Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
houses. Something terrible was going on, she knew; but what it was, or
the cause, or that she or any of those dear to her were in danger, she
did not know.
“What has happened? What does it all mean?” she asked, in sudden alarm.
“I have killed the Roman governor. The tile fell upon him.”
An unseen hand appeared to sprinkle her face with the dust of ashes—it
grew white so instantly. She put her arm around him, and looked
wistfully, but without a word, into his eyes. His fears had passed to
her, and the sight of them gave him strength.
“I did not do it purposely, Tirzah—it was an accident,” he said, more
calmly.
“What will they do?” she asked.
He looked off over the tumult momentarily deepening in the street and
on the roofs, and thought of the sullen countenance of Gratus. If he
were not dead, where would his vengeance stop? And if he were dead, to
what height of fury would not the violence of the people lash the
legionaries? To evade an answer, he peered over the parapet again, just
as the guard were assisting the Roman to remount his horse.
“He lives, he lives, Tirzah! Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers!”
With that outcry, and a brightened countenance, he drew back and
replied to her question.
“Be not afraid, Tirzah. I will explain how it happened, and they will
remember our father and his services, and not hurt us.”
He was leading her to the summer-house, when the roof jarred under
their feet, and a crash of strong timbers being burst away, followed by
a cry of surprise and agony, arose apparently from the court-yard
below. He stopped and listened. The cry was repeated; then came a rush
of many feet, and voices lifted in rage blent with voices in prayer;
and then the screams of women in mortal terror. The soldiers had beaten
in the north gate, and were in possession of the house. The terrible
sense of being hunted smote him. His first impulse was to fly; but
where? Nothing but wings would serve him. Tirzah, her eyes wild with
fear, caught his arm.
“O Judah, what does it mean?”
The servants were being butchered—and his mother! Was not one of the
voices he heard hers? With all the will left him, he said, “Stay here,
and wait for me, Tirzah. I will go down and see what is the matter, and
come back to you.”
His voice was not steady as he wished. She clung closer to him.
Clearer, shriller, no longer a fancy, his mother’s cry arose. He
hesitated no longer.
“Come, then, let us go.”
The terrace or gallery at the foot of the steps was crowded with
soldiers. Other soldiers with drawn swords ran in and out of the
chambers. At one place a number of women on their knees clung to each
other or prayed for mercy. Apart from them, one with torn garments, and
long hair streaming over her face, struggled to tear loose from a man
all whose strength was tasked to keep his hold. Her cries were
shrillest of all; cutting through the clamor, they had risen
distinguishably to the roof. To her Judah sprang—his steps were long
and swift, almost a winged flight—“Mother, mother!” he shouted. She
stretched her hands towards him; but when almost touching them he was
seized and forced aside. Then he heard some one say, speaking loudly,
“That is he!”
Judah looked, and saw—Messala.
“What, the assassin—that?” said a tall man, in legionary armor of
beautiful finish. “Why, he is but a boy.”
“Gods!” replied Messala, not forgetting his drawl. “A new philosophy!
What would Seneca say to the proposition that a man must be old before
he can hate enough to kill? You have him; and that is his mother;
yonder his sister. You have the whole family.”
For love of them, Judah forgot his quarrel.
“Help them, O my Messala! Remember our childhood and help them.
I—Judah—pray you.”
Messala affected not to hear.
“I cannot be of further use to you,” he said to the officer. “There is
richer entertainment in the street. Down Eros, up Mars!”
With the last words he disappeared. Judah understood him, and, in the
bitterness of his soul, prayed to Heaven.
“In the hour of thy vengeance, O Lord,” he said, “be mine the hand to
put it upon him!”
By great exertion, he drew nearer the officer.
“O sir, the woman you hear is my mother. Spare her, spare my sister
yonder. God is just, he will give you mercy for mercy.”
The man appeared to be moved.
“To the Tower with the women!” he shouted, “but do them no harm. I will
demand them of you.” Then to those holding Judah, he said, “Get cords,
and bind his hands, and take him to the street. His punishment is
reserved.”
The mother was carried away. The little Tirzah, in her home attire,
stupefied with fear, went passively with her keepers. Judah gave each
of them a last look, and covered his face with his hands, as if to
possess himself of the scene fadelessly. He may have shed tears, though
no one saw them.
There took place in him then what may be justly called the wonder of
life. The thoughtful reader of these pages has ere this discerned
enough to know that the young Jew in disposition was gentle even to
womanliness—a result that seldom fails the habit of loving and being
loved. The circumstances through which he had come had made no call
upon the harsher elements of his nature, if such he had. At times he
had felt the stir and impulses of ambition, but they had been like the
formless dreams of a child walking by the sea and gazing at the coming
and going of stately ships. But now, if we can imagine an idol,
sensible of the worship it was accustomed to, dashed suddenly from its
altar, and lying amidst the wreck of its little world of love, an idea
may be had of what had befallen the young Ben-Hur, and of its effect
upon his being. Yet there was no sign, nothing to indicate that he had
undergone a change, except that when he raised his head, and held his
arms out to be bound, the bend of the Cupid’s bow had vanished from his
lips. In that instant he had put off childhood and become a man.
