother. "These we see are from the city
going to meet him; those we hear in the east are his friends bearing
him company; and it will not be strange if the processions meet here
before us."

"I fear, if they do, we cannot be heard."

The same thought was in the elder's mind.

"Amrah," she asked, "when Judah spoke of the healing of the ten,
in what words did he say they called to the Nazarene?"

"Either they said, 'Lord, have mercy upon us,' or 'Master, have
mercy.'"

"Only that"

"No more that I heard."

"Yet it was enough," the mother added, to herself.

"Yes," said Amrah, "Judah said he saw them go away well."

Meantime the people in the east came up slowly. When at length the
foremost of them were in sight, the gaze of the lepers fixed upon a
man riding in the midst of what seemed a chosen company which sang and
danced about him in extravagance of joy. The rider was bareheaded
and clad all in white. When he was in distance to be more clearly
observed, these, looking anxiously, saw an olive-hued face shaded by
long chestnut hair slightly sunburned and parted in the middle. He
looked neither to the right nor left. In the noisy abandon of his
followers he appeared to have no part; nor did their favour disturb
him in the least, or raise him out of the profound melancholy into
which, as his countenance showed, he was plunged. The sun beat upon
the back of his head, and lighting up the floating hair gave it a
delicate likeness to a golden nimbus. Behind him the irregular
procession, pouring forward with continuous singing and shouting,
extended out of view. There was no need of any one to tell the
lepers that this was he- the wonderful Nazarene!

"He is here, Tirzah," the mother said; "he is here. Come, my child."

As she spoke she glided in front of the white rock and fell upon her
knees.

Directly the daughter and servant were by her side. Then at sight of
the procession in the east, the thousands from the city halted, and
began to wave their green branches, shouting, or rather chanting
(for it was all in one voice)-

"Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord!"

And all the thousands who were of the rider's company, both those
near and those afar, replied so the air shook with the sound, which
was as a great wind threshing the side of the hill. Amidst the din,
the cries of the poor lepers were not more than the twittering of
dazed sparrows.

The moment of the meeting of the hosts was come, and with it the
opportunity the sufferers were seeking; if not taken, it would be lost
for ever, and they would be lost as well.

"Nearer, my child- let us get nearer. He cannot hear us," said the
mother.

She arose, and staggered forward. Her ghastly hands were up, and she
screamed with horrible shrillness. The people saw her- saw her hideous
face, and stopped awe-struck- an effect for which extreme human
misery, visible as in this instance, is as potent as majesty in purple
and gold. Tirzah, behind her a little way, fell down too faint and
frightened to follow farther.

"The lepers! the lepers!"

"Stone them!"

"The accursed of God! Kill them!"

These, with other yells of like import, broke in upon the hosannas
of the part of the multitude too far removed to see and understand the
cause of the interruption. Some there were, however, near by
familiar with the nature of the man to whom the unfortunates were
appealing- some who, by long intercourse with him, had caught somewhat
of his divine compassion: they gazed at him, and were silent while, in
fair view, he rode up and stopped in front of the woman. She also
beheld his face- calm, pitiful, and of exceeding beauty, the large
eyes tender with benignant purpose.

And this was the colloquy that ensued-

"O Master, Master! Thou seest our need; thou canst make us clean.
Have mercy upon us- mercy!"

"Believest thou I am able to do this?" he asked.

"Thou art he of whom the prophets spake- thou art the Messiah!"
she replied.

His eyes grew radiant, his manner confident.

"Woman," he said, "great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as
thou wilt."

He lingered an instant after, apparently unconscious of the presence
of the throng- an instant- then he rode away.

To the heart divinely original, yet so human in all the better
elements of humanity, going with sure prevision to a death of all
the inventions of men the foulest and most cruel, breathing even
then in the forecast shadow of the awful event, and still as hungry
and thirsty for love and faith as in the beginning, how precious and
ineffably soothing the farewell exclamation of the grateful woman-

"To God in the highest, glory! Blessed, thrice blessed, the Son whom
he hath given us!"

Immediately both the hosts, that from the city and that from
Bethphage, closed around him with their joyous demonstrations, with
hosannas and waving of palms, and so he passed from the lepers
forever. Covering her head, the elder hastened to Tirzah, and folded
her in her arms, crying, "Daughter, look up! I have his promise; he is
indeed the Messiah. We are saved- saved!" And the two remained
kneeling while the procession, slowly going, disappeared over the
mount. When the noise of its singing afar was a sound scarcely heard
the miracle began.

There was first in the hearts of the lepers a freshening of the
blood; then it flowed faster and stronger, thrilling their wasted
bodies with an infinitely sweet sense of painless healing. Each felt
the scourge going from her; their strength revived; they were
returning to be themselves. Directly, as if to make the purification
complete, from body to spirit the quickening ran, exalting them to a
very fervour of ecstasy. The power possessing them to this good end
was most nearly that of a draught of swift and happy effect; yet it
was unlike and superior in that its healing and cleansing were
absolute, and not merely a delicious consciousness while in
progress, but the planting, growing, and maturing all at once of a
recollection so singular and so holy that the simple thought of it
should be of itself ever after a formless yet perfect thanksgiving.

To this transformation- for such it may be called quite as
properly as a cure- there was a witness other than Amrah. The reader
will remember the constancy with which Ben-Hur had followed the
Nazarene throughout his wanderings; and now, recalling the
conversation of the night before, there will be little surprise at
learning that the young Jew was present when the leprous woman
appeared in the path of the pilgrims. He heard her prayer, and saw her
disfigured face; he heard the answer also, and was not so accustomed
to incidents of the kind, frequent as they had been, as to have lost
interest in them. Had such thing been possible with him, still the
bitter disputation always excited by the simplest display of the
Master's curative gift would have sufficed to keep his curiosity
alive. Besides that, if not above it as an incentive, his hope to
satisfy himself upon the vexed question of the mission of the
mysterious man was still upon him strong as in the beginning; we might
indeed say even stronger, because of a belief that now quickly, before
the sun went down, the man himself would make all known by public
proclamation. At the close of the scene, consequently, Ben-Hur had
withdrawn from the procession, and seated himself upon a stone to wait
its passage.

From his place he nodded recognition to many of the people-
Galileans in his league, carrying short swords under their long abbas.
After a little a swarthy Arab came up leading two horses; at a sign
from Ben-Hur he also drew out.

"Stay here," the young master said, when all were gone by, even
the laggards. "I wish to be at the city early, and Aldebaran must do
me service."

He stroked the broad forehead of the horse, now in his prime of
strength and beauty, then crossed the road towards the two women.

They were to him, it should be borne in mind, strangers in whom he
felt interest only as they were subjects of a superhuman experiment,
the result of which might possibly help him to solution of the mystery
that had so long engaged him. As he proceeded, he glanced casually
at the figure of the little woman over by the white rock, standing
there, her face hidden in her hands.

"As the Lord liveth, it is Amrah!" he said to himself.

He hurried on, and passing by the mother and daughter, still without
recognizing them, he stopped before the servant.

"Amrah," he said to her, "Amrah, what do you here?"

She rushed forward, and fell upon her knees before him, blinded by
her tears, nigh speechless with contending joy and fear.

"O master, master! Thy God and mine, how good he is!"

The knowledge we gain from much sympathy with others passing through
trials is but vaguely understood; strangely enough, it enables us,
among other things, to merge our identity into theirs often so
completely that their sorrows and their delights become our own. So
poor Amrah, aloof and hiding her face, knew the transformation the
lepers were undergoing without a word spoken to her- knew it, and
shared all their feeling to the full. Her countenance, her words,
her whole manner, betrayed her condition; and with swift
presentiment he connected it with the women he had just passed: he
felt her presence there at that time was in some way associated with
them, and turned hastily as they arose to their feet. His heart
stood still; he became rooted in his tracks- dumb past outcry-
awe-struck.

The woman he had seen before the Nazarene was standing with her
hands clasped and eyes streaming, looking towards heaven. The mere
transformation would have been a sufficient surprise; but it was the
least of the causes of his emotion. Could he be mistaken? Never was
there in life a stranger so like his mother; and like her as she was
the day the Roman snatched her from him. There was but one
difference to mar the identity- the hair of this person was a little
streaked with grey; yet that was not impossible of reconcilement,
since the intelligence which had directed the miracle might have taken
into consideration the natural effects of the passage of years. And
who was it by her side, if not Tirzah?- fair, beautiful, perfect, more
mature, but in all other respects exactly the same in appearance as
when she looked with him over the parapet the morning of the
accident to Gratus. He had given them over as dead, and time had
accustomed him to the bereavement; he had not ceased mourning for
them, yet, as something distinguishable, they had simply dropped out
of his plans and dreams. Scarcely believing his senses, he laid his
hand upon the servant's head, and asked, tremulously-

"Amrah, Amrah- my mother! Tirzah! tell me if I see aright."

"Speak to them, O master, speak to them!" she said.

He waited no longer, but ran, with outstretched arms, crying,
"Mother! mother! Tirzah! Here I am!"

They heard his call, and with a cry as loving started to meet him.
Suddenly the mother stopped, drew back, and uttered the old alarm-

"Stay, Judah, my son; come not nearer. Unclean, unclean!"

The utterance was not from habit, grown since the dread disease
struck her, as much as fear; and the fear was but another form of
the ever-thoughtful maternal love. Though they were healed in
person, the taint of the scourge might be in their garments ready
for communication. He had no such thought. They were before him; he
had called them, they had answered. Who or what should keep them
from him now? Next moment the three, so long separated, were
mingling their tears in each other's arms.

The first ecstasy over, the mother said, "In this happiness, O my
children, let us not be ungrateful. Let us begin life anew by
acknowledgment of him to whom we are all so indebted."

They fell upon their knees, Amrah with the rest; and the prayer of
the elder outspoken was as a psalm.

Tirzah repeated it word for word; so did Ben-Hur, but not with the
same clear mind and questionless faith; for when they were risen, he
asked-

"In Nazareth, where the man was born, mother, they call him the
son of a carpenter. What is he?"

Her eyes rested upon him with all their old tenderness, and she
answered as she had answered the Nazarene himself-

"He is the Messiah."

"And whence has he his power?"

"We may know by the use he makes of it. Can you tell me any he has
done?"

"No."

"By that sign then I answer. He has his power from God."

It is not an easy thing to shake off in a moment the expectations
nurtured through years until they have become essentially a part of
us; and though Ben-Hur asked himself what the vanities of the world
were to such a one, his ambition was obdurate and would not down. He
persisted as men do yet every day in measuring the Christ by
himself. How much better if we measured ourselves by the Christ!

Naturally, the mother was the first to think of the cares of life.

"What shall we do now, my son? Where shall we go?"

Then Ben-Hur, recalled to duty, observed how completely every
trace of the scourge had disappeared from his restored people; that
each had back her perfection of person; that, as with Naaman when he
came up out of the water, their flesh had come again like unto the
flesh of a little child; and he took off his cloak, and threw it
over Tirzah.

"Take it," he said, smiling; "the eye of the stranger would have
shunned you before; now it shall not offend you."

The act exposed a sword belted to his side.

"Is it a time of war?" asked the mother, anxiously.

"No."

"Why, then, are you armed?"

"It may be necessary to defend the Nazarene."

Thus Ben-Hur evaded the whole truth.

"Has he enemies? Who are they?"

"Alas, mother, they are not all Romans!"

"Is he not of Israel, and a man of peace?"

"There was never one more so; but in the opinion of the rabbis and
teachers he is guilty of a great crime."

"What crime?"

"In his eyes the uncircumcised Gentile is as worthy favour as a
Jew of the strictest habit. He preaches a new dispensation."

The mother was silent, and they moved to the shade of the tree by
the rock. Calming his impatience to have them home again and hear
their story, he showed them the necessity of obedience to the law
governing in cases like theirs, and in conclusion called the Arab,
bidding him take the horses to the gate by Bethesda and await him
there; whereupon they set out by the way of the Mount of Offence.
The return was very different from the coming; they walked rapidly and
with ease, and in good time reached a tomb newly made near that of
Absalom, overlooking the depths of Cedron. Finding it unoccupied,
the women took possession, while he went on hastily to make the
preparations required for their new condition.

                      CHAPTER V.

              PILGRIMS TO THE PASSOVER.


BEN-HUR pitched two tents out on the Upper Cedron east a short space
of the Tombs of the Kings, and furnished them with every comfort at
his command; and thither, without loss of time, he conducted his
mother and sister, to remain until the examining priest could
certify their perfect cleansing.

In course of the duty, the young man had subjected himself to such
serious defilement as to debar him from participation in the
ceremonies of the great feast, then near at hand. He could not enter
the least sacred of the courts of the Temple. Of necessity, not less
than choice, therefore, he stayed at the tents with his beloved
people. There was a great deal to hear from them, and a great deal
to tell them of himself.

