Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
Ben-Hur sat still. The speech, he saw, was an invitation to devote his
life and fortune to the mysterious Being who was palpably as much the
centre of a great hope with Simonides as with the devout Egyptian. The
idea, as we have seen, was not a new one, but had come to him
repeatedly; once while listening to Malluch in the Grove of Daphne;
afterwards more distinctly while Balthasar was giving his conception of
what the kingdom was to be; still later, in the walk through the old
Orchard, it had risen almost, if not quite, into a resolve. At such
times it had come and gone only an idea, attended with feelings more or
less acute. Not so now. A master had it in charge, a master was working
it up; already he had exalted it into a _cause_ brilliant with
possibilities and infinitely holy. The effect was as if a door
theretofore unseen had suddenly opened flooding Ben-Hur with light, and
admitting him to a service which had been his one perfect dream—a
service reaching far into the future, and rich with the rewards of duty
done, and prizes to sweeten and soothe his ambition. One touch more was
needed.
“Let us concede all you say, O Simonides,” said Ben-Hur—“that the King
will come, and his kingdom be as Solomon’s; say also I am ready to give
myself and all I have to him and his cause; yet more, say that I should
do as was God’s purpose in the ordering of my life and in your quick
amassment of astonishing fortune; then what? Shall we proceed like
blind men building? Shall we wait till the King comes? Or until he
sends for me? You have age and experience on your side. Answer.”
Simonides answered at once.
“We have no choice; none. This letter”—he produced Messala’s despatch
as he spoke—“this letter is the signal for action. The alliance
proposed between Messala and Gratus we are not strong enough to resist;
we have not the influence at Rome nor the force here. They will kill
you if we wait. How merciful they are, look at me and judge.”
He shuddered at the terrible recollection.
“O good my master,” he continued, recovering himself; “how strong are
you—in purpose, I mean?”
Ben-Hur did not understand him.
“I remember how pleasant the world was to me in my youth,” Simonides
proceeded.
“Yet,” said Ben-Hur, “you were capable of a great sacrifice.”
“Yes; for love.”
“Has not life other motives as strong?”
Simonides shook his head.
“There is ambition.”
“Ambition is forbidden a son of Israel.”
“What, then, of revenge?”
The spark dropped upon the inflammable passion; the man’s eyes gleamed;
his hands shook; he answered, quickly, “Revenge is a Jew’s of right; it
is the law.”
“A camel, even a dog, will remember a wrong,” cried Ilderim.
Directly Simonides picked up the broken thread of his thought.
“There is a work, a work for the King, which should be done in advance
of his coming. We may not doubt that Israel is to be his right hand;
but, alas! it is a hand of peace, without cunning in war. Of the
millions, there is not one trained band, not a captain. The mercenaries
of the Herods I do not count, for they are kept to crush us. The
condition is as the Roman would have it; his policy has fruited well
for his tyranny; but the time of change is at hand, when the shepherd
shall put on armor, and take to spear and sword, and the feeding flocks
be turned to fighting lions. Some one, my son, must have place next the
King at his right hand. Who shall it be if not he who does this work
well?”
Ben-Hur’s face flushed at the prospect, though he said, “I see; but
speak plainly. A deed to be done is one thing; how to do it is
another.”
Simonides sipped the wine Esther brought him, and replied,
“The sheik, and thou, my master, shall be principals, each with a part.
I will remain here, carrying on as now, and watchful that the spring go
not dry. Thou shalt betake thee to Jerusalem, and thence to the
wilderness, and begin numbering the fighting-men of Israel, and telling
them into tens and hundreds, and choosing captains and training them,
and in secret places hoarding arms, for which I shall keep thee
supplied. Commencing over in Perea, thou shalt go then to Galilee,
whence it is but a step to Jerusalem. In Perea, the desert will be at
thy back, and Ilderim in reach of thy hand. He will keep the roads, so
that nothing shall pass without thy knowledge. He will help thee in
many ways. Until the ripening time no one shall know what is here
contracted. Mine is but a servant’s part. I have spoken to Ilderim.
What sayest thou?”
Ben-Hur looked at the sheik.
“It is as he says, son of Hur,” the Arab responded. “I have given my
word, and he is content with it; but thou shalt have my oath, binding
me, and the ready hands of my tribe, and whatever serviceable thing I
have.”
The three—Simonides, Ilderim, Esther—gazed at Ben-Hur fixedly.
