Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
“The labor is hard; few men bear it a year without breaking, and
thou—thou art but a boy.”
“The noble Arrius forgets that the spirit hath much to do with
endurance. By its help the weak sometimes thrive, when the strong
perish.”
“From thy speech, thou art a Jew.”
“My ancestors further back than the first Roman were Hebrews.”
“The stubborn pride of thy race is not lost in thee,” said Arrius,
observing a flush upon the rower’s face.
“Pride is never so loud as when in chains.”
“What cause hast thou for pride?”
“That I am a Jew.”
Arrius smiled.
“I have not been to Jerusalem,” he said; “but I have heard of its
princes. I knew one of them. He was a merchant, and sailed the seas. He
was fit to have been a king. Of what degree art thou?”
“I must answer thee from the bench of a galley. I am of the degree of
slaves. My father was a prince of Jerusalem, and, as a merchant, he
sailed the seas. He was known and honored in the guest-chamber of the
great Augustus.”
“His name?”
“Ithamar, of the house of Hur.”
The tribune raised his hand in astonishment.
“A son of Hur—thou?”
After a silence, he asked,
“What brought thee here?”
Judah lowered his head, and his breast labored hard. When his feelings
were sufficiently mastered, he looked the tribune in the face, and
answered,
“I was accused of attempting to assassinate Valerius Gratus, the
procurator.”
“Thou!” cried Arrius, yet more amazed, and retreating a step. “Thou
that assassin! All Rome rang with the story. It came to my ship in the
river by Lodinum.”
The two regarded each other silently.
“I thought the family of Hur blotted from the earth,” said Arrius,
speaking first.
A flood of tender recollections carried the young man’s pride away;
tears shone upon his cheeks.
“Mother—mother! And my little Tirzah! Where are they? O tribune, noble
tribune, if thou knowest anything of them”—he clasped his hands in
appeal—“tell me all thou knowest. Tell me if they are living—if living,
where are they? and in what condition? Oh, I pray thee, tell me!”
He drew nearer Arrius, so near that his hands touched the cloak where
it dropped from the latter’s folded arms.
“The horrible day is three years gone,” he continued—“three years, O
tribune, and every hour a whole lifetime of misery—a lifetime in a
bottomless pit with death, and no relief but in labor—and in all that
time not a word from any one, not a whisper. Oh, if, in being
forgotten, we could only forget! If only I could hide from that
scene—my sister torn from me, my mother’s last look! I have felt the
plague’s breath, and the shock of ships in battle; I have heard the
tempest lashing the sea, and laughed, though others prayed: death would
have been a riddance. Bend the oar—yes, in the strain of mighty effort
trying to escape the haunting of what that day occurred. Think what
little will help me. Tell me they are dead, if no more, for happy they
cannot be while I am lost. I have heard them call me in the night; I
have seen them on the water walking. Oh, never anything so true as my
mother’s love! And Tirzah—her breath was as the breath of white lilies.
She was the youngest branch of the palm—so fresh, so tender, so
graceful, so beautiful! She made my day all morning. She came and went
in music. And mine was the hand that laid them low! I—”
“Dost thou admit thy guilt?” asked Arrius, sternly.
The change that came upon Ben-Hur was wonderful to see, it was so
instant and extreme. The voice sharpened; the hands arose
tight-clenched; every fibre thrilled; his eyes inflamed.
“Thou hast heard of the God of my fathers,” he said; “of the infinite
Jehovah. By his truth and almightiness, and by the love with which he
hath followed Israel from the beginning, I swear I am innocent!”
The tribune was much moved.
“O noble Roman!” continued Ben-Hur, “give me a little faith, and, into
my darkness, deeper darkening every day, send a light!”
Arrius turned away, and walked the deck.
“Didst thou not have a trial?” he asked, stopping suddenly.
“No!”
The Roman raised his head, surprised.
“No trial—no witnesses! Who passed judgment upon thee?”
Romans, it should be remembered, were at no time such lovers of the law
and its forms as in the ages of their decay.
“They bound me with cords, and dragged me to a vault in the Tower. I
saw no one. No one spoke to me. Next day soldiers took me to the
seaside. I have been a galley-slave ever since.”
“What couldst thou have proven?”
“I was a boy, too young to be a conspirator. Gratus was a stranger to
me. If I had meant to kill him, that was not the time or the place. He
was riding in the midst of a legion, and it was broad day. I could not
have escaped. I was of a class most friendly to Rome. My father had
been distinguished for his services to the emperor. We had a great
estate to lose. Ruin was certain to myself, my mother, my sister. I had
no cause for malice, while every consideration—property, family, life,
conscience, the Law—to a son of Israel as the breath of his
nostrils—would have stayed my hand, though the foul intent had been
ever so strong. I was not mad. Death was preferable to shame; and,
believe me, I pray, it is so yet.”
“Who was with thee when the blow was struck?”
“I was on the house-top—my father’s house. Tirzah was with me—at my
side—the soul of gentleness. Together we leaned over the parapet to see
the legion pass. A tile gave way under my hand, and fell upon Gratus. I
thought I had killed him. Ah, what horror I felt!”
“Where was thy mother?”
“In her chamber below.”
“What became of her?”
Ben-Hur clenched his hands, and drew a breath like a gasp.