Stories such as theirs- sad experiences extending through a lapse of
years, sufferings of body, acuter sufferings of mind- are usually long
in the telling, the incidents seldom following each other in
threaded connection. He listened to the narrative and all they told
him, with outward patience masking inward feelings. In fact, his
hatred of Rome and Romans reached a higher mark than ever; his
desire for vengeance became a thirst which attempts at reflection only
intensified. In the almost savage bitterness of his humour many mad
impulses took hold of him. The opportunities of the highways presented
themselves with singular force of temptation; he thought seriously
of insurrection in Galilee; even the sea, ordinarily a retrospective
horror to him, stretched itself map-like before his fancy, laced and
interlaced with lines of passage crowded with imperial plunder and
imperial travellers; but the better judgment matured in calmer hours
was happily too firmly fixed to be supplanted by present passion
however strong. Each mental venture in reach of new expedients brought
him back to the old conclusion- that there could be no sound success
except in a war involving all Israel in solid union; and all musing
upon the subject, all inquiry, all hope, ended where they began- in
the Nazarene and his purposes.

At odd moments the excited schemer found a pleasure in fashioning
a speech for that person-

"Hear, O Israel! I am he, the promised of God, born King of the
Jews- come to you with the dominion spoken of by the prophets. Rise
now, and lay hold on the world!"

Would the Nazarene but speak these few words, what a tumult would
follow! How many mouths performing the office of trumpets would take
them up and blow them abroad for the massing of armies!

Would he speak them?

And eager to begin the work, and answering in the worldly way,
Ben-Hur lost sight of the double nature of the man, and of the other
possibility, that the divine in him might transcend the human. In
the miracle of which Tirzah and his mother were the witnesses even
more nearly than himself, he saw and set apart and dwelt upon a
power ample enough to raise and support a Jewish crown over the wrecks
of the Italian, and more than ample to remodel society, and convert
mankind into one purified happy family; and when that work was done,
could any one say the peace which might then be ordered without
hindrance was not a mission worthy a son of God? Could any one then
deny the Redeemership of the Christ? And discarding all
consideration of political consequences, what unspeakable personal
glory there would then be to him as a man? It was not in the nature of
any mere mortal to refuse such a career.

Meantime down the Cedron, and in towards Bezetha, especially on
the roadsides quite up to the Damascus Gate, the country filled
rapidly with all kinds of temporary shelters for pilgrims to the
Passover. Ben-Hur visited the strangers and talked with them; and
returning to his tents, he was each time more and more astonished at
the vastness of their numbers. And when he further discovered that
every part of the world was represented among them- cities upon both
shores of the Mediterranean far off as the Pillars of the West,
river-towns in distant India, provinces in northernmost Europe; and
that, though they frequently saluted him with tongues unacquainted
with a syllable of the old Hebrew of the fathers, these
representatives had all the same object- celebration of the notable
feast- an idea tinged mistily with superstitious fancy forced itself
upon him. Might he not after all have misunderstood the Nazarene?
Might not that person by patient waiting be covering silent
preparation, and proving his fitness for the glorious task before him?
How much better this time for the movement than that other when, by
Gennesaret, the Galileans would have forced assumption of the crown?
Then the support would have been limited to a few thousands; now his
proclamation would be responded to by millions- who could say how
many? Pursuing this theory to its conclusions, Ben-Hur moved amidst
brilliant promises, and glowed with the thought that the melancholy
man, under gentle seeming and wondrous self-denial, was in fact
carrying in disguise the subtlety of a politician and the genius of
a soldier.

Several times also, in the meanwhile, low-set, brawny men,
bare-headed and black-bearded, came and asked for Ben-Hur at the tent:
his interviews with them were always apart; and to his mother's
questions who they were he answered-

"Some good friends of mine from Galilee."

Through them he kept informed of the movements of the Nazarene,
and of the schemes of the Nazarene's enemies, Rabbinical and Roman.
That the good man's life was in danger he knew; but that there were
any bold enough to attempt to take it at that time he could not
believe. It seemed too securely intrenched in a great fame and an
assured popularity. The very vastness of the attendance in and about
the city brought with it a seeming guaranty of safety. And yet, to say
truth, Ben-Hur's confidence rested most certainly upon the
miraculous power of the Christ. Pondering the subject in the purely
human view, that the master of such authority over life and death,
used so frequently for the good of others, would not exert it in
care of himself, was simply as much past belief as it was past
understanding.

Nor should it be forgotten that all these were incidents of
occurrence between the twenty-first day of March- counting by the
modern calendar- and the twenty-fifth. The evening of the latter day
Ben-Hur yielded to his impatience, and rode to the city, leaving
behind him a promise to return in the night.

The horse was fresh, and choosing his own gait, sped swiftly. The
eyes of the clambering vines winked at the rider from the garden
fences on the way; there was nothing else to see him, nor child nor
woman nor man. Through the rocky float in the hollows of the road
the agate hoofs drummed, ringing like cups of steel; but without
notice from any stranger. In the houses passed there were no
tenants; the fires by the tent-doors were out; the road was
deserted; for this was the first Passover eve, and the hour "between
the evenings" when the visiting millions crowded the city, and the
slaughter of lambs in offering reeked the fore-courts of the Temple,
and the priests in ordered lines caught the flowing blood and
carried it swiftly to the dripping altars- when all was haste and
hurry, racing with the stars fast coming with the signal after which
the roasting and the eating and the singing might go on, but not the
preparation more.

Through the great northern gate the rider rode, and lo! Jerusalem
before the fall, in ripeness of glory, illuminated for the Lord.

                      CHAPTER VI.

                  A SERPENT OF THE NILE.


BEN-HUR alighted at the gate of the khan from which the three Wise
Men more than thirty years before departed, going down to Bethlehem.
There, in keeping of his Arab followers, he left the horse, and
shortly after was at the wicket of his father's house, and in a yet
briefer space in the great chamber. He called for Malluch first;
that worthy being out, he sent a salutation to his friends, the
merchant and the Egyptian. They were being carried abroad to see the
celebration. The latter, he was informed, was very feeble, and in a
state of deep dejection.

Young people of that time who were supposed hardly to know their own
hearts indulged the habit of politic indirection quite as much as
young people in the same condition indulge it in this time; so when
Ben-Hur inquired for the good Balthasar, and with grave courtesy
desired to know if he would be pleased to see him, he really addressed
the daughter a notice of his arrival. While the servant was
answering for the elder, the curtain of the doorway was drawn aside,
and the younger Egyptian came in, and walked- or floated, upborne in a
white cloud of the gauzy raiment she so loved and lived in- to the
centre of the chamber, where the light cast by lamps from the
seven-armed brazen stick planted upon the floor was the strongest.
With her there was no fear of light.

The servant left the two alone.

In the excitement occasioned by the events of the few days past
Ben-Hur had scarcely given a thought to the fair Egyptian. If she came
to his mind at all, it was merely as a briefest pleasure, a suggestion
of a delight which could wait for him, and was waiting.

But now the influence of the woman revived with all its force the
instant Ben-Hur beheld her. He advanced to her eagerly, but stopped
and gazed. Such a change he had never seen!

Theretofore she had been a lover studious to win him- in manner
all warmth, each glance an admission, each action an avowal. She had
showered him with incense of flattery. While he was present, she had
impressed him with her admiration; going away, he carried the
impression with him to remain a delicious expectancy hastening his
return. It was for him the painted eyelids drooped lowest over the
lustrous almond eyes; for him the love-stories caught from the
professionals abounding in the streets of Alexandria were repeated
with emphasis and lavishment of poetry; for him endless exclamations
of sympathy, and smiles, and little privileges with hand and hair
and cheek and lips, and songs of the Nile, and displays of jewelry,
and subtleties of lace in veils and scarfs, and other subtleties not
less exquisite in flosses of Indian silk. The idea, old as the
oldest of peoples, that beauty is the reward of the hero had never
such realism as she contrived for his pleasure; insomuch that he could
not doubt he was her hero; she avouched it in a thousand artful ways
as natural with her as her beauty- winsome ways reserved, it would
seem, by the passionate genius of old Egypt for its daughters.

Such the Egyptian had been to Ben-Hur from the night of the
boat-ride on the lake in the Orchard of Palms. But now!

Elsewhere in this volume the reader may have observed a term of
somewhat indefinite meaning used reverently in a sacred connection; we
repeat it now with a general application. There are few persons who
have not a double nature, the real and the acquired, the latter a kind
of addendum resulting from education, which in time often perfects
it into a part of the being as unquestionable as the first. Leaving
the thought to the thoughtful, we proceed to say that now the real
nature of the Egyptian made itself manifest.

It was not possible for her to have received a stranger with
repulsion more incisive; yet she was apparently as passionless as a
statue, only the small head was a little tilted, the nostrils a little
drawn, and the sensuous lower lip pushed the upper the least bit out
of its natural curvature. She was the first to speak.

"Your coming is timely, O son of Hur," she said, in a voice
sharply distinct. "I wish to thank you for hospitality; after
to-morrow I may not have the opportunity to do so."

Ben-Hur bowed slightly without taking his eyes from her.

"I have heard of a custom which the dice-players observe with good
result among themselves," she continued. "When the game is over,
they refer to their tablets and cast up their accounts; then they
libate the gods and put a crown upon the happy winner. We have had a
game- it has lasted through many days and nights. Why, now that it
is at an end, shall not we see to which the chaplet belongs?"

Yet very watchful, Ben-Hur answered, lightly, "A man may not balk
a woman bent on having her way."

"Tell me," she continued, inclining her head, and permitting the
sneer to become positive- "tell me, O prince of Jerusalem, where is
he, that son of the carpenter of Nazareth, and son not less of God,
from whom so lately such mighty things were expected?"

He waved his hand impatiently, and replied, "I am not his keeper."

The beautiful head sank forward yet lower.

"Has he broken Rome to pieces?"

Again, but with anger, Ben-Hur raised his hand in deprecation.

"Where has he seated his capital?" she proceeded. "Cannot I go see
his throne and its lions of bronze? And his palace- he raised the
dead; and to such a one, what is it to raise a golden house? He has
but to stamp his foot and say the word, and the house is, pillared
like Karnak, and wanting nothing."

There was by this time slight ground left to believe her playing;
the questions were offensive, and her manner pointed with
unfriendliness; seeing which, he on his side became more wary, and
said, with good-humour, "O Egypt, let us wait another day, even
another week, for him, the lions, and the palace."

She went on without noticing the suggestion.

"And how is it I see you in that garb? Such is not the habit of
governors in India or vice-kings elsewhere. I saw the satrap of
Teheran once, and he wore a turban of silk and a cloak of cloth of
gold, and the hilt and scabbard of his sword made me dizzy with
their splendour of precious stones. I thought Osiris had lent him a
glory from the sun. I fear you have not entered upon your kingdom- the
kingdom I was to share with you."

"The daughter of my wise guest is kinder than she imagines
herself; she is teaching me that Isis may kiss a heart without
making it better."

Ben-Hur spoke with cold courtesy, and Iras, after playing with the
pendent solitaire of her necklace of coins, rejoined, "For a Jew,
the son of Hur is clever. I saw your dreaming Caesar make his entry
into Jerusalem. You told us he would that day proclaim himself King of
the Jews from the steps of the Temple. I beheld the procession descend
the mountain bringing him. I heard their singing. They were
beautiful with palms in motion. I looked everywhere among them for a
figure with a promise of royalty- a horseman in purple, a chariot with
a driver in shining brass, a stately warrior behind an orbed shield,
rivalling his spear in stature. I looked for his guard. It would
have been pleasant to have seen a prince of Jerusalem and a cohort
of the legions of Galilee."

She flung her listener a glance of provoking disdain, then laughed
heartily, as if the ludicrousness of the picture in her mind were
too strong for contempt.

"Instead of a Sesostris returning in triumph or a Caesar helmed
and sworded- ha, ha, ha!- I saw a man with a woman's face and hair,
riding an ass's colt, and in tears. The King! the son of God! the
Redeemer of the world! Ha, ha, ha!"

In spite of himself, Ben-Hur winced.

"I did not quit my place, O prince of Jerusalem," she said, before
he could recover. "I did not laugh. I said to myself, 'Wait. In the
Temple he will glorify himself as becomes a hero about to take
possession of the world.' I saw him enter the Gate of Shushan and
the Court of the Women. I saw him stop and stand before the Gate
Beautiful. There were people with me on the porch and in the courts,
and on the cloisters and on the steps of the three sides of the Temple
there were other people- I will say a million of people, all waiting
breathlessly to hear his proclamation. The pillars were not more still
than we. Ha, ha, ha! I fancied I heard the axles of the mighty Roman
machine begin to crack. Ha, ha, ha! O prince, by the soul of
Solomon, your King of the World drew his gown about him and walked
away, and out by the farthest gate, nor opened his mouth to say a
word; and- the Roman machine is running yet!"

