Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
“Tell me again,” he said, presently. “Were the three to ask, ‘Where is
he that is to be King of the Jews?’”
“Not exactly. The words were BORN TO BE KING OF THE JEWS. Those were
the words as the old sheik caught them first in the desert, and he has
ever since been waiting the coming of the king; nor can any one shake
his faith that he will come.”
“How—as king?”
“Yes, and bringing the doom of Rome—so says the sheik.”
Ben-Hur kept silent awhile, thinking and trying to control his
feelings.
“The old man is one of many millions,” he said, slowly—“one of many
millions each with a wrong to avenge; and this strange faith, Malluch,
is bread and wine to his hope; for who but a Herod may be King of the
Jews while Rome endures? But, following the story, did you hear what
Simonides said to him?”
“If Ilderim is a grave man, Simonides is a wise one,” Malluch replied.
“I listened, and he said— But hark! Some one comes overtaking us.”
The noise grew louder, until presently they heard the rumble of wheels
mixed with the beating of horse-hoofs—a moment later Sheik Ilderim
himself appeared on horseback, followed by a train, among which were
the four wine-red Arabs drawing the chariot. The sheik’s chin, in its
muffling of long white beard, was drooped upon his breast. Our friends
had out-travelled him; but at sight of them he raised his head and
spoke kindly.
“Peace to you!—Ah, my friend Malluch! Welcome! And tell me you are not
going, but just come; that you have something for me from the good
Simonides—may the Lord of his fathers keep him in life for many years
to come! Ay, take up the straps, both of you, and follow me. I have
bread and leben, or, if you prefer it, arrack, and the flesh of young
kid. Come!”
They followed after him to the door of the tent, in which, when they
were dismounted, he stood to receive them, holding a platter with three
cups filled with creamy liquor just drawn from a great smoke-stained
skin bottle, pendent from the central post.
“Drink,” he said, heartily, “drink, for this is the fear-naught of the
tentmen.”
They each took a cup, and drank till but the foam remained.
“Enter now, in God’s name.”
And when they were gone in, Malluch took the sheik aside, and spoke to
him privately; after which he went to Ben-Hur and excused himself.
“I have told the sheik about you, and he will give you the trial of his
horses in the morning. He is your friend. Having done for you all I
can, you must do the rest, and let me return to Antioch. There is one
there who has my promise to meet him to-night. I have no choice but to
go. I will come back to-morrow prepared, if all goes well in the
meantime, to stay with you until the games are over.”
With blessings given and received, Malluch set out in return.
CHAPTER XI
What time the lower horn of a new moon touched the castellated piles on
Mount Sulpius, and two thirds of the people of Antioch were out on
their house-tops comforting themselves with the night breeze when it
blew, and with fans when it failed, Simonides sat in the chair which
had come to be a part of him, and from the terrace looked down over the
river, and his ships a-swing at their moorings. The wall at his back
cast its shadow broadly over the water to the opposite shore. Above him
the endless tramp upon the bridge went on. Esther was holding a plate
for him containing his frugal supper—some wheaten cakes, light as
wafers, some honey, and a bowl of milk, into which he now and then
dipped the wafers after dipping them into the honey.
“Malluch is a laggard to-night,” he said, showing where his thoughts
were.
“Do you believe he will come?” Esther asked.
“Unless he has taken to the sea or the desert, and is yet following on,
he will come.”
Simonides spoke with quiet confidence.
“He may write,” she said.
“Not so, Esther. He would have despatched a letter when he found he
could not return, and told me so; because I have not received such a
letter, I know he can come, and will.”
“I hope so,” she said, very softly.
Something in the utterance attracted his attention; it might have been
the tone, it might have been the wish. The smallest bird cannot light
upon the greatest tree without sending a shock to its most distant
fibre; every mind is at times no less sensitive to the most trifling
words.
“You wish him to come, Esther?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, lifting her eyes to his.
“Why? Can you tell me?” he persisted.
“Because”—she hesitated, then began again—“because the young man is—”
The stop was full.
“Our master. Is that the word?”
“Yes.”
“And you still think I should not suffer him to go away without telling
him to come, if he chooses, and take us—and all we have—all, Esther—the
goods, the shekels, the ships, the slaves, and the mighty credit, which
is a mantle of cloth of gold and finest silver spun for me by the
greatest of the angels of men—Success.”
She made no answer.
“Does that move you nothing? No?” he said, with the slightest taint of
bitterness. “Well, well, I have found, Esther, the worst reality is
never unendurable when it comes out from behind the clouds through
which we at first see it darkly—never—not even the rack. I suppose it
will be so with death. And by that philosophy the slavery to which we
are going must afterwhile become sweet. It pleases me even now to think
what a favored man our master is. The fortune cost him nothing—not an
anxiety, not a drop of sweat, not so much as a thought; it attaches to
him undreamed of, and in his youth. And, Esther, let me waste a little
vanity with the reflection; he gets what he could not go into the
market and buy with all the pelf in a sum—thee, my child, my darling;
thou blossom from the tomb of my lost Rachel!”
He drew her to him, and kissed her twice—once for herself, once for her
mother.
