Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
Tanais, at the mouth of the river which was supposed to feed Palus
Maeotis, was represented among them. Their preparations had been with
the greatest secrecy. The first known of them was their appearance off
the entrance to the Thracian Bosphorus, followed by the destruction of
the fleet in station there. Thence to the outlet of the Hellespont
everything afloat had fallen their prey. There were quite sixty galleys
in the squadron, all well manned and supplied. A few were biremes, the
rest stout triremes. A Greek was in command, and the pilots, said to be
familiar with all the Eastern seas, were Greek. The plunder had been
incalculable. The panic, consequently, was not on the sea alone;
cities, with closed gates, sent their people nightly to the walls.
Traffic had almost ceased.
Where were the pirates now?
To this question, of most interest to Arrius, he received answer.
After sacking Hephaestia, on the island of Lemnos, the enemy had
coursed across to the Thessalian group, and, by last account,
disappeared in the gulfs between Euboea and Hellas.
Such were the tidings.
Then the people of the island, drawn to the hill-tops by the rare
spectacle of a hundred ships careering in united squadron, beheld the
advance division suddenly turn to the north, and the others follow,
wheeling upon the same point like cavalry in a column. News of the
piratical descent had reached them, and now, watching the white sails
until they faded from sight up between Rhene and Syros, the thoughtful
among them took comfort, and were grateful. What Rome seized with
strong hand she always defended: in return for their taxes, she gave
them safety.
The tribune was more than pleased with the enemy’s movements; he was
doubly thankful to Fortune. She had brought swift and sure
intelligence, and had lured his foes into the waters where, of all
others, destruction was most assured. He knew the havoc one galley
could play in a broad sea like the Mediterranean, and the difficulty of
finding and overhauling her; he knew, also, how those very
circumstances would enhance the service and glory if, at one blow, he
could put a finish to the whole piratical array.
If the reader will take a map of Greece and the Ægean, he will notice
the island of Euboea lying along the classic coast like a rampart
against Asia, leaving a channel between it and the continent quite a
hundred and twenty miles in length, and scarcely an average of eight in
width. The inlet on the north had admitted the fleet of Xerxes, and now
it received the bold raiders from the Euxine. The towns along the
Pelasgic and Meliac gulfs were rich and their plunder seductive. All
things considered, therefore, Arrius judged that the robbers might be
found somewhere below Thermopylae. Welcoming the chance, he resolved to
enclose them north and south, to do which not an hour could be lost;
even the fruits and wines and women of Naxos must be left behind. So he
sailed away without stop or tack until, a little before nightfall,
Mount Ocha was seen upreared against the sky, and the pilot reported
the Euboean coast.
At a signal the fleet rested upon its oars. When the movement was
resumed, Arrius led a division of fifty of the galleys, intending to
take them up the channel, while another division, equally strong,
turned their prows to the outer or seaward side of the island, with
orders to make all haste to the upper inlet, and descend sweeping the
waters.
To be sure, neither division was equal in number to the pirates; but
each had advantages in compensation, among them, by no means least, a
discipline impossible to a lawless horde, however brave. Besides, it
was a shrewd count on the tribune’s side, if, peradventure, one should
be defeated, the other would find the enemy shattered by his victory,
and in condition to be easily overwhelmed.
Meantime Ben-Hur kept his bench, relieved every six hours. The rest in
the Bay of Antemona had freshened him, so that the oar was not
troublesome, and the chief on the platform found no fault.
People, generally, are not aware of the ease of mind there is in
knowing where they are, and where they are going. The sensation of
being lost is a keen distress; still worse is the feeling one has in
driving blindly into unknown places. Custom had dulled the feeling with
Ben-Hur, but only measurably. Pulling away hour after hour, sometimes
days and nights together, sensible all the time that the galley was
gliding swiftly along some of the many tracks of the broad sea, the
longing to know where he was, and whither going, was always present
with him; but now it seemed quickened by the hope which had come to new
life in his breast since the interview with the tribune. The narrower
the abiding-place happens to be, the more intense is the longing; and
so he found. He seemed to hear every sound of the ship in labor, and
listened to each one as if it were a voice come to tell him something;
he looked to the grating overhead, and through it into the light of
which so small a portion was his, expecting, he knew not what; and many
times he caught himself on the point of yielding to the impulse to
speak to the chief on the platform, than which no circumstance of
battle would have astonished that dignitary more.
In his long service, by watching the shifting of the meager sunbeams
upon the cabin floor when the ship was under way, he had come to know,
generally, the quarter into which she was sailing. This, of course, was
only of clear days like those good-fortune was sending the tribune. The
experience had not failed him in the period succeeding the departure
from Cythera. Thinking they were tending towards the old Judean
country, he was sensitive to every variation from the course. With a
pang, he had observed the sudden change northward which, as has been
noticed, took place near Naxos: the cause, however, he could not even
conjecture; for it must be remembered that, in common with his
fellow-slaves, he knew nothing of the situation, and had no interest in
the voyage. His place was at the oar, and he was held there inexorably,
whether at anchor or under sail. Once only in three years had he been
permitted an outlook from the deck. The occasion we have seen. He had
no idea that, following the vessel he was helping drive, there was a
great squadron close at hand and in beautiful order; no more did he
know the object of which it was in pursuit.
