Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
unmerciful and blind. But hearken further. I went up to Jerusalem to
give help to my benefactress, and was seized at the gate of the city
and carried to the sunken cells of the Tower of Antonia; why, I knew
not, until Gratus himself came and demanded of me the moneys of the
House of Hur, which he knew, after our Jewish custom of exchange, were
subject to my draft in the different marts of the world. He required me
to sign to his order. I refused. He had the houses, lands, goods,
ships, and movable property of those I served; he had not their moneys.
I saw, if I kept favor in the sight of the Lord, I could rebuild their
broken fortunes. I refused the tyrant’s demands. He put me to torture;
my will held good, and he set me free, nothing gained. I came home and
began again, in the name of Simonides of Antioch, instead of the Prince
Hur of Jerusalem. Thou knowest, Esther, how I have prospered; that the
increase of the millions of the prince in my hands was miraculous; thou
knowest how, at the end of three years, while going up to Cæsarea, I
was taken and a second time tortured by Gratus to compel a confession
that my goods and moneys were subject to his order of confiscation;
thou knowest he failed as before. Broken in body, I came home and found
my Rachel dead of fear and grief for me. The Lord our God reigned, and
I lived. From the emperor himself I bought immunity and license to
trade throughout the world. To-day—praised be He who maketh the clouds
his chariot and walketh upon the winds!—to-day, Esther, that which was
in my hands for stewardship is multiplied into talents sufficient to
enrich a Cæsar.”
He lifted his head proudly; their eyes met; each read the other’s
thought. “What shall I with the treasure, Esther?” he asked, without
lowering his gaze.
“My father,” she answered, in a low voice, “did not the rightful owner
call for it but now?”
Still his look did not fail.
“And thou, my child; shall I leave thee a beggar?”
“Nay, father, am not I, because I am thy child, his bond-servant? And
of whom was it written, ‘Strength and honor are her clothing, and she
shall rejoice in time to come?’”
A gleam of ineffable love lighted his face as he said, “The Lord hath
been good to me in many ways; but thou, Esther, art the sovereign
excellence of his favor.”
He drew her to his breast and kissed her many times.
“Hear now,” he said, with clearer voice—“hear now why I laughed this
morning. The young man faced me the apparition of his father in comely
youth. My spirit arose to salute him. I felt my trial-days were over
and my labors ended. Hardly could I keep from crying out. I longed to
take him by the hand and show the balance I had earned, and say, ‘Lo,
’tis all thine! and I am thy servant, ready now to be called away.’ And
so I would have done, Esther, so I would have done, but that moment
three thoughts rushed to restrain me. I will be sure he is my master’s
son—such was the first thought; if he is my master’s son, I will learn
somewhat of his nature. Of those born to riches, bethink you, Esther,
how many there are in whose hands riches are but breeding curses”—he
paused, while his hands clutched, and his voice shrilled with
passion—“Esther, consider the pains I endured at the Roman’s hands;
nay, not Gratus’s alone: the merciless wretches who did his bidding the
first time and the last were Romans, and they all alike laughed to hear
me scream. Consider my broken body, and the years I have gone shorn of
my stature; consider thy mother yonder in her lonely tomb, crushed of
soul as I of body; consider the sorrows of my master’s family if they
are living, and the cruelty of their taking-off if they are dead;
consider all, and, with Heaven’s love about thee, tell me, daughter,
shall not a hair fall or a red drop run in expiation? Tell me not, as
the preachers sometimes do—tell me not that vengeance is the Lord’s.
Does he not work his will harmfully as well as in love by agencies? Has
he not his men of war more numerous than his prophets? Is not his the
law, Eye for eye, hand for hand, foot for foot? Oh, in all these years
I have dreamed of vengeance, and prayed and provided for it, and
gathered patience from the growing of my store, thinking and promising,
as the Lord liveth, it will one day buy me punishment of the
wrong-doers? And when, speaking of his practise with arms, the young
man said it was for a nameless purpose, I named the purpose even as he
spoke—vengeance! and that, Esther, that it was—the third thought which
held me still and hard while his pleading lasted, and made me laugh
when he was gone.”
Esther caressed the faded hands, and said, as if her spirit with his
were running forward to results, “He is gone. Will he come again?”
“Ay, Malluch the faithful goes with him, and will bring him back when I
am ready.”
“And when will that be, father?”
“Not long, not long. He thinks all his witnesses dead. There is one
living who will not fail to know him, if he be indeed my master’s son.”
“His mother?”
“Nay, daughter, I will set the witness before him; till then let us
rest the business with the Lord. I am tired. Call Abimelech.”
Esther called the servant, and they returned into the house.
CHAPTER V
When Ben-Hur sallied from the great warehouse, it was with the thought
that another failure was to be added to the many he had already met in
the quest for his people; and the idea was depressing exactly in
proportion as the objects of his quest were dear to him; it curtained
him round about with a sense of utter loneliness on earth, which, more
than anything else, serves to eke from a soul cast down its remaining
interest in life.