In simple homage to a hope that instant lost- a hope which, as it
began to fall and while it was falling, he unconsciously followed with
a parting look down to its disappearance- Ben-Hur lowered his eyes.

At no previous time, whether when Balthasar was plying him with
arguments, or when miracles were being done before his face, had the
disputed nature of the Nazarene been so plainly set before him. The
best way, after all, to reach an understanding of the divine is by
study of the human. In the things superior to men we may always look
to find God. So with the picture given by the Egyptian of the scene
when the Nazarene turned from the Gate Beautiful; its central theme
was an act utterly beyond performance by a man under control of merely
human inspirations. A parable to a parable-loving people, it taught
what the Christ had so often asserted- that his mission was not
political. There was not much more time for thought of all this than
that allowed for a common respiration; yet the idea took fast hold
of Ben-Hur, and in the same instant he followed his hope of
vengeance out of sight, and the man with the woman's face and hair,
and in tears, came near to him- near enough to leave something of
his spirit behind.

"Daughter of Balthasar," he said, with dignity, "if this be the game
of which you spoke to me, take the chaplet- I accord it yours. Only
let us make an end of words. That you have a purpose I am sure. To it,
I pray, and I will answer you; then let us go our several ways, and
forget we ever met. Say on; I will listen, but not to more of that
which you have given me."

She regarded him intently a moment, as if determining what to do-
possibly she might have been measuring his will- then she said,
coldly, "You have my leave- go."

"Peace to you," he responded, and walked away.

As he was about passing out of the door, she called to him.

"A word."

He stopped where he was, and looked back.

"Consider all I know about you."

"O most fair Egyptian," he said, returning, "what all do you know
about me?"

She looked at him absently.

"You are more of a Roman, son of Hur, than any of your Hebrew
brethren."

"Am I so unlike my countrymen?" he asked, indifferently.

"The demi-gods are all Roman now," she rejoined.

"And therefore you will tell me what more you know about me?"

"The likeness is not lost upon me. It might induce me to save you."

"Save me!"

The pink-stained fingers toyed daintily with the lustrous pendent at
the throat, and her voice was exceeding low and soft; only a tapping
on the floor with her silken sandal admonished him to have a care.

"There was a Jew, an escaped galley-slave, who killed a man in the
Palace of Idernee," she began, slowly.

Ben-Hur was startled.

"The same Jew slew a Roman soldier before the Market-place here in
Jerusalem; the same Jew has three trained legions from Galilee to
seize the Roman governor to-night; the same Jew has alliances
perfected for war upon Rome, and Ilderim the Sheik is one of his
partners."

Drawing nearer him, she almost whispered-

"You have lived in Rome. Suppose these things repeated in ears we
know of. Ah! you change colour."

He drew back from her with somewhat of the look which may be
imagined upon the face of a man who, thinking to play with a kitten,
has run upon a tiger; and she proceeded-

"You are acquainted in the antechamber, and know the Lord Sejanus.
Suppose it were told him with the proofs in hand- or without the
proofs- that the same Jew is the richest man in the East- nay, in
all the empire. The fishes of the Tiber would have fattening other
than that they dig out of its ooze, would they not? And while they
were feeding- ha! son of Hur!- what splendour there would be on
exhibition in the Circus! Amusing the Roman people is a fine art;
getting the money to keep them amused is another art even finer; and
was there ever an artist the equal of the Lord Sejanus?"

Ben-Hur was not too much stirred by the evident baseness of the
woman for recollection. Not infrequently, when all the other faculties
are numb and failing, memory does its offices with the greatest
fidelity. The scene at the spring on the way to the Jordan
reproduced itself; and he remembered thinking then that Esther had
betrayed him, and thinking so now, he said, calmly as he could-

"To give you pleasure, daughter of Egypt, I acknowledge your
cunning, and that I am at your mercy. It may also please you to hear
me acknowledge I have no hope of your favour. I could kill you, but
you are a woman. The desert is open to receive me; and though Rome
is a good hunter of men, there she would follow long and far before
she caught me, for in its heart there are wildernesses of spears as
well as wildernesses of sand, and it is not unlovely to the
unconquered Parthian. In the toils as I am- dupe that I have been- yet
there is one thing my due: who told you all you know about me? In
flight or captivity, dying even, there will be consolation in
leaving the traitor the curse of a man who has lived knowing nothing
but wretchedness. Who told you all you know about me?"

It might have been a touch of art, or might have been sincere-
that as it may- the expression of the Egyptian's face became
sympathetic.

"There are in my country, O son of Hur," she said, presently,
"workmen who make pictures by gathering vari-coloured shells here
and there on the sea-shore after storms, and cutting them up, and
patching the pieces as inlaying on marble slabs. Can you not see the
hint there is in the practice to such as go gathering for secrets?
Enough that from this person I gathered a handful of little
circumstances, and from that other yet another handful, and that
afterwhile I put them together, and was happy as a woman can be who
has at disposal the fortune and life of a man whom"- she stopped and
beat the floor with her foot, and looked away as if to hide a sudden
emotion from him; with an air of even painful resolution she presently
finished the sentence- "whom she is at loss what to do with."

"No, it is not enough," Ben-Hur said, unmoved by the play- "it is
not enough. To-morrow you will determine what to do with me. I may
die."

"True," she rejoined quickly and with emphasis, "I had something
from Sheik Ilderim as he lay with my father in a grove out in the
desert. The night was still, very still, and the walls of the tent,
sooth to say, were poor ward against ears outside listening to-
birds and beetles flying through the air."

She smiled at the conceit, but proceeded:-

"Some other things- bits of shell for the picture- I had from- "

"Whom?"

"The son of Hur himself."

"Was there no other who contributed?"

"No, not one."

Hur drew a breath of relief, and said, lightly, "Thanks. It were not
well to keep the Lord Sejanus waiting for you. The desert is not so
sensitive. Again, O Egypt, peace!"

To this time he had been standing uncovered; now he took the
handkerchief from his arm where it had been hanging, and adjusting
it upon his head, turned to depart. But she arrested him; in her
eagerness, she even reached a hand to him.

"Stay," she said.

He looked back at her, but without taking the hand, though it was
very noticeable for its sparkling of jewels; and he knew by her manner
that the reserved point of the scene which was so surprising to him
was now to come.

"Stay, and do not distrust me, O son of Hur, if I declare I know why
the noble Arrius took you for his heir. And, by Iris! by all the
gods of Egypt! I swear I tremble to think of you, so brave and
generous, under the hand of the remorseless minister. You have left
a portion of your youth in the atria of the great capital; consider,
as I do, what the desert will be to you in contrast of life. Oh, I
give you pity- pity! And if you but do what I say, I will save you.
That, also, I swear, by our holy Isis!"

Words of entreaty and prayer these, poured forth volubly and with
earnestness and the mighty sanction of beauty.

"Almost- almost I believe you," Ben-Hur said, yet hesitatingly,
and in a voice low and indistinct; for a doubt remained with him
grumbling against the yielding tendency of the man- a good sturdy
doubt, such a one as has saved many a life and fortune.

"The perfect life for a woman is to live in love; the greatest
happiness for a man is the conquest of himself; and that, O prince, is
what I have to ask of you."

She spoke rapidly, and with animation; indeed, she had never
appeared to him so fascinating.

"You had once a friend," she continued. "It was in your boyhood.
There was a quarrel, and you and he became enemies. He did you
wrong. After many years you met him again in the Circus at Antioch."

"Messala!"

"Yes, Messala. You are his creditor. Forgive the past; admit him
to friendship again; restore the fortune he lost in the great wager;
rescue him. The six talents are as nothing to you; not so much as a
bud lost upon a tree already in full leaf; but to him- Ah, he must
go about with a broken body; wherever you meet him he must look up
to you from the ground. O Ben-Hur, noble prince! to a Roman
descended as he is beggary is the other most odious name for death.
Save him from beggary!"

If the rapidity with which she spoke was a cunning invention to keep
him from thinking, either she never knew or else had forgotten that
there are convictions which derive nothing from thought, but drop into
place without leave or notice. It seemed to him, when at last she
paused to have his answer, that he could see Messala himself peering
at him over her shoulder; and in its expression the countenance of the
Roman was not that of a mendicant or a friend; the sneer was as
patrician as ever, and the fine edge of the hauteur as flawless and
irritating.

"The appeal has been decided then, and for once a Messala takes
nothing. I must go and write it in my book of great occurrences- a
judgment by a Roman against a Roman! But did he- did Messala send
you to me with this request, O Egypt?"

"He has a noble nature, and judged you by it."

Ben-Hur took the hand upon his arm.

"As you know him in such friendly way, fair Egyptian, tell me, would
he do for me, there being a reversal of the conditions, that he asks
of me? Answer, by Isis! Answer, for the truth's sake!"

There was insistence in the touch of his hand, and in his look also.

"Oh!" she began, "he is- "

"A Roman, you were about to say; meaning that I, a Jew, must not
determine dues from me to him by any measure of dues from him to me;
being a Jew, I must forgive him my winnings because he is a Roman.
If you have more to tell me, daughter of Balthasar, speak quickly,
quickly; for by the Lord God of Israel, when this heat of blood,
hotter waxing, attains its highest, I may not be able longer to see
that you are a woman, and beautiful! I may see but the spy of a master
the more hateful because the master is a Roman. Say on, and quickly."

She threw his hand off and stepped back into the full light, with
all the evil of her nature collected in her eyes and voice.

"Thou drinker of lees, feeder upon husks! To think I could love
thee, having seen Messala! Such as thou were born to serve him. He
would have been satisfied with release of the six talents; but I say
to the six thou shalt add twenty- twenty, dost thou hear? The kissings
of my little finger which thou hast taken from him, though with my
consent, shall be paid for; and that I have followed thee with
affectation of sympathy, and endured thee so long, enter into the
account not less because I was serving him. The merchant here is thy
keeper of moneys. If by to-morrow at noon he has not thy order acted
upon in favour of my Messala for six-and-twenty talents- mark the
sum!- thou shalt settle with the Lord Sejanus. Be wise and- farewell."

As she was going to the door, he put himself in her way.

"The old Egypt lives in you," he said. "Whether you see Messala
to-morrow or the next day, here or in Rome, give him this message.
Tell him I have back the money, even the six talents, he robbed me
of by robbing my father's estate; tell him I survived the galleys to
which he had me sent, and in my strength rejoice in his beggary and
dishonour; tell him I think the affliction of body which he has from
my hand is the curse of our Lord God of Israel upon him, more fit than
death for his crimes against the helpless; tell him my mother and
sister whom he had sent to a cell in Antonia that they might die of
leprosy, are alive and well, thanks to the power of the Nazarene
whom you so despise; tell him that, to fill my measure of happiness,
they are restored to me, and that I will go hence to their love, and
find in it more than compensation for the impure passions which you
leave me to take to him; tell him- this for your comfort, O cunning
incarnate, as much as his- tell him that when the Lord Sejanus comes
to despoil me he will find nothing; for the inheritance I had from the
duumvir, including the villa by Misenum, has been sold, and the
money from the sale is out of reach, afloat in the marts of the
world as bills of exchange; and that this house and the goods and
merchandise, and the ships and caravans with which Simonides plies his
commerces with such princely profits, are covered by imperial
safeguards- a wise head having found the price of the favour, and
the Lord Sejanus preferring a reasonable gain in the way of gift to
much gain fished from pools of blood and wrong; tell him if all this
were not so, if the money and property were all mine, yet should he
not have the least part of it, for when he finds our Jewish bills, and
forces them to give up their values, there is yet another resort
left me- a deed of gift to Caesar- so much, O Egypt, I found out in
the atria of the great capital; tell him that along with my defiance I
do not send him a curse in words, but, as a better expression of my
undying hate, I send him one who will prove to him the sum of all
curses; and when he looks at you repeating this my message, daughter
of Balthasar, his Roman shrewdness will tell him all I mean. Go now-
and I will go."

He conducted her to the door, and, with ceremonious politeness, held
back the curtain while she passed out.

"Peace to you," he said, as she disappeared.

                      CHAPTER VII.

               BEN-HUR RETURNS TO ESTHER.


WHEN Ben-Hur left the guest-chamber, there was not nearly so much
life in his action as when he entered it; his steps were slower, and
he went along with his head quite upon his breast. Having made
discovery that a man with a broken back may yet have a sound brain, he
was reflecting upon the discovery.