A trumpet sounded in the court-yard. With the cessation of the call,
the gallery was cleared of the soldiery; many of whom, as they dared
not appear in the ranks with visible plunder in their hands, flung what
they had upon the floor, until it was strewn with articles of richest
virtu. When Judah descended, the formation was complete, and the
officer waiting to see his last order executed.
The mother, daughter, and entire household were led out of the north
gate, the ruins of which choked the passageway. The cries of the
domestics, some of whom had been born in the house, were most pitiable.
When, finally, the horses and all the dumb tenantry of the place were
driven past him, Judah began to comprehend the scope of the
procurator’s vengeance. The very structure was devoted. Far as the
order was possible of execution, nothing living was to be left within
its walls. If in Judea there were others desperate enough to think of
assassinating a Roman governor, the story of what befell the princely
family of Hur would be a warning to them, while the ruin of the
habitation would keep the story alive.
The officer waited outside while a detail of men temporarily restored
the gate.
In the street the fighting had almost ceased. Upon the houses here and
there clouds of dust told where the struggle was yet prolonged. The
cohort was, for the most part, standing at rest, its splendor, like its
ranks, in nowise diminished. Borne past the point of care for himself,
Judah had heart for nothing in view but the prisoners, among whom he
looked in vain for his mother and Tirzah.
Suddenly, from the earth where she had been lying, a woman arose and
started swiftly back to the gate. Some of the guards reached out to
seize her, and a great shout followed their failure. She ran to Judah,
and, dropping down, clasped his knees, the coarse black hair powdered
with dust veiling her eyes.
“O Amrah, good Amrah,” he said to her, “God help you; I cannot.”
She could not speak.
He bent down, and whispered, “Live, Amrah, for Tirzah and my mother.
They will come back, and—”
A soldier drew her away; whereupon she sprang up and rushed through the
gateway and passage into the vacant court-yard.
“Let her go,” the officer shouted. “We will seal the house, and she
will starve.”
The men resumed their work, and, when it was finished there, passed
round to the west side. That gate was also secured, after which the
palace of the Hurs was lost to use.
The cohort at length marched back to the Tower, where the procurator
stayed to recover from his hurts and dispose of his prisoners. On the
tenth day following, he visited the Market-place.
CHAPTER VII
Next day a detachment of legionaries went to the desolated palace, and,
closing the gates permanently, plastered the corners with wax, and at
the sides nailed a notice in Latin:
“THIS IS THE PROPERTY OF THE EMPEROR.”
In the haughty Roman idea, the sententious announcement was thought
sufficient for the purpose—and it was.
The day after that again, about noon, a decurion with his command of
ten horsemen approached Nazareth from the south—that is, from the
direction of Jerusalem. The place was then a straggling village,
perched on a hill-side, and so insignificant that its one street was
little more than a path well beaten by the coming and going of flocks
and herds. The great plain of Esdraelon crept close to it on the south,
and from the height on the west a view could be had of the shores of
the Mediterranean, the region beyond the Jordan, and Hermon. The valley
below, and the country on every side, were given to gardens, vineyards,
orchards, and pasturage. Groves of palm-trees Orientalized the
landscape. The houses, in irregular assemblage, were of the humbler
class—square, one-story, flat-roofed, and covered with bright-green
vines. The drought that had burned the hills of Judea to a crisp, brown
and lifeless, stopped at the boundary-line of Galilee.
A trumpet, sounded when the cavalcade drew near the village, had a
magical effect upon the inhabitants. The gates and front doors cast
forth groups eager to be the first to catch the meaning of a visitation
so unusual.
Nazareth, it must be remembered, was not only aside from any great
highway, but within the sway of Judas of Gamala; wherefore it should
not be hard to imagine the feelings with which the legionaries were
received. But when they were up and traversing the street, the duty
that occupied them became apparent, and then fear and hatred were lost
in curiosity, under the impulse of which the people, knowing there must
be a halt at the well in the northeastern part of the town, quit their
gates and doors, and closed in after the procession.
A prisoner whom the horsemen were guarding was the object of curiosity.
He was afoot, bareheaded, half naked, his hands bound behind him. A
thong fixed to his wrists was looped over the neck of a horse. The dust
went with the party when in movement, wrapping him in yellow fog,
sometimes in a dense cloud. He drooped forward, footsore and faint. The
villagers could see he was young.
At the well the decurion halted, and, with most of the men, dismounted.
The prisoner sank down in the dust of the road, stupefied, and asking
nothing: apparently he was in the last stage of exhaustion. Seeing,
when they came near, that he was but a boy, the villagers would have
helped him had they dared.
In the midst of their perplexity, and while the pitchers were passing
among the soldiers, a man was descried coming down the road from
Sepphoris. At sight of him a woman cried out, “Look! Yonder comes the
carpenter. Now we will hear something.”
The person spoken of was quite venerable in appearance. Thin white
locks fell below the edge of his full turban, and a mass of still