“I do not know. I saw them drag her away—that is all I know. Out of the
house they drove every living thing, even the dumb cattle, and they
sealed the gates. The purpose was that she should not return. I, too,
ask for her. Oh for one word! She, at least, was innocent. I can
forgive—but I pray thy pardon, noble tribune! A slave like me should
not talk of forgiveness or of revenge. I am bound to an oar for life.”
Arrius listened intently. He brought all his experience with slaves to
his aid. If the feeling shown in this instance were assumed, the acting
was perfect; on the other hand, if it were real, the Jew’s innocence
might not be doubted; and if he were innocent, with what blind fury the
power had been exercised! A whole family blotted out to atone an
accident! The thought shocked him.
There is no wiser providence than that our occupations, however rude or
bloody, cannot wear us out morally; that such qualities as justice and
mercy, if they really possess us, continue to live on under them, like
flowers under the snow. The tribune could be inexorable, else he had
not been fit for the usages of his calling; he could also be just; and
to excite his sense of wrong was to put him in the way to right the
wrong. The crews of the ships in which he served came after a time to
speak of him as the good tribune. Shrewd readers will not want a better
definition of his character.
In this instance there were many circumstances certainly in the young
man’s favor, and some to be supposed. Possibly Arrius knew Valerius
Gratus without loving him. Possibly he had known the elder Hur. In the
course of his appeal, Judah had asked him of that; and, as will be
noticed, he had made no reply.
For once the tribune was at loss, and hesitated. His power was ample.
He was monarch of the ship. His prepossessions all moved him to mercy.
His faith was won. Yet, he said to himself, there was no haste—or,
rather, there was haste to Cythera; the best rower could not then be
spared; he would wait; he would learn more; he would at least be sure
this was the prince Ben-Hur, and that he was of a right disposition.
Ordinarily, slaves were liars.
“It is enough,” he said aloud. “Go back to thy place.”
Ben-Hur bowed; looked once more into the master’s face, but saw nothing
for hope. He turned away slowly, looked back, and said,
“If thou dost think of me again, O tribune, let it not be lost in thy
mind that I prayed thee only for word of my people—mother, sister.”
He moved on.
Arrius followed him with admiring eyes.
“Perpol!” he thought. “With teaching, what a man for the arena! What a
runner! Ye gods! what an arm for the sword or the cestus!—Stay!” he
said aloud.
Ben-Hur stopped, and the tribune went to him.
“If thou wert free, what wouldst thou do?”
“The noble Arrius mocks me!” Judah said, with trembling lips.
“No; by the gods, no!”
“Then I will answer gladly. I would give myself to duty the first of
life. I would know no other. I would know no rest until my mother and
Tirzah were restored to home. I would give every day and hour to their
happiness. I would wait upon them; never a slave more faithful. They
have lost much, but, by the God of my fathers, I would find them more!”
The answer was unexpected by the Roman. For a moment he lost his
purpose.
“I spoke to thy ambition,” he said, recovering. “If thy mother and
sister were dead, or not to be found, what wouldst thou do?”
A distinct pallor overspread Ben-Hur’s face, and he looked over the
sea. There was a struggle with some strong feeling; when it was
conquered, he turned to the tribune.
“What pursuit would I follow?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Tribune, I will tell thee truly. Only the night before the dreadful
day of which I have spoken, I obtained permission to be a soldier. I am
of the same mind yet; and, as in all the earth there is but one school
of war, thither I would go.”
“The palaestra!” exclaimed Arrius.
“No; a Roman camp.”
“But thou must first acquaint thyself with the use of arms.”
Now a master may never safely advise a slave. Arrius saw his
indiscretion, and, in a breath, chilled his voice and manner.
“Go now,” he said, “and do not build upon what has passed between us.
Perhaps I do but play with thee. Or”—he looked away musingly—“or, if
thou dost think of it with any hope, choose between the renown of a
gladiator and the service of a soldier. The former may come of the
favor of the emperor; there is no reward for thee in the latter. Thou
art not a Roman. Go!”
A short while after Ben-Hur was upon his bench again.
A man’s task is always light if his heart is light. Handling the oar
did not seem so toilsome to Judah. A hope had come to him, like a
singing bird. He could hardly see the visitor or hear its song; that it
was there, though, he knew; his feelings told him so. The caution of
the tribune—“Perhaps I do but play with thee”—was dismissed often as it
recurred to his mind. That he had been called by the great man and
asked his story was the bread upon which he fed his hungry spirit.
Surely something good would come of it. The light about his bench was
clear and bright with promises, and he prayed.
“O God! I am a true son of the Israel thou hast so loved! Help me, I
pray thee!”
CHAPTER IV
In the Bay of Antemona, east of Cythera the island, the hundred galleys
assembled. There the tribune gave one day to inspection. He sailed then
to Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades, midway the coasts of Greece and
Asia, like a great stone planted in the centre of a highway, from which
he could challenge everything that passed; at the same time, he would
be in position to go after the pirates instantly, whether they were in
the Ægean or out on the Mediterranean.
As the fleet, in order, rowed in towards the mountain shores of the
island, a galley was descried coming from the north. Arrius went to
meet it. She proved to be a transport just from Byzantium, and from her
commander he learned the particulars of which he stood in most need.
The pirates were from all the farther shores of the Euxine. Even