Forasmuch as it is easy after a calamity has befallen to look back
and see the proofs of its coming strewn along the way, the thought
that he had not even suspected the Egyptian as in Messala's
interest, but had gone blindly on through whole years putting
himself and his friends more and more at her mercy, was a sore wound
to the young man's vanity. "I remember," he said to himself, "she
had no word of indignation for the perfidious Roman at the Fountain of
Castalia! I remember she extolled him at the boat-ride on the lake
in the Orchard of Palms! And, ah!"- he stopped, and beat his left hand
violently with his right- "ah! that mystery about the appointment
she made with me at the Palace of Idernee is no mystery now!"

The wound, it should be observed, was to his vanity; and fortunately
it is not often that people die of such hurts, or even continue a long
time sick. In Ben-Hur's case, moreover, there was a compensation;
for presently he exclaimed aloud, "Praised be the Lord God that the
woman took not a more lasting hold of me! I see I did not love her."

Then, as if he had already parted with not a little of the weight on
his mind, he stepped forward more lightly; and, coming to the place on
the terrace where one stairway led down to the court-yard below, and
another ascended to the roof, he took the latter and began to climb.
As he made the last step in the flight he stopped again.

"Can Balthasar have been her partner in the long mask she has been
playing? No, no. Hypocrisy seldom goes with wrinkled age like that.
Balthasar is a good man."

With this decided opinion he stepped upon the roof. There was a full
moon overhead, yet the vault of the sky at the moment was lurid with
light cast up from the fires burning in the streets and open places of
the city, and the chanting and chorusing of the old psalmody of Israel
filled it with plaintive harmonies to which he could not but listen.
The countless voices bearing the burden seemed to say, "Thus, O Son of
Judah, we prove our worshipfulness of the Lord God, and our loyalty to
the land he gave us. Let a Gideon appear, or a David, or a Maccabaeus,
and we are ready."

That seemed an introduction; for next he saw the man of Nazareth.

In certain moods the mind is disposed to mock itself with inapposite
fancies.

The tearful woman-like face of the Christ stayed with him while he
crossed the roof to the parapet above the street on the north side
of the house, and there was in it no sign of war; but rather as the
heavens of the calm evenings look peace upon everything, so it looked,
provoking the old question, What manner of man is he?

Ben-Hur permitted himself one glance over the parapet, then turned
and walked mechanically towards the summer-house.

"Let them do their worst," he said, as he went slowly on. "I will
not forgive the Roman. I will not divide my fortune with him, nor will
I fly from this city of my fathers; I will call on Galilee first,
and here make the fight. By brave deeds I will bring the tribes to our
side. He who raised up Moses will find us a leader, if I fail. If
not the Nazarene, then some one of the many ready to die for freedom."

The interior of the summer-house, when Ben-Hur, slow sauntering,
came to it, was murkily lighted. The faintest of shadows lay along the
floor from the pillars on the north and west sides. Looking in, he saw
the arm-chair usually occupied by Simonides drawn to a spot from which
a view of the city over towards the Market-place could be best had.

"The good man is returned. I will speak with him, unless he be
asleep."

He walked in, and with a quiet step approached the chair. Peering
over the high back, he beheld Esther nestled in the seat asleep- a
small figure snugged away under her father's lap-robe. The hair
dishevelled fell over her face. Her breathing was low and irregular.
Once it was broken by a long sigh, ending in a sob. Something- it
might have been the sigh or the loneliness in which he found her-
imparted to him the idea that the sleep was a rest from sorrow
rather than fatigue. Nature kindly sends such relief to children,
and he was used to thinking Esther scarcely more than a child. He
put his arms upon the back of the chair, and thought.

"I will not wake her. I have nothing to tell her- nothing unless-
unless it be my love.... She is a daughter of Judah, and beautiful,
and so unlike the Egyptian; for there it is all vanity, here all
truth; there ambition, here duty; there selfishness, here
self-sacrifice.... Nay, the question is not do I love her, but does
she love me? She was my friend from the beginning. The night on the
terrace at Antioch, how childlike she begged me not to make Rome my
enemy, and had me tell her of the villa by Misenum, and of the life
there! That she should not see I saw her cunning drift I kissed her.
Can she have forgotten the kiss? I have not. I love her.... They do
not know in the city that I have back my people. I shrank from telling
it to the Egyptian; but this little one will rejoice with me over
their restoration, and welcome them with love and sweet services of
hand and heart. She will be to my mother another daughter; in Tirzah
she will find her other self. I would wake her and tell her these
things, but- out on the sorceress of Egypt! Of that folly I could
not command myself to speak. I will go away, and wait another and a
better time. I will wait. Fair Esther, dutiful child, daughter of
Judah!"

He retired silently as he came.

                      CHAPTER VIII.

               GETHSEMANE- "WHOM SEEK YE?"


THE streets were full of people going and coming, or grouped about
the fires roasting meat, and feasting and singing, and happy. The
odour of scorching flesh mixed with the odour of cedar-wood aflame and
smoking loaded the air; and as this was the occasion when every son of
Israel was full brother to every other son of Israel, and
hospitality was without bounds, Ben-Hur was saluted at every step,
while the groups by the fires insisted, "Stay and partake with us.
We are brethren in the love of the Lord." But with thanks to them he
hurried on, intending to take horse at the khan and return to the
tents on the Cedron.

To make the place, it was necessary for him to cross the
thoroughfare so soon to receive sorrowful Christian perpetuation.
There also the pious celebration was at its height. Looking up the
street, he noticed the flames of torches in motion streaming out
like pennons; then he observed that the singing ceased where the
torches came. His wonder rose to its highest, however, when he
became certain that amidst the smoke and dancing sparks he saw the
keener sparkling of burnished spear-tips, arguing the presence of
Roman soldiers. What were they, the scoffing legionaries, doing in a
Jewish religious procession? The circumstance was unheard of, and he
stayed to see the meaning of it.

The moon was shining its best; yet, as if the moon and the
torches, and the fires in the street, and the rays streaming from
windows and open doors were not enough to make the way clear, some
of the processionists carried lighted lanterns; and fancying he
discovered a special purpose in the use of such equipments, Ben-Hur
stepped into the street, so close to the line of march as to bring
every one of the company under view while passing. The torches and the
lanterns were being borne by servants, each of whom was armed with a
bludgeon or a sharpened stave. Their present duty seemed to be to pick
out the smoothest paths among the rocks in the street for certain
dignitaries among them- elders and priests; rabbis with long beards,
heavy brows, and beaked noses; men of the class potential in the
councils of Caiaphas and Hannas. Where could they be going? Not to the
Temple, certainly, for the route to the sacred house from Zion, whence
these appeared to be coming, was by the Xystus. And their business- if
peaceful, why the soldiers?

As the procession began to go by Ben-Hur, his attention was
particularly called to three persons walking together. They were
well towards the front, and the servants who went before them with
lanterns appeared unusually careful in the service. In the person
moving on the left of this group he recognized a chief policeman of
the Temple; the one on the right was a priest; the middle man was
not at first so easily placed, as he walked leaning heavily upon the
arms of the others, and carried his head so low upon his breast as
to hide his face. His appearance was that of a prisoner not yet
recovered from the fright of arrest, or being taken to something
dreadful- to torture or death. The dignitaries helping him on the
right and left, and the attention they gave him, made it clear that if
he were not himself the object moving the party, he was at least in
some way connected with the object- a witness or a guide, possibly
an informer. So if it could be found who he was the business in hand
might be shrewdly guessed. With great assurance, Ben-Hur fell in on
the right of the priest, and walked along with him. Now if the man
would lift his head! And presently he did so, letting the light of the
lanterns strike full in his face- pale, dazed, pinched with dread; the
beard roughed; the eyes filmy, sunken, and despairing. In much going
about following the Nazarene, Ben-Hur had come to know his disciples
as well as the Master; and now, at sight of the dismal countenance, he
cried out- "The 'Scariot!"

Slowly the head of the man turned until his eyes settled upon
Ben-Hur, and his lips moved as if he were about to speak; but the
priest interfered.

"Who art thou? Begone!" he said to Ben-Hur, pushing him away.

The young man took the push good-naturedly, and, waiting an
opportunity, fell into the procession again. Thus he was carried
passively along down the street, through the crowded lowlands
between the hill Bezetha and the Castle of Antonia, and on by the
Bethesda reservoir to the Sheep Gate. There were people everywhere,
and everywhere the people were engaged in sacred observances.

It being Passover night, the valves of the Gate stood open. The
keepers were off somewhere feasting. In front of the procession as
it passed out unchallenged was the deep gorge of the Cedron, with
Olivet beyond, its dressing of cedar and olive trees darker of the
moonlight silvering all the heavens. Two roads met and merged into the
street at the gate- one from the north-east, the other from Bethany.
Ere Ben-Hur could finish wondering whether he were to go farther,
and if so, which road was to be taken, he was led off down into the
gorge. And still no hint of the purpose of the midnight march.

Down the gorge and over the bridge at the bottom of it. There was
a great clatter on the floor as the crowd, now a struggling rabble,
passed over, beating and pounding with their clubs and staves. A
little farther, and they turned off to the left in the direction of an
olive orchard enclosed by a stone wall in view from the road.
Ben-Hur knew there was nothing in the place but old gnarled trees, the
grass, and a trough hewn out of a rock for the treading of oil after
the fashion of the country. While, yet more wonder-struck, he was
thinking what could bring such a company at such an hour to a
quarter so lonesome, they were all brought to a stand-still. Voices
called out excitedly in front; a chill sensation ran from man to
man; there was a rapid falling-back, and a blind stumbling over each
other. The soldiers alone kept their order.

It took Ben-Hur but a moment to disengage himself from the mob and
run forward. There he found a gateway without a gate admitting to
the orchard, and he halted to take in the scene.

A man in white clothes, and bareheaded, was standing outside the
entrance, his hands crossed before him- a slender, stooping figure,
with long hair and thin face- in an attitude of resignation and
waiting.

It was the Nazarene!

Behind him, next the gateway, were the disciples in a group; they
were excited, but no man was ever calmer than he. The torch-light beat
redly upon him, giving his hair a tint ruddier than was natural to it;
yet the expression of the countenance was as usual, all gentleness and
pity.

Opposite this most unmartial figure stood the rabble, gaping,
silent, awed, cowering- ready at a sign of anger from him to break and
run. And from him to them- then at Judas, conspicuous in their
midst- Ben-Hur looked- one quick glance, and the object of the visit
lay open to his understanding. Here was the betrayer, there the
betrayed; and these with clubs and staves, and the legionaries, were
brought to take him.

A man may not always tell what he will do until the trial is upon
him. This was the emergency for which Ben-Hur had been for years
preparing. The man to whose security he had devoted himself, and
upon whose life he had been building so largely, was in personal
peril; yet he stood still. Such contradictions are there in human
nature! To say truth, O reader, he was not entirely recovered from the
picture of the Christ before the Gate Beautiful as it had been given
by the Egyptian; and, besides that, the very calmness with which the
mysterious person confronted the mob held him in restraint by
suggesting the possession of a power in reserve more than sufficient
for the peril. Peace and good-will, and love and nonresistance, had
been the burden of the Nazarene's teaching; would he put his preaching
into practice? He was master of life; he could restore it when lost;
he could take it at pleasure. What use would he make of the power now?
Defend himself? And how? A word- a breath- a thought were
sufficient. That there would be some signal exhibition of
astonishing force beyond the natural Ben-Hur believed, and in that
faith waited. And in all this he was still measuring the Nazarene by
himself- by the human standard.

Presently the clear voice of the Christ arose.

"Whom seek ye?"

"Jesus of Nazareth," the priest replied.

"I am he."

At these simplest of words, spoken without passion or alarm, the
assailants fell back several steps, the timid among them cowering to
the ground; and they might have let him alone and gone away had not
Judas walked over to him.

"Hail, master!"

With this friendly speech he kissed him.

"Judas," said the Nazarene, mildly, "betrayest thou the Son of man
with a kiss? Wherefore art thou come?"

Receiving no reply, the Master spoke to the crowd again.

"Whom seek ye?"

"Jesus of Nazareth."

"I have told you that I am he. If, therefore, you seek me, let these
go their way."

At these words of entreaty the rabbis advanced upon him; and, seeing
their intent, some of the disciples for whom he interceded drew
nearer; one of them cut off a man's ear, but without saving the Master
from being taken. And yet Ben-Hur stood still! Nay, while the officers
were making ready with their ropes the Nazarene was doing his greatest
charity- not the greatest in deed, but the very greatest in
illustration of his forbearance, so far surpassing that of men.

"Suffer ye thus far," he said to the wounded man, and healed him
with a touch.

Both friends and enemies were confounded- one side that he could
do such a thing, the other that he would do it under the
circumstances.

"Surely he will not allow them to bind him!"

Thus thought Ben-Hur.