“Say not so,” she said, when his hand fell from her neck. “Let us think
better of him; he knows what sorrow is, and will set us free.”
“Ah, thy instincts are fine, Esther; and thou knowest I lean upon them
in doubtful cases where good or bad is to be pronounced of a person
standing before thee as he stood this morning. But—but”—his voice rose
and hardened—“these limbs upon which I cannot stand—this body drawn and
beaten out of human shape—they are not all I bring him of myself. Oh
no, no! I bring him a soul which has triumphed over torture and Roman
malice keener than any torture—I bring him a mind which has eyes to see
gold at a distance farther than the ships of Solomon sailed, and power
to bring it to hand—ay, Esther, into my palm here for the fingers to
grip and keep lest it take wings at some other’s word—a mind skilled at
scheming”—he stopped and laughed—“Why, Esther, before the new moon
which in the courts of the Temple on the Holy Hill they are this moment
celebrating passes into its next quartering I could ring the world so
as to startle even Cæsar; for know you, child, I have that faculty
which is better than any one sense, better than a perfect body, better
than courage and will, better than experience, ordinarily the best
product of the longest lives—the faculty divinest of men, but which”—he
stopped, and laughed again, not bitterly, but with real zest—“but which
even the great do not sufficiently account, while with the herd it is a
non-existent—the faculty of drawing men to my purpose and holding them
faithfully to its achievement, by which, as against things to be done,
I multiply myself into hundreds and thousands. So the captains of my
ships plough the seas, and bring me honest returns; so Malluch follows
the youth, our master, and will”—just then a footstep was heard upon
the terrace—“Ha, Esther! said I not so? He is here—and we will have
tidings. For thy sake, sweet child—my lily just budded—I pray the Lord
God, who has not forgotten his wandering sheep of Israel, that they be
good and comforting. Now we will know if he will let thee go with all
thy beauty, and me with all my faculties.”
Malluch came to the chair.
“Peace to you, good master,” he said, with a low obeisance—“and to you,
Esther, most excellent of daughters.”
He stood before them deferentially, and the attitude and the address
left it difficult to define his relation to them; the one was that of a
servant, the other indicated the familiar and friend. On the other
side, Simonides, as was his habit in business, after answering the
salutation went straight to the subject.
“What of the young man, Malluch?”
The events of the day were told quietly and in the simplest words, and
until he was through there was no interruption; nor did the listener in
the chair so much as move a hand during the narration; but for his
eyes, wide open and bright, and an occasional long-drawn breath, he
might have been accounted an effigy.
“Thank you, thank you, Malluch,” he said, heartily, at the conclusion;
“you have done well—no one could have done better. Now what say you of
the young man’s nationality?”
“He is an Israelite, good master, and of the tribe of Judah.”
“You are positive?”
“Very positive.”
“He appears to have told you but little of his life.”
“He has somewhere learned to be prudent. I might call him distrustful.
He baffled all my attempts upon his confidence until we started from
the Castalian fount going to the village of Daphne.”
“A place of abomination! Why went he there?”
“I would say from curiosity, the first motive of the many who go; but,
very strangely, he took no interest in the things he saw. Of the
Temple, he merely asked if it were Grecian. Good master, the young man
has a trouble of mind from which he would hide, and he went to the
Grove, I think, as we go to sepulchres with our dead—he went to bury
it.”
“That were well, if so,” Simonides said, in a low voice; then louder,
“Malluch, the curse of the time is prodigality. The poor make
themselves poorer as apes of the rich, and the merely rich carry
themselves like princes. Saw you signs of the weakness in the youth?
Did he display moneys—coin of Rome or Israel?”
“None, none, good master.”
“Surely, Malluch, where there are so many inducements to folly—so much,
I mean, to eat and drink—surely he made you generous offer of some
sort. His age, if nothing more, would warrant that much.”
“He neither ate nor drank in my company.”
“In what he said or did, Malluch, could you in anywise detect his
master-idea? You know they peep through cracks close enough to stop the
wind.”
“Give me to understand you,” said Malluch, in doubt.
“Well, you know we nor speak nor act, much less decide grave questions
concerning ourselves, except as we be driven by a motive. In that
respect, what made you of him?”
“As to that, Master Simonides, I can answer with much assurance. He is
devoted to finding his mother and sister—that first. Then he has a
grievance against Rome; and as the Messala of whom I told you had
something to do with the wrong, the great present object is to
humiliate him. The meeting at the fountain furnished an opportunity,
but it was put aside as not sufficiently public.”
“The Messala is influential,” said Simonides, thoughtfully.
“Yes; but the next meeting will be in the Circus.”
“Well—and then?”
“The son of Arrius will win.”
“How know you?”
Malluch smiled.
“I am judging by what he says.”
“Is that all?”
“No; there is a much better sign—his spirit.”
“Ay; but, Malluch, his idea of vengeance—what is its scope? Does he
limit it to the few who did him the wrong, or does he take in the many?
And more—is his feeling but the vagary of a sensitive boy, or has it
the seasoning of suffering manhood to give it endurance? You know,
Malluch, the vengeful thought that has root merely in the mind is but a
dream of idlest sort which one clear day will dissipate; while revenge