When the sun, going down, withdrew his last ray from the cabin, the
galley still held northward. Night fell, yet Ben-Hur could discern no
change. About that time the smell of incense floated down the gangways
from the deck.
“The tribune is at the altar,” he thought. “Can it be we are going into
battle?”
He became observant.
Now he had been in many battles without having seen one. From his bench
he had heard them above and about him, until he was familiar with all
their notes, almost as a singer with a song. So, too, he had become
acquainted with many of the preliminaries of an engagement, of which,
with a Roman as well as a Greek, the most invariable was the sacrifice
to the gods. The rites were the same as those performed at the
beginning of a voyage, and to him, when noticed, they were always an
admonition.
A battle, it should be observed, possessed for him and his
fellow-slaves of the oar an interest unlike that of the sailor and
marine; it came, not of the danger encountered but of the fact that
defeat, if survived, might bring an alteration of condition—possibly
freedom—at least a change of masters, which might be for the better.
In good time the lanterns were lighted and hung by the stairs, and the
tribune came down from the deck. At his word the marines put on their
armor. At his word again, the machines were looked to, and spears,
javelins, and arrows, in great sheaves, brought and laid upon the
floor, together with jars of inflammable oil, and baskets of cotton
balls wound loose like the wicking of candles. And when, finally,
Ben-Hur saw the tribune mount his platform and don his armor, and get
his helmet and shield out, the meaning of the preparations might not be
any longer doubted, and he made ready for the last ignominy of his
service.
To every bench, as a fixture, there was a chain with heavy anklets.
These the hortator proceeded to lock upon the oarsmen, going from
number to number, leaving no choice but to obey, and, in event of
disaster, no possibility of escape.
In the cabin, then, a silence fell, broken, at first, only by the sough
of the oars turning in the leathern cases. Every man upon the benches
felt the shame, Ben-Hur more keenly than his companions. He would have
put it away at any price. Soon the clanking of the fetters notified him
of the progress the chief was making in his round. He would come to him
in turn; but would not the tribune interpose for him?
The thought may be set down to vanity or selfishness, as the reader
pleases; it certainly, at that moment, took possession of Ben-Hur. He
believed the Roman would interpose; anyhow, the circumstance would test
the man’s feelings. If, intent upon the battle, he would but think of
him, it would be proof of his opinion formed—proof that he had been
tacitly promoted above his associates in misery—such proof as would
justify hope.
Ben-Hur waited anxiously. The interval seemed like an age. At every
turn of the oar he looked towards the tribune, who, his simple
preparations made, lay down upon the couch and composed himself to
rest; whereupon number sixty chid himself, and laughed grimly, and
resolved not to look that way again.
The hortator approached. Now he was at number one—the rattle of the
iron links sounded horribly. At last number sixty! Calm from despair,
Ben-Hur held his oar at poise, and gave his foot to the officer. Then
the tribune stirred—sat up—beckoned to the chief.
A strong revulsion seized the Jew. From the hortator, the great man
glanced at him; and when he dropped his oar all the section of the ship
on his side seemed aglow. He heard nothing of what was said; enough
that the chain hung idly from its staple in the bench, and that the
chief, going to his seat, began to beat the sounding-board. The notes
of the gavel were never so like music. With his breast against the
leaded handle, he pushed with all his might—pushed until the shaft bent
as if about to break.
The chief went to the tribune, and, smiling, pointed to number sixty.
“What strength!” he said.
“And what spirit!” the tribune answered. “Perpol! He is better without
the irons. Put them on him no more.”
So saying, he stretched himself upon the couch again.
The ship sailed on hour after hour under the oars in water scarcely
rippled by the wind. And the people not on duty slept, Arrius in his
place, the marines on the floor.
Once—twice—Ben-Hur was relieved; but he could not sleep. Three years of
night, and through the darkness a sunbeam at last! At sea adrift and
lost, and now land! Dead so long, and, lo! the thrill and stir of
resurrection. Sleep was not for such an hour. Hope deals with the
future; now and the past are but servants that wait on her with impulse
and suggestive circumstance. Starting from the favor of the tribune,
she carried him forward indefinitely. The wonder is, not that things so
purely imaginative as the results she points us to can make us so
happy, but that we can receive them as so real. They must be as
gorgeous poppies under the influence of which, under the crimson and
purple and gold, reason lies down the while, and is not. Sorrows
assuaged, home and the fortunes of his house restored; mother and
sister in his arms once more—such were the central ideas which made him
happier that moment than he had ever been. That he was rushing, as on