"Put up thy sword into the sheath; the cup which my Father hath
given me, shall I not drink it?" From the offending follower, the
Nazarene turned to his captors. "Are you come out as against a
thief, with swords and staves to take me? I was daily with you in
the Temple, and you took me not; but this is your hour, and the
power of darkness."

The posse plucked up courage and closed about him; and when
Ben-Hur looked for the faithful they were gone- not one of them
remained.

The crowd about the deserted man seemed very busy with tongue, hand,
and foot. Over their heads, between the torch-sticks, through the
smoke, sometimes in openings between the restless men, Ben-Hur
caught momentary glimpses of the prisoner. Never had anything struck
him as so piteous, so unfriended, so forsaken! Yet, he thought, the
man could have defended himself- he could have slain his enemies
with a breath, but he would not. What was the cup his father had given
him to drink? And who was the father to be so obeyed? Mystery upon
mystery- not one, but many.

Directly the mob started in return to the city, the soldiers in
the lead. Ben-Hur became anxious; he was not satisfied with himself.
Where the torches were in the midst of the rabble he knew the Nazarene
was to be found. Suddenly he resolved to see him again. He would ask
him one question.

Taking off his long outer garment and the handkerchief from his
head, he threw them upon the orchard wall, and started after the
posse, which he boldly joined. Through the stragglers he made way, and
by littles at length reached the man who carried the ends of the
rope with which the prisoner was bound.

The Nazarene was walking slowly, his head down, his hands bound
behind him; the hair fell thickly over his face, and he stooped more
than usual; apparently he was oblivious to all going on around him. In
advance a few steps were priests and elders talking and occasionally
looking back. When, at length, they were all near the bridge in the
gorge, Ben-Hur took the rope from the servant who had it, and
stepped past him.

"Master, master!" he said, hurriedly, speaking close to the
Nazarene's ear. "Dost thou hear, master? A word- one word. Tell me- "

The fellow from whom he had taken the rope now claimed it.

"Tell me," Ben-Hur continued, "goest thou with these of thine own
accord?"

The people were come up now, and in his own ears asking angrily,
"Who art thou, man?"

"O master," Ben-Hur made haste to say, his voice sharp with anxiety,
"I am thy friend and lover. Tell me, I pray thee, if I bring rescue,
wilt thou accept it?"

The Nazarene never so much as looked up or allowed the slightest
sign of recognition; yet the something which when we are suffering
is always telling it to such as look at us, though they be
strangers, failed not now. "Let him alone," it seemed to say; "he
has been abandoned by his friends; the world has denied him; in
bitterness of spirit he has taken farewell of men; he is going he
knows not where, and he cares not. Let him alone."

And to that Ben-Hur was now driven. A dozen hands were upon him, and
from all sides there was shouting, "He is one of them. Bring him
along; club him- kill him!"

With a gust of passion which gave him many times his ordinary force,
Ben-Hur raised himself, turned once about with his arms
outstretched, shook the hands off, and rushed through the circle which
was fast hemming him in. The hands snatching at him as he passed
tore his garments from his back, so he ran off the road naked; and the
gorge, in keeping of the friendly darkness, darker there than
elsewhere, received him safe.

Reclaiming his handkerchief and outer garments from the orchard
wall, he followed back to the city gate; thence he went to the khan,
and on the good horse rode to the tents of his people out by the Tombs
of the Kings.

As he rode, he promised himself to see the Nazarene on the morrow-
promised it, not knowing that the unfriended man was taken straightway
to the house of Hannas to be tried that night.

The heart the young man carried to his couch beat so heavily he
could not sleep; for now clearly his renewed Judean kingdom resolved
itself into what it was- only a dream. It is bad enough to see our
castles overthrown one after another with an interval between in which
to recover from the shock, or at least let the echoes of the fall
die away; but when they go altogether- go as ships sink, as houses
tumble in earthquakes- the spirits which endure it calmly are made
of stuffs sterner than common, and Ben-Hur's was not of them.
Through vistas in the future he began to catch glimpses of a life
serenely beautiful, with a home instead of a palace of state, and
Esther its mistress. Again and again through the leaden-footed hours
of the night he saw the villa by Misenum, and with his little
countrywoman strolled through the garden, and rested in the panelled
atrium; overhead the Neapolitan sky, at their feet the sunniest of
sun-lands and the bluest of bays.

In plainest speech, he was entering upon a crisis with which
to-morrow and the Nazarene will have everything to do.

                      CHAPTER IX.

                   THE GOING TO CALVARY.


NEXT morning, about the second hour, two men rode full speed to
the doors of Ben-Hur's tents, and dismounting, asked to see him. He
was not yet risen, but gave directions for their admission.

"Peace to you, brethren," he said, for they were of his Galileans,
and trusted officers. "Will you be seated?"

"Nay," the senior replied, bluntly, "to sit and be at ease is to let
the Nazarene die. Rise, son of Judah, and go with us. The judgment has
been given. The tree of the cross is already at Golgotha."

Ben-Hur stared at them.

"The cross!" was all he could for the moment say.

"They took him last night, and tried him," the man continued. "At
dawn they led him before Pilate. Twice the Roman denied his guilt;
twice he refused to give him over. At last he washed his hands, and
said, 'Be it upon you then;' and they answered- "

"Who answered?"

"They- the priests and people- 'His blood be upon us and our
children.'"

"Holy father Abraham!" cried Ben-Hur; "a Roman kinder to an
Israelite than his own kin! And if- ah, if he should indeed be the son
of God, what shall ever wash his blood from their children? It must
not be- 'tis time to fight!"

His face brightened with resolution, and he clapped his hands.

"The horses- and quickly!" he said to the Arab who answered the
signal. "And bid Amrah send me fresh garments, and bring my sword!
It is time to die for Israel, my friends. Tarry without till I come."

He ate a crust, drank a cup of wine, and was soon upon the road.

"Whither would you go first?" asked the Galilean.

"To collect the legions."

"Alas!" the man replied, throwing up his hands.

"Why alas?"

"Master"- the man spoke with shame- "master, I and my friend here
are all that are faithful. The rest do follow the priests."

"Seeking what?" and Ben-Hur drew rein.

"To kill him."

"Not the Nazarene?"

"You have said it."

Ben-Hur looked slowly from one man to the other. He was hearing
again the question of the night before- "The cup my Father hath
given me, shall I not drink it?" In the ear of the Nazarene he was
putting his own question, "If I bring thee rescue, wilt thou accept
it?" He was saying to himself, "This death may not be averted. The man
has been travelling towards it with full knowledge from the day he
began his mission: it is imposed by a will higher than his; whose
but the Lord's! If he is consenting, if he goes to it voluntarily,
what shall another do?" Nor less did Ben-Hur see the failure of the
scheme he had built upon the fidelity of the Galileans; their
desertion, in fact, left nothing more of it. But how singular it
should happen that morning of all others! A dread seized him. It was
possible his scheming, and labour, and expenditure of treasure might
have been but blasphemous contention with God. When he picked up the
reins and said, "Let us go, brethren," all before him was uncertainty.
The faculty of resolving quickly, without which one cannot be a hero
in the midst of stirring scenes, was numb within him.

"Let us go, brethren; let us to Golgotha."

They passed through excited crowds of people going south, like
themselves. All the country north of the city seemed aroused and in
motion.

Hearing that the procession with the condemned might be met with
somewhere near the great white towers left by Herod, the three friends
rode thither, passing round south-east of Akra. In the valley below
the Pool of Hezekiah, passage-way against the multitude became
impossible, and they were compelled to dismount, and take shelter
behind the corner of a house and wait.

The waiting was as if they were on a river bank, watching a flood go
by, for such the people seemed.

There are certain chapters in the First Book of this story which
were written to give the reader an idea of the composition of the
Jewish nationality as it was in the time of Christ. They were also
written in anticipation of this hour and scene; so that he who has
read them with attention can now see all Ben-Hur saw of the going to
the crucifixion- a rare and wonderful sight!

Half-an-hour- an hour- the flood surged by Ben-Hur and his
companions, within arm's reach, incessant, undiminished. At the end of
that time he could have said, "I have seen all the castes of
Jerusalem, all the sects of Judea, all the tribes of Israel, and all
the nationalities of earth represented by them." The Libyan Jew went
by, and the Jew of Egypt, and the Jew from the Rhine; in short, Jews
from all East countries and all West countries, and all islands within
commercial connection; they went by on foot, on horseback, on
camels, in litters and chariots, and with an infinite variety of
costumes, yet with the same marvellous similitude of features which
to-day particularizes the children of Israel, tried as they have
been by climates and modes of life; they went by speaking all known
tongues, for by that means only were they distinguishable group for
group; they went by in haste- eager, anxious, crowding- all to
behold one poor Nazarene die, a felon between felons.

These were the many, but they were not all.

Borne along with the stream were thousands not Jews- thousands
hating and despising them- Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Syrians, Africans,
Egyptians, Easterns. So that, studying the mass, it seemed the whole
world was to be represented, and, in that sense, present at the
crucifixion.

The going was singularly quiet. A hoof-stroke upon a rock, the glide
and rattle of revolving wheels, voices in conversation, and now and
then a calling voice, were all the sounds heard above the rustle of
the mighty movement. Yet was there upon every countenance the look
with which men make haste to see some dreadful sight, some sudden
wreck, or ruin, or calamity of war. And by such signs Ben-Hur judged
that these were the strangers in the city come up to the Passover, who
had had no part in the trial of the Nazarene, and might be his
friends.

At length, from the direction of the great towers, Ben-Hur heard, at
first faint in the distance, a shouting of many men.

"Hark! they are coming now," said one of his friends.

The people in the street halted to hear; but as the cry rang on over
their heads, they looked at each other, and in shuddering silence
moved along.

The shouting drew nearer each moment; and the air was already full
of it and trembling, when Ben-Hur saw the servants of Simonides coming
with their master in his chair, and Esther walking by his side; a
covered litter was next behind them.

"Peace to you, O Simonides- and to you, Esther," said Ben-Hur,
meeting them. "If you are for Golgotha, stay until the procession
passes; I will then go with you. There is room to turn in by the house
here."

The merchant's large head rested heavily upon his breast; rousing
himself, he answered, "Speak to Balthasar; his pleasure will be
mine. He is in the litter."

Ben-Hur hastened to draw aside the curtain. The Egyptian was lying
within, his wan face so pinched as to appear like a dead man's. The
proposal was submitted to him.

"Can we see him?" he inquired, faintly.

"The Nazarene? yes; he must pass within a few feet of us."

"Dear Lord!" the old man cried, fervently. "Once more, once more!
Oh, it is a dreadful day for the world!"

Shortly the whole party were in waiting under shelter of the
house. They said but little, afraid, probably, to trust their thoughts
to each other; everything was uncertain, and nothing so much so as
opinions. Balthasar drew himself feebly from the litter, and stood
supported by a servant; Esther and Ben-Hur kept Simonides company.

Meantime the flood poured along, if anything, more densely than
before; and the shouting came nearer, shrill up in the air, hoarse
along the earth, and cruel. At last the procession was up.

"See!" said Ben-Hur, bitterly; "that which cometh now is Jerusalem."

The advance was in possession of an army of boys, hooting and
screaming, "The King of the Jews! Room, room for the King of the
Jews!"

Simonides watched them as they whirled and danced along, like a
cloud of summer insects, and said, gravely, "When these come to
their inheritance, son of Hur, alas for the city of Solomon!"

A band of legionaries fully armed followed next, marching in
sturdy indifference, the glory of burnished brass about them the
while.

Then came the NAZARENE.

He was nearly dead. Every few steps he staggered as if he would
fall. A stained gown badly torn hung from his shoulders over a
seamless under-tunic. His bare feet left red splotches upon the
stones. An inscription on a board was tied to his neck. A crown of
thorns had been crushed hard down upon his head, making cruel wounds
from which streams of blood, now dry and blackened, had run over his
face and neck. The long hair, tangled in the thorns, was clotted
thick. The skin, where it could be seen, was ghastly white. His
hands were tied before him. Back somewhere in the city he had fallen
exhausted under the transverse beam of his cross, which, as a
condemned person, custom required him to bear to the place of
execution; now a countryman carried the burden in his stead. Four
soldiers went with him as a guard against the mob, who sometimes,
nevertheless, broke through, and struck him with sticks, and spit upon
him. Yet no sound escaped him, neither remonstrance nor groan; nor did
he look up until he was nearly in front of the house sheltering
Ben-Hur and his friends, all of whom were moved with quick compassion.
Esther clung to her father; and he, strong of will as he was,
trembled. Balthasar fell down speechless. Even Ben-Hur cried out, "O
my God! my God!" Then, as if he divined their feelings or heard the
exclamation, the Nazarene turned his wan face towards the party, and
looked at them each one, so they carried the look in memory through
life. They could see he was thinking of them, not himself, and the
dying eyes gave them the blessing he was not permitted to speak.