Through the people, and the piles of goods, he made way to the edge of
the landing, and was tempted by the cool shadows darkening the river’s
depth. The lazy current seemed to stop and wait for him. In
counteraction of the spell, the saying of the voyager flashed into
memory—“Better be a worm, and feed upon the mulberries of Daphne, than
a king’s guest.” He turned, and walked rapidly down the landing and
back to the khan.
“The road to Daphne!” the steward said, surprised at the question
Ben-Hur put to him. “You have not been here before? Well, count this
the happiest day of your life. You cannot mistake the road. The next
street to the left, going south, leads straight to Mount Sulpius,
crowned by the altar of Jupiter and the Amphitheater; keep it to the
third cross street, known as Herod’s Colonnade; turn to your right
there, and hold the way through the old city of Seleucus to the bronze
gates of Epiphanes. There the road to Daphne begins—and may the gods
keep you!”
A few directions respecting his baggage, and Ben-Hur set out.
The Colonnade of Herod was easily found; thence to the brazen gates,
under a continuous marble portico, he passed with a multitude mixed of
people from all the trading nations of the earth.
It was about the fourth hour of the day when he passed out the gate,
and found himself one of a procession apparently interminable, moving
to the famous Grove. The road was divided into separate ways for
footmen, for men on horses, and men in chariots; and those again into
separate ways for outgoers and incomers. The lines of division were
guarded by low balustrading, broken by massive pedestals, many of which
were surmounted with statuary. Right and left of the road extended
margins of sward perfectly kept, relieved at intervals by groups of oak
and sycamore trees, and vine-clad summer-houses for the accommodation
of the weary, of whom, on the return side, there were always
multitudes. The ways of the footmen were paved with red stone, and
those of the riders strewn with white sand compactly rolled, but not so
solid as to give back an echo to hoof or wheel. The number and variety
of fountains at play were amazing, all gifts of visiting kings, and
called after them. Out southwest to the gates of the Grove, the
magnificent thoroughfare stretched a little over four miles from the
city.
In his wretchedness of feeling, Ben-Hur barely observed the royal
liberality which marked the construction of the road. Nor more did he
at first notice the crowd going with him. He treated the processional
displays with like indifference. To say truth, besides his
self-absorption, he had not a little of the complacency of a Roman
visiting the provinces fresh from the ceremonies which daily eddied
round and round the golden pillar set up by Augustus as the centre of
the world. It was not possible for the provinces to offer anything new
or superior. He rather availed himself of every opportunity to push
forward through the companies in the way, and too slow-going for his
impatience. By the time he reached Heracleia, a suburban village
intermediate the city and the Grove, he was somewhat spent with
exercise, and began to be susceptible of entertainment. Once a pair of
goats led by a beautiful woman, woman and goats alike brilliant with
ribbons and flowers, attracted his attention. Then he stopped to look
at a bull of mighty girth, and snowy white, covered with vines freshly
cut, and bearing on its broad back a naked child in a basket, the image
of a young Bacchus, squeezing the juice of ripened berries into a
goblet, and drinking with libational formulas. As he resumed his walk,
he wondered whose altars would be enriched by the offerings. A horse
went by with clipped mane, after the fashion of the time, his rider
superbly dressed. He smiled to observe the harmony of pride between the
man and the brute. Often after that he turned his head at hearing the
rumble of wheels and the dull thud of hoofs; unconsciously he was
becoming interested in the styles of chariots and charioteers, as they
rustled past him going and coming. Nor was it long until he began to
make notes of the people around him. He saw they were of all ages,
sexes, and conditions, and all in holiday attire. One company was
uniformed in white, another in black; some bore flags, some smoking
censers; some went slowly, singing hymns; others stepped to the music
of flutes and tabrets. If such were the going to Daphne every day in
the year, what a wondrous sight Daphne must be! At last there was a
clapping of hands, and a burst of joyous cries; following the pointing
of many fingers, he looked and saw upon the brow of a hill the templed
gate of the consecrated Grove. The hymns swelled to louder strains; the
music quickened time; and, borne along by the impulsive current, and
sharing the common eagerness, he passed in, and, Romanized in taste as
he was, fell to worshiping the place.
Rearward of the structure which graced the entrance-way—a purely
Grecian pile—he stood upon a broad esplanade paved with polished stone;
around him a restless exclamatory multitude, in gayest colors, relieved
against the iridescent spray flying crystal-white from fountains;
before him, off to the southwest, dustless paths radiated out into a
garden, and beyond that into a forest, over which rested a veil of
pale-blue vapor. Ben-Hur gazed wistfully, uncertain where to go. A
woman that moment exclaimed,
“Beautiful! But where to now?”
Her companion, wearing a chaplet of bays, laughed and answered, “Go to,
thou pretty barbarian! The question implies an earthly fear; and did we
not agree to leave all such behind in Antioch with the rusty earth? The
winds which blow here are respirations of the gods. Let us give
ourselves to waftage of the winds.”
“But if we should get lost?”
“O thou timid! No one was ever lost in Daphne, except those on whom her
gates close forever.”
“And who are they?” she asked, still fearful.
“Such as have yielded to the charms of the place and chosen it for life
and death. Hark! Stand we here, and I will show you of whom I speak.”