"Where are thy legions, son of Hur?" asked Simonides, aroused.

"Hannas can tell thee better than I."

"What, faithless?"

"All but these two."

"Then all is lost, and this good man must die!"

The face of the merchant knit convulsively as he spoke, and his head
sank upon his breast. He had borne his part in Ben-Hur's labours well,
and he had been inspired by the same hopes, now blown out never to
be rekindled.

Two other men succeeded the Nazarene, bearing cross-beams.

"Who are these?" Ben-Hur asked of the Galileans.

"Thieves appointed to die with the Nazarene," they replied.

Next in the procession stalked a mitred figure clad all in the
golden vestments of the high-priest. Policemen from the Temple
curtained him round about; and after him, in order, strode the
sanhedrim, and a long array of priests, the latter in their plain
white garments overwrapped by abnets of many folds and gorgeous
colours.

"The son-in-law of Hannas," said Ben-Hur, in a low voice.

"Caiaphas! I have seen him," Simonides replied, adding, after a
pause during which he thoughtfully watched the haughty pontiff, "and
now am I convinced. With such assurance as proceeds from clear
enlightenment of the spirit- with absolute assurance- now know I
that he who first goes yonder with the inscription about his neck is
what the inscription proclaims him- KING OF THE JEWS. A common man, an
impostor, a felon was never thus waited upon. For look! Here are the
nations- Jerusalem, Israel. Here is the ephod, here the blue robe with
its fringe, and purple pomegranates, and golden bells, not seen in the
street since the day Jaddua went out to meet the Macedonian- proofs
all that this Nazarene is King. Would I could rise and go after him!"

Ben-Hur listened surprised; and directly, as if himself awakening to
his unusual display of feeling, Simonides said, impatiently-

"Speak to Balthasar, I pray you, and let us begone. The vomit of
Jerusalem is coming."

Then Esther spoke.

"I see some women there, and they are weeping. Who are they?"

Following the pointing of her hand, the party beheld four women in
tears; one of them leaned upon the arm of a man of aspect not unlike
the Nazarene's. Presently Ben-Hur answered-

"The man is the disciple whom the Nazarene loves the best of all;
she who leans upon his arm is Mary, the Master's mother; the others
are friendly women of Galilee."

Esther pursued the mourners with glistening eyes, until the
multitude received them out of sight.

It may be the reader will fancy the foregoing snatches of
conversation were had in quiet; but it was not so. The talking was,
for the most part, like that indulged by people at the seaside under
the sound of the surf; for to nothing else can the clamour of this
division of the mob be so well likened.

The demonstration was the forerunner of those in which, scarce
thirty years later, under rule of the factions, the Holy City was torn
to pieces; it was quite as great in numbers, as fanatical and
bloodthirsty; boiled and raved, and had in it exactly the same
elements- servants, camel-drivers, marketmen, gate-keepers, gardeners,
dealers in fruits and wines, proselytes, and foreigners not
proselytes, watchmen and menials from the Temple, thieves, robbers,
and the myriad not assignable to any class, but who, on such occasions
as this, appeared no one could say whence, hungry and smelling of
caves and old tombs- bareheaded wretches with naked arms and legs,
hair and beard in uncombed mats, and each with one garment the
colour of clay; beasts with abysmal mouths, in outcry effective as
lions calling each other across desert spaces. Some of them had
swords; a greater number flourished spears and javelins; though the
weapons of the many were staves and knotted clubs, and slings, for
which latter selected stones were stored in scrips, and sometimes in
sacks improvised from the foreskirt of their dirty tunics. Among the
mass here and there appeared persons of high degree- scribes,
elders, rabbis, Pharisees with broad fringing, Sadducees in fine
cloaks- serving for the time as prompters and directors. If a throat
tired of one cry, they invented another for it; if brassy lungs showed
signs of collapse, they set them going again; and yet the clamour,
loud and continuous as it was, could have been reduced to a few
syllables- King of the Jews!- Room for the King of the Jews!-
Defiler of the Temple!- Blasphemer of God!- Crucify him, crucify
him! And of these cries the last one seemed in greatest favour,
because, doubtless, it was more directly expressive of the wish of the
mob, and helped to better articulate its hatred of the Nazarene.

"Come," said Simonides, when Balthasar was ready to proceed-
"come, let us forward."

Ben-Hur did not hear the call. The appearance of the part of the
procession then passing, its brutality and hunger for life, were
reminding him of the Nazarene- his gentleness, and the many
charities he had seen him do for suffering men. Suggestions beget
suggestions, so he remembered suddenly his own great indebtedness to
the man; the time he himself was in the hands of a Roman guard
going, as was supposed, to a death as certain and almost as terrible
as this one of the cross; the cooling drink he had at the well by
Nazareth, and the divine expression of the face of him who gave it;
the later goodness, the miracle of Palm-Sunday; and with these
recollections, the thought of his present powerlessness to give back
help for help or make return in kind stung him keenly, and he
accused himself. He had not done all he might; he could have watched
with the Galileans, and kept them true and ready; and this- ah! this
was the moment to strike! A blow well given now would not merely
disperse the mob and set the Nazarene free; it would be a trumpet-call
to Israel, and precipitate the long-dreamt-of war for freedom. The
opportunity was going; the minutes were bearing it away; and if
lost! God of Abraham! Was there nothing to be done- nothing?

That instant a party of Galileans caught his eye. He rushed
through the press and overtook them.

"Follow me," he said. "I would have speech with you."

The men obeyed him, and when they were under shelter of the house,
he spoke again-

"You are of those who took my swords, and agreed with me to strike
for freedom and the King who was coming. You have the swords now,
and now is the time to strike with them. Go, look everywhere, and find
our brethren, and tell them to meet me at the tree of the cross making
ready for the Nazarene. Haste all of you! Nay, stand not so! The
Nazarene is the King, and freedom dies with him."

They looked at him respectfully, but did not move.

"Hear you?" he asked.

Then one of them replied-

"Son of Judah"- by that name they knew him- "son of Judah, it is you
who are deceived, not we or our brethren who have your swords. The
Nazarene is not the King; neither has he the spirit of a king. We were
with him when he came into Jerusalem; we saw him in the Temple; he
failed himself, and us, and Israel; at the Gate Beautiful he turned
his back upon God and refused the throne of David. He is not King, and
Galilee is not with him. He shall die the death. But hear you, son
of Judah. We have your swords, and we are ready now to draw them and
strike for freedom; and so is Galilee. Be it for freedom, O son of
Judah, for freedom! and we will meet you at the tree of the cross."

The sovereign moment of his life was upon Ben-Hur. Could he have
taken the offer and said the word, history might have been other
than it is; but then it would have been history ordered by men, not
God- something that never was, and never will be. A confusion fell
upon him; he knew not how, though afterwards he attributed it to the
Nazarene; for when the Nazarene was risen, he understood the death was
necessary to faith in the resurrection, without which Christianity
would be an empty husk. The confusion, as has been said, left him
without the faculty of decision; he stood, helpless- wordless even.
Covering his face with his hand, he shook with the conflict between
his wish, which was what he would have ordered, and the power that was
upon him.

"Come; we are waiting for you," said Simonides, the fourth time.

Thereupon he walked mechanically after the chair and the litter.
Esther walked with him. Like Balthasar and his friends, the Wise
Men, the day they went to the meeting in the desert, he was being
led along the way.

                      CHAPTER X.

                  THE CRUCIFIXION.


WHEN the party- Balthasar, Simonides, Ben-Hur, Esther, and the two
faithful Galileans- reached the place of crucifixion, Ben-Hur was in
advance leading them. How they had been able to make way through the
great press of excited people, he never knew; no more did he know
the road by which they came or the time it took them to come. He had
walked in total unconsciousness, neither hearing nor seeing anybody or
anything, and without a thought of where he was going, or the
ghostliest semblance of a purpose in his mind. In such condition a
little child could have done as much as he to prevent the awful
crime he was about to witness. The intentions of God are always
strange to us; but not more so than the means by which they are
wrought out, and at last made plain to our belief.

Ben-Hur came to a stop; those following him also stopped. As a
curtain rises before an audience, the spell holding him in its
sleep- awake rose, and he saw with a clear understanding.

There was a space upon the top of a low knoll rounded like a
skull, and dry, dusty, and without vegetation, except some scrubby
hyssop. The boundary of the space was a living wall of men, with men
behind struggling, some to look over, others to look through it. An
inner wall of Roman soldiery held the dense outer wall rigidly to
its place. A centurion kept eye upon the soldiers. Up to the very line
so vigilantly guarded Ben-Hur had been led; at the line he now
stood, his face to the north-west. The knoll was the old Aramaic
Golgotha- in Latin, Calvaria; anglicized, Calvary; translated, The
Skull.

On its slopes, in the low places, on the swells and higher hills,
the earth sparkled with a strange enamelling. Look where he would
outside the walled space, he saw no patch of brown soil, no rock, no
green thing; he saw only thousands of eyes in ruddy faces; off a
little way in the perspective only ruddy faced without eyes; off a
little farther only a broad, broad circle, which the nearer view
instructed him was also of faces. And this was the ensemble of three
millions of people; under it three millions of hearts throbbing with
passionate interest in what was taking place upon the knoll;
indifferent as to the thieves, caring only for the Nazarene, and for
him only as he was an object of hate or fear or curiosity- he who
loved them all, and was about to die for them.

In the spectacle of a great assemblage of people there are always
the bewilderment and fascination one feels while looking over a
stretch of sea in agitation, and never had this one been exceeded; yet
Ben-Hur gave it but a passing glance, for that which was going on in
the space described would permit no division of his interest.

Up on the knoll so high as to be above the living wall, and
visible over the heads of an attending company of notables,
conspicuous because of his mitre and vestments and his haughty air,
stood the high-priest. Up the knoll still higher, up quite to the
round summit, so as to be seen far and near, was the Nazarene, stooped
and suffering, but silent. The wit among the guard had complemented
the crown upon his head by putting a reed in his hand for a sceptre.
Clamours blew upon him like blasts- laughter- execrations- sometimes
both together indistinguishably. A man- only a man, O reader, would
have charged the blasts with the remainder of his love for the race,
and let it go forever.

All the eyes then looking were fixed upon the Nazarene. It may
have been pity with which he was moved; whatever the cause, Ben-Hur
was conscious of a change in his feelings. A conception of something
better than the best of this life- something so much better that it
could serve a weak man with strength to endure agonies of spirit as
well as of body; something to make death welcome- perhaps another life
purer than this one- perhaps the spirit-life which Balthasar held to
so fast, began to dawn upon his mind clearer and clearer, bringing
to him a certain sense that, after all, the mission of the Nazarene
was that of guide across the boundary for such as loved him; across
the boundary to where his kingdom was set up and waiting for him.
Then, as something borne through the air out of the almost
forgotten, he heard again, or seemed to hear, the saying of the
Nazarene-


         "I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE."

And the words repeated themselves over and over, and took form, and
the dawn touched them with its light, and filled them with a new
meaning. And as men repeat a question to grasp and fix the meaning, he
asked, gazing at the figure on the hill fainting under its crown,
Who the Resurrection? and who the Life?


                      "I AM,"

the figure seemed to say- and say it for him; for instantly he was
sensible of a peace such as he had never known- the peace which is the
end of doubt and mystery, and the beginning of faith and love and
clear understanding.

From this dreamy state Ben-Hur was aroused by the sound of
hammering. On the summit of the knoll he observed then what had
escaped him before- some soldiers and workmen preparing the crosses.
The holes for planting the trees were ready, and now the transverse
beams were being fitted to their places.

"Bid the men make haste," said the high-priest to the centurion.
"These"- and he pointed to the Nazarene- "must be dead by the
going-down of the sun, and buried, that the land may not be defiled.
Such is the Law."

With a better mind, a soldier went to the Nazarene and offered him
something to drink, but he refused the cup. Then another went to him
and took from his neck the board with the inscription upon it, which
he nailed to the tree of the cross- and the preparation was complete.

"The crosses are ready," said the centurion to the pontiff, who
received the report with a wave of the hand and the reply-

"Let the blasphemer go first. The Son of God should be able to
save himself. We will see."

The people to whom the preparation in its several stages was
visible, and who to this time had assailed the hill with incessant
cries of impatience, permitted a lull which directly became a
universal hush. The part of the infliction most shocking, at least
to the thought, was reached- the men were to be nailed to their
crosses. When for that purpose the soldiers laid their hands upon
the Nazarene first, a shudder passed through the great concourse;
the most brutalized shrank with dread. Afterwards there were those who
said the air suddenly chilled and made them shiver.

"How very still it is!" Esther said, as she put her arm about her
father's neck.

And remembering the torture he himself had suffered, he drew her
face down upon his breast, and sat trembling.

"Avoid it, Esther, avoid it!" he said, "I know not but all who stand
and see it- the innocent as well as the guilty- may be cursed from
this hour."

Balthasar sank upon his knees.

"Son of Hur," said Simonides, with increasing excitement- "son of
Hur, if Jehovah stretch not forth his hand, and quickly, Israel is
lost- and we are lost."

Ben-Hur answered, calmly, "I have been in a dream, Simonides, and
heard in it why all this should be, and why it should go on. It is the
will of the Nazarene- it is God's will. Let us do as the Egyptian
here- let us hold our peace and pray."

As he looked up on the knoll again, the words were wafted to him
through the awful stillness-


         "I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE."

He bowed reverently as to a person speaking.

Up on the summit meantime the work went on. The guard took the
Nazarene's clothes from him; so that he stood before the millions
naked. The stripes of the scourging he had received in the early
morning were still bloody upon his back; yet he was laid pitilessly
down, and stretched upon the cross- first, the arms upon the
transverse beam; the spikes were sharp- a few blows, and they were
driven through the tender palms; next, they drew his knees up until
the soles of the feet rested flat upon the tree; then they placed
one foot upon the other, and one spike fixed both of them fast. The
dulled sound of the hammering was heard outside the guarded space; and
such as could not hear, yet saw the hammer as it fell, shivered with
fear. And withal not a groan, or cry, or word of remonstrance from the
sufferer: nothing at which an enemy could laugh; nothing a lover could
regret.

"Which way wilt thou have him faced?" asked a soldier, bluntly.

"Towards the Temple," the pontiff replied. "In dying I would have
him see the holy house hath not suffered by him."

The workmen put their hands to the cross, and carried it, burden and
all, to the place of planting. At a word they dropped the tree, into
the hole; and the body of the Nazarene also dropped heavily and hung
by the bleeding hands. Still no cry of pain- only the exclamation
divinest of all recorded exclamations-

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The cross, reared now above all other objects, and standing singly
out against the sky, was greeted with a burst of delight; and all
who could see and read the writing upon the board over the
Nazarene's head made haste to decipher it. Soon as read, the legend
was adopted by them and communicated, and presently the whole mighty
concourse was ringing the salutation from side to side, and
repeating it with laughter and groans-

"King of the Jews! Hail, King of the Jews!"

The pontiff, with a clearer idea of the import of the inscription,
protested against it, but in vain; so the titled King, looking from
the knoll with dying eyes, must have had the city of his fathers at
rest below him- she who had so ignominiously cast him out.

The sun was rising rapidly to noon; the hills bared their brown
breasts lovingly to it; the more distant mountains rejoiced in the
purple with which it so regally dressed them. In the city, the
temples, palaces, towers, pinnacles, and all points of beauty and
prominence, seemed to lift themselves into the unrivalled
brilliance, as if they knew the pride they were giving the many who
from time to time turned to look at them. Suddenly a dimness began
to fill the sky and cover the earth- at first no more than a scarce
perceptible fading of the day; a twilight out of time; an evening
gliding in upon the splendours of noon. But it deepened, and
directly drew attention; whereat the noise of the shouting and
laughter fell off, and men, doubting their senses, gazed at each other
curiously: then they looked to the sun again; then at the mountains,
getting farther away; at the sky and the near landscape, sinking in
shadow; at the hill upon which the tragedy was enacting; and from
all these they gazed at each other again, and turned pale, and held
their peace.

"It is only a mist or passing cloud," Simonides said soothingly to
Esther, who was alarmed. "It will brighten presently."

Ben-Hur did not think so.

"It is not a mist or a cloud," he said. "The spirits who live in the
air- the prophets and saints- are at work in mercy to themselves and
nature. I say to you, O Simonides, truly as God lives, he who hangs
yonder is the Son of God."

And leaving Simonides lost in wonder at such a speech from him, he
went where Balthasar was kneeling near by, and laid his hand upon
the good man's shoulder.

"O wise Egyptian, hearken! Thou alone wert right- the Nazarene is
indeed the Son of God."

Balthasar drew him down to him, and replied, feebly "I saw him a
child in the manger where he was first laid; it is not strange that
I knew him sooner than thou; but oh that I should live to see this
day! Would I had died with my brethren! Happy Melchior! Happy, happy
Gaspar!"

"Comfort thee!" said Ben-Hur. "Doubtless they too are here."

The dimness went on deepening into obscurity, and that into positive
darkness, but without deterring the bolder spirits upon the knoll. One
after the other the thieves were raised on their crosses, and the
crosses planted. The guard was then withdrawn, and the people set free
closed in upon the height, and surged up it, like a converging wave. A
man might take a look, when a new-comer would push him on, and take
his place, to be in turn pushed on- and there were laughter and
ribaldry and revilements, all for the Nazarene.

"Ha, ha! If thou be King of the Jews, save thyself," a soldier
shouted.

"Ay," said a priest, "if he will come down to us now, we will
believe in him."

Others wagged their heads wisely saying, "He would destroy the
Temple, and rebuild it in three days, but cannot save himself."

Others still- "He called himself the Son of God; let us see if God
will have him."

What all there is in prejudice no one has ever said. The Nazarene
had never harmed the people; far the greater part of them had never
seen him except in this his hour of calamity; yet- singular
contrariety!- they loaded him with their curses, and gave their
sympathy to the thieves.

The supernatural night, dropped thus from the heavens, affected
Esther as it began to affect thousands of others braver and stronger.

"Let us go home," she prayed- twice, three times- saying, "it is the
frown of God, father. What other dreadful things may happen, who can
tell? I am afraid."

Simonides was obstinate. He said little, but was plainly under great
excitement. Observing, about the end of the first hour, that the
violence of the crowding up on the knoll was somewhat abated, at his
suggestion the party advanced to take position nearer the crosses.
Ben-Hur gave his arm to Balthasar; yet the Egyptian made the ascent
with difficulty. From their new stand the Nazarene was imperfectly
visible, appearing to them not more than a dark suspended figure. They
could hear him, however- hear his sighing, which showed an endurance
or exhaustion greater than that of his fellow-sufferers; for they
filled every lull in the noises with their groans and entreaties.

The second hour after the suspension passed like the first one. To
the Nazarene they were hours of insult, provocation, and slow dying.
He spoke but once in the time. Some women came and knelt at the foot
of his cross. Among them he recognized his mother with the beloved
disciple.

"Woman," he said, raising his voice, "behold thy son!" And to the
disciple, "Behold thy mother!"

The third hour came, and still the people surged round the hill,
held to it by some strange attraction, with which, in probability, the
night in midday had much to do. They were quieter than in the
preceding hour; yet at intervals they could be heard off in the
darkness shouting to each other, multitude calling unto multitude.
It was noticeable, also, that coming now to the Nazarene, they
approached his cross in silence, took the look in silence, and so
departed. This change extended even to the guard, who so shortly
before had cast lots for the clothes of the crucified; they stood with
their officers a little apart, more watchful of the one convict than
of the throngs coming and going. If he but breathed heavily, or tossed
his head in a paroxysm of pain, they were instantly on the alert. Most
marvellous of all, however, was the altered behaviour of the
high-priest and his following, the wise men who had assisted him in
the trial in the night, and, in the victim's face, kept place by him
with zealous approval. When the darkness began to fall, they began
to lose their confidence. There were among them many learned in
astronomy, and familiar with the apparitions so terrible in those days
to the masses; much of the knowledge was descended to them from
their fathers far back; some of it had been brought away at the end of
the Captivity; and the necessities of the Temple service kept it all
bright. These closed together when the sun commenced to fade before
their eyes, and the mountains and hills to recede; they drew
together in a group around their pontiff, and debated what they saw.
"The moon is at its full," they said, with truth, "and this cannot
be an eclipse." Then, as no one could answer the question common
with them all- as no one could account for the darkness, or for its
occurrence at that particular time- in their secret hearts they
associated it with the Nazarene, and yielded to an alarm which the
long continuance of the phenomenon steadily increased. In their
place behind the soldiers they noted every word and motion of the
Nazarene, and hung with fear upon his sighs, and talked in whispers.
The man might be the Messiah, and then- But they would wait and see!

In the meantime Ben-Hur was not once visited by the old spirit.
The perfect peace abode with him. He prayed simply that the end
might be hastened. He knew the condition of Simonides' mind- that he
was hesitating on the verge of belief. He could see the massive face
weighed down by solemn reflection. He noticed him casting inquiring
glances at the sun, as seeking the cause of the darkness. Nor did he
fail to notice the solicitude with which Esther clung to him,
smothering her fears to accommodate his wishes.

"Be not afraid," he heard him say to her; "but stay and watch with
me. Thou mayst live twice the span of my life, and see nothing of
human interest equal to this; and there may be revelations more. Let
us stay to the close."

When the third hour was about half gone, some men of the rudest
class- wretches from the tombs about the city- came and stopped in
front of the centre cross.

"This is he, the new King of the Jews," said one of them.

The others cried, with laughter, "Hail, all hail, King of the Jews!"

Receiving no reply, they went closer.

"If thou be King of the Jews, or Son of God, come down," they
said, loudly.

At this, one of the thieves quit groaning, and called to the
Nazarene, "Yes, if thou be Christ, save thyself and us."

The people laughed and applauded; then, while they were listening
for a reply, the other felon was heard to say to the first one,
"Dost thou not fear God? We receive the due rewards of our deeds;
but this man hath done nothing amiss."

The bystanders were astonished; in the midst of the hush which
ensued, the second felon spoke again, but this time to the Nazarene-

"Lord," he said, "remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom."

Simonides gave a great start. "When thou comest into thy kingdom!"
It was the very point of doubt in his mind; the point he had so
often debated with Balthasar.

"Didst thou hear?" said Ben-Hur to him. "The kingdom cannot be of
this world. Yon witness saith the King is but going to his kingdom;
and, in effect, I heard the same in my dream."

"Hush!" said Simonides, more imperiously than ever before in
speech to Ben-Hur. "Hush, I pray thee. If the Nazarene should
answer- "

And as he spoke the Nazarene did answer, in a clear voice, full of
confidence-

"Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise!"

Simonides waited to hear if that were all; then he folded his
hands and said, "No more, no more, Lord! The darkness is gone; I see
with other eyes- even as Balthasar, I see with eyes of perfect faith."

The faithful servant had at last his fitting reward. His broken body
might never be restored; nor was there riddance of the recollection of
his sufferings, or recall of the years imbittered by them; but
suddenly a new life was shown him, with assurance that it was for him-
a new life lying just beyond this one- and its name was Paradise.
There he would find the Kingdom of which he had been dreaming, and the
King. A perfect peace fell upon him.

Over the way, in front of the cross, however, there were surprise
and consternation. The cunning casuists there put the assumption
underlying the question and the admission underlying the answer
together. For saying through the land that he was the Messiah, they
had brought the Nazarene to the cross; and, lo! on the cross, more
confidently than ever, he had not only reasserted himself, but
promised enjoyment of his Paradise to a malefactor. They trembled at
what they were doing. The pontiff, with all his pride, was afraid.
Where got the man his confidence except from Truth? And what should
the Truth be but God? A very little now would put them all to flight.

The breathing of the Nazarene grew harder; his sighs became great
gasps. Only three hours upon the cross, and he was dying!

The intelligence was carried from man to man, until every one knew
it; and then everything hushed; the breeze faltered and died; a
stifling vapour loaded the air; heat was superadded to darkness; nor
might any one unknowing the fact have thought that off the hill, out
under the overhanging pall, there were three millions of people
waiting awe-struck what should happen next- they were so still!

Then there went out through the gloom, over the heads of such as
were on the hill within hearing of the dying man, a cry of despair, if
not reproach-

"My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?"

The voice startled all who heard it. One it touched uncontrollably.

The soldiers in coming had brought with them a vessel of wine and
water, and set it down a little way from Ben-Hur. With a sponge dipped
into the liquor, and put on the end of a stick, they could moisten the
tongue of a sufferer at their pleasure. Ben-Hur thought of the draught
he had had at the well near Nazareth; an impulse seized him;
catching up the sponge, he dipped it into the vessel, and started
for the cross.

"Let him be!" the people in the way shouted, angrily. "Let him be!"

Without minding them, he ran on, and put the sponge to the
Nazarene's lips. Too late, too late!

The face then plainly seen by Ben-Hur, bruised and black with
blood and dust as it was, lighted nevertheless with a sudden glow; the
eyes opened wide, and fixed upon some one visible to them alone in the
far heavens; and there were content and relief, even triumph, in the
shout the victim gave-

"It is finished! It is finished!"

So a hero, dying in the doing a great deed, celebrates his success
with a last cheer.

The light in the eyes went out; slowly the crowned head sank upon
the labouring breast. Ben-Hur thought the struggle over; but the
fainting soul recollected itself, so that he and those around him
caught the other and last words, spoken in a low voice, as if to one
listening close by-

"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

A tremor shook the tortured body; there was a scream of fiercest
anguish, and the mission and the earthly life were over at once. The
heart, with all its love, was broken; for of that, O reader, the man
died!

Ben-Hur went back to his friends, saying, simply, "It is over; he is
dead."

In a space incredibly short the multitude was informed of the
circumstance. No one repeated it aloud; there was a murmur which
spread from the knoll in every direction; a murmur that was little
more than a whispering, "He is dead! he is dead!" and that was all.
The people had their wish; the Nazarene was dead; yet they stared at
each other aghast. His blood was upon them! And while they stood
staring at each other, the ground commenced to shake; each man took
hold of his neighbour to support himself; in a twinkling the
darkness disappeared, and the sun came out; and everybody, as with the
same glance, beheld the crosses upon the hill all reeling drunken-like
in the earthquake. They beheld all three of them; but the one in the
centre was arbitrary; it alone would be seen; and for that it seemed
to extend itself upwards, and lift its burden, and swing it to and fro
higher and higher in the blue of the sky. And every man among them who
had jeered at the Nazarene; every one who had struck him; every one
who had voted to crucify him; every one who had marched in the
procession from the city; every one who had in his heart wished him
dead, and they were as ten to one, felt that he was in some way
individually singled out from the many, and that if he would live he
must get away quickly as possible from that menace in the sky. They
started to run; they ran with all their might; on horseback, and
camels, and in chariots they ran, as well as on foot; but then, as
if it were mad at them for what they had done, and had taken up the
cause of the unoffending and friendless dead, the earthquake pursued
them, and tossed them about, and flung them down, and terrified them
yet more by the horrible noise of great rocks grinding and rending
beneath them. They beat their breasts and shrieked with fear. His
blood was upon them! The home-bred and the foreign, priest and layman,
beggar, Sadducee, Pharisee, were overtaken in the race, and tumbled
about indiscriminately. If they called on the Lord, the outraged earth
answered for him in fury, and dealt them all alike. It did not even
know wherein the high-priest was better than his guilty brethren;
overtaking him, it tripped him up also, and smirched the fringing of
his robe, and filled the golden bells with sand, and his mouth with
dust. He and his people were alike in the one thing at least- the
blood of the Nazarene was upon them all!

When the sunlight broke upon the crucifixion, the mother of the
Nazarene, the disciple, and the faithful women of Galilee, the
centurion and his soldiers, and Ben-Hur and his party, were all who
remained upon the hill. These had not time to observe the flight of
the multitude; they were too loudly called upon to take care of
themselves.

"Seat thyself here," said Ben-Hur to Esther, making a place for
her at her father's feet. "Now cover thine eyes, and look not up;
but put thy trust in God, and the spirit of yon just man so foully
slain."

"Nay," said Simonides, reverently, "Let us henceforth speak of him
as the Christ."

"Be it so," said Ben-Hur.

Presently a wave of the earthquake struck the hill. The shrieks of
the thieves upon the reeling crosses were terrible to hear. Though
giddy with the movements of the ground, Ben-Hur had time to look at
Balthasar, and beheld him prostrate and still. He ran to him and
called- there was no reply. The good man was dead! Then Ben-Hur
remembered to have heard a cry in answer, as it were, to the scream of
the Nazarene in his last moment; but he had not looked to see from
whom it had proceeded; and ever after he believed the spirit of the
Egyptian accompanied that of his Master over the boundary into the
kingdom of Paradise. The idea rested not only upon the cry heard,
but upon the exceeding fitness of the distinction. If faith were
worthy reward in the person of Gaspar, and love in that of Melchior,
surely he should have some special meed who through a long life had so
excellently illustrated the three virtues in combination- Faith, Love,
and Good Works.

The servants of Balthasar had deserted their master; but when all
was over, the two Galileans bore the old man in his litter back to the
city.

It was a sorrowful procession that entered the south gate of the
palace of the Hurs about the set of sun that memorable day. About
the same hour the body of the Christ was taken down from the cross.

The remains of Balthasar were carried to the guest-chamber. All
the servants hastened weeping to see him; for he had the love of every
living thing with which he had in anywise to do; but when they
beheld his face, and the smile upon it, they dried their tears,
saying, "It is well. He is happier this evening than when he went
out in the morning."

Ben-Hur would not trust a servant to inform Iras what had befallen
her father. He went himself to see her and bring her to the body. He
imagined her grief; she would now be alone in the world; it was a time
to forgive and pity her. He remembered he had not asked why she was
not of the party in the morning, or where she was; he remembered he
had not thought of her; and, from shame, he was ready to make any
amends, the more so as he was about to plunge her into such acute
grief.

He shook the curtains of her door; and though he heard the ringing
of the little bells echoing within, he had no response; he called
her name, and again he called- still no answer. He drew the curtain
aside and went into the room; she was not there. He ascended hastily
to the roof in search of her; nor was she there. He questioned the
servants; none of them had seen her during the day. After a long quest
everywhere through the house, Ben-Hur returned to the guest-chamber,
and took the place by the dead which should have been hers; and he
bethought him there how merciful the Christ had been to his aged
servant. At the gate of the kingdom of Paradise happily the
afflictions of this life, even its desertions, are left behind and
forgotten by those who go in and rest.

When the gloom of the burial was nigh gone, on the ninth day after
the healing, the law being fulfilled, Ben-Hur brought his mother and
Tirzah home; and from that day, in that house the most sacred names
possible of utterance by men were always coupled worshipfully
together-


         GOD THE FATHER AND CHRIST THE SON.


About five years after the crucifixion, Esther, the wife of Ben-Hur,
sat in her room in the beautiful villa by Misenum. It was noon, with a
warm Italian sun making summer for the roses and vines outside.
Everything in the apartment was Roman, except that Esther wore the
garments of a Jewish matron. Tirzah and two children at play upon a
lion's skin on the floor were her companions; and one had only to
observe how carefully she watched them to know that the little ones
were hers.

Time had treated her generously. She was more than ever beautiful,
and in becoming mistress of the villa, she had realized one of her
cherished dreams.

In the midst of this simple, home-like scene, a servant appeared
in the doorway, and spoke to her.

"A woman in the atrium to speak with the mistress."

"Let her come. I will receive her here."

Presently the stranger entered. At sight of her the Jewess arose,
and was about to speak; then she hesitated, changed colour, and
finally drew back, saying, "I have known you, good woman. You are- "

"I was Iras, the daughter of Balthasar."

Esther conquered her surprise, and bade the servant bring the
Egyptian a seat.

"No," said Iras, coldly. "I will retire directly."

The two gazed at each other. We know what Esther presented- a
beautiful woman, a happy mother, a contented wife. On the other
side, it was very plain that fortune had not dealt so gently with
her former rival. The tall figure remained, with some of its grace;
but an evil life had tainted the whole person. The face was coarse;
the large eyes were red and pursed beneath the lower lids; there was
no colour in her cheeks. The lips were cynical and hard, and general
neglect was leading rapidly to premature old age. Her attire was ill
chosen and draggled. The mud of the road clung to her sandals. Iras
broke the painful silence.

"These are thy children?"

Esther looked at them, and smiled.

"Yes. Will you not speak to them?"

"I would scare them," Iras replied. Then she drew closer to
Esther, and seeing her shrink, said, "Be not afraid. Give thy
husband a message for me. Tell him his enemy is dead, and that for the
much misery he brought me I slew him."

"His enemy!"

"The Messala. Further, tell thy husband that for the harm I sought
to do him I have been punished until even he would pity me."

Tears arose in Esther's eyes, and she was about to speak.

"Nay," said Iras, "I do not want pity or tears. Tell him, finally, I
have found that to be a Roman is to be a brute. Farewell."

She moved to go. Esther followed her.

"Stay, and see my husband. He has no feeling against you. He
sought for you everywhere. He will be your friend. I will be your
friend. We are Christians."

The other was firm.

"No; I am what I am of choice. It will be over shortly."

"But"- Esther hesitated- "have we nothing you would wish; nothing
to- to- "

The countenance of the Egyptian softened; something like a smile
played about her lips. She looked at the children upon the floor.

"There is something," she said.

Esther followed her eyes, and with quick perception answered, "It is
yours."

Iras went to them, and knelt on the lion's skin, and kissed them
both. Rising slowly, she looked at them; then passed to the door and
out of it without a parting word. She walked rapidly, and was gone
before Esther could decide what to do.

Ben-Hur, when he was told of the visit, knew certainly what he had
long surmised- that on the day of the crucifixion Iras had deserted
her father for Messala. Nevertheless, he set out immediately and
hunted for her vainly; they never saw her more, or heard of her. The
blue bay, with all its laughing under the sun, has yet its dark
secrets. Had it a tongue, it might tell us of the Egyptian.

Simonides lived to be a very old man. In the tenth year of Nero's
reign he gave up the business so long centred in the warehouse at
Antioch. To the last he kept a clear head and a good heart, and was
successful.

One evening, in the year named, he sat in his arm-chair on the
terrace of the warehouse. Ben-Hur and Esther, and their three
children, were with him. The last of the ships swung at mooring in the
current of the river; all the rest had been sold. In the long interval
between this and the day of the crucifixion but one sorrow had
befallen them; that was when the mother of Ben-Hur died; and then
and now their grief would have been greater but for their Christian
faith.

The ship spoken of had arrived only the day before, bringing
intelligence of the persecution of Christians begun by Nero in Rome,
and the party on the terrace were talking of the news when Malluch,
who was still in their service, approached and delivered a package
to Ben-Hur.

"Who brings this?" the latter asked, after reading.

"An Arab."

"Where is he?"

"He left immediately."

"Listen," said Ben-Hur to Simonides.

He read then the following letter:-


"I, Ilderim the Generous, and sheik of the tribe of Ilderim, to
Judah, son of Hur.

"Know, O friend of my father's, how my father loved you. Read what
is herewith sent, and you will know. His will is my will; therefore
what he gave is thine.

"All the Parthians took from him in the great battle in which they
slew him I have retaken- this writing, with other things, and
vengeance, and all the brood of that Mira who in his time was mother
of so many stars.

"Peace be to you and all yours."

"This voice out of the desert is the voice of "ILDERIM, Sheik."


Ben-Hur next unrolled a scrap of papyrus yellow as the withered
mulberry leaf. It required the daintiest handling. Proceeding, he
read-


"Ilderim, surnamed the Generous, sheik of the tribe of Ilderim, to
the son who succeeds me.

"All I have, O son, shall be thine in the day of thy succession,
except that property by Antioch known as the Orchard of Palms; and
it shall be to the son of Hur who brought us such glory in the Circus-
to him and his forever.

"Dishonour not thy father. "ILDERIM THE GENEROUS, Sheik."


"What say you?" asked Ben-Hur, of Simonides.

Esther took the papers pleased, and read them to herself.
Simonides remained silent. His eyes were upon the ship; but he was
thinking. At length he spoke.

"Son of Hur," he said, gravely, "the Lord has been good to you in
these later years. You have much to be thankful for. Is it not time to
decide finally the meaning of the gift of the great fortune now all in
your hand, and growing?"

"I decided that long ago. The fortune was meant for the service of
the giver; not a part, Simonides, but all of it. The question with
me has been, How can I make it most useful in his cause? And of that
tell me, I pray you."

Simonides answered-

"The great sums you have given to the Church here in Antioch, I am
witness to. Now, instantly almost with this gift of the generous
sheik's, comes the news of the persecution of the brethren in Rome. It
is the opening of a new field. The light must not go out in the
capital."

"Tell me how I can keep it alive."

"I will tell you. The Romans, even this Nero, hold two things
sacred- I know of no others they so hold- they are the ashes of the
dead and all places of burial. If you cannot build temples for the
worship of the Lord above ground, then build them below the ground;
and to keep them from profanation, carry to them the bodies of all who
die in the faith."

Ben-Hur arose excitedly.

"It is a great idea," he said. "I will not wait to begin it. Time
forbids waiting. The ship that brought the news of the suffering of
our brethren shall take me to Rome. I will sail to-morrow."

He turned to Malluch.

"Get the ship ready, Malluch, and be thou ready to go with me."

"It is well," said Simonides.

"And thou, Esther, what sayest thou?" asked Ben-Hur.

Esther came to his side, and put her hand on his arm, and answered-

"So wilt thou best serve the Christ. O my husband, let me not
hinder, but go with thee and help."

                      *   *   *   *   *

If any of my readers visiting Rome, will make the short journey to
the Catacomb of San Calixto, which is more ancient than that of San
Sebastiano, he will see what became of the fortune of Ben-Hur, and
give him thanks. Out of that vast tomb Christianity issued to
supersede the Caesars.


                      THE END