“Every man,” he answered, at first sadly, “has a cup of pleasure poured
for him, and soon or late it comes to his hand, and he tastes and
drinks—every man but me. I see, Simonides, and thou, O generous
sheik!—I see whither the proposal tends. If I accept, and enter upon
the course, farewell peace, and the hopes which cluster around it. The
doors I might enter and the gates of quiet life will shut behind me,
never to open again, for Rome keeps them all; and her outlawry will
follow me, and her hunters; and in the tombs near cities and the dismal
caverns of remotest hills, I must eat my crust and take my rest.”
The speech was broken by a sob. All turned to Esther, who hid her face
upon her father’s shoulder.
“I did not think of you, Esther,” said Simonides, gently, for he was
himself deeply moved.
“It is well enough, Simonides,” said Ben-Hur. “A man bears a hard doom
better, knowing there is pity for him. Let me go on.”
They gave him ear again.
“I was about to say,” he continued, “I have no choice, but take the
part you assign me; and as remaining here is to meet an ignoble death,
I will to the work at once.”
“Shall we have writings?” asked Simonides, moved by his habit of
business.
“I rest upon your word,” said Ben-Hur.
“And I,” Ilderim answered.
Thus simply was effected the treaty which was to alter Ben-Hur’s life.
And almost immediately the latter added,
“It is done, then.”
“May the God of Abraham help us!” Simonides exclaimed.
“One word now, my friends,” Ben-Hur said, more cheerfully. “By your
leave, I will be my own until after the games. It is not probable
Messala will set peril on foot for me until he has given the procurator
time to answer him; and that cannot be in less than seven days from the
despatch of his letter. The meeting him in the Circus is a pleasure I
would buy at whatever risk.”
Ilderim, well pleased, assented readily, and Simonides, intent on
business, added, “It is well; for look you, my master, the delay will
give me time to do you a good part. I understood you to speak of an
inheritance derived from Arrius. Is it in property?”
“A villa near Misenum, and houses in Rome.”
“I suggest, then, the sale of the property, and safe deposit of the
proceeds. Give me an account of it, and I will have authorities drawn,
and despatch an agent on the mission forthwith. We will forestall the
imperial robbers at least this once.”
“You shall have the account to-morrow.”
“Then, if there be nothing more, the work of the night is done,” said
Simonides.
Ilderim combed his beard complacently, saying, “And well done.”
“The bread and wine again, Esther. Sheik Ilderim will make us happy by
staying with us till to-morrow, or at his pleasure; and thou, my
master—”
“Let the horses be brought,” said Ben-Hur. “I will return to the
Orchard. The enemy will not discover me if I go now, and”—he glanced at
Ilderim—“the four will be glad to see me.”
As the day dawned, he and Malluch dismounted at the door of the tent.
CHAPTER IX
Next night, about the fourth hour, Ben-Hur stood on the terrace of the
great warehouse with Esther. Below them, on the landing, there was much
running about, and shifting of packages and boxes, and shouting of men,
whose figures, stooping, heaving, hauling, looked, in the light of the
crackling torches kindled in their aid, like the laboring genii of the
fantastic Eastern tales. A galley was being laden for instant
departure. Simonides had not yet come from his office, in which, at the
last moment, he would deliver to the captain of the vessel instructions
to proceed without stop to Ostia, the seaport of Rome, and, after
landing a passenger there, continue more leisurely to Valentia, on the
coast of Spain.
The passenger is the agent going to dispose of the estate derived from
Arrius the duumvir. When the lines of the vessel are cast off, and she
is put about, and her voyage begun, Ben-Hur will be committed
irrevocably to the work undertaken the night before. If he is disposed
to repent the agreement with Ilderim, a little time is allowed him to
give notice and break it off. He is master, and has only to say the
word.
Such may have been the thought at the moment in his mind. He was
standing with folded arms, looking upon the scene in the manner of a
man debating with himself. Young, handsome, rich, but recently from the
patrician circles of Roman society, it is easy to think of the world
besetting him with appeals not to give more to onerous duty or ambition
attended with outlawry and danger. We can even imagine the arguments
with which he was pressed; the hopelessness of contention with Cæsar;
the uncertainty veiling everything connected with the King and his
coming; the ease, honors, state, purchasable like goods in market; and,
strongest of all, the sense newly acquired of home, with friends to
make it delightful. Only those who have been wanderers long desolate
can know the power there was in the latter appeal.
Let us add now, the world—always cunning enough of itself; always
whispering to the weak, Stay, take thine ease; always presenting the
sunny side of life—the world was in this instance helped by Ben-Hur’s
companion.
“Were you ever at Rome?” he asked.
“No,” Esther replied.
“Would you like to go?”
“I think not.”
“Why?”
“I am afraid of Rome,” she answered, with a perceptible tremor of the
voice.
He looked at her then—or rather down upon her, for at his side she
appeared little more than a child. In the dim light he could not see
her face distinctly; even the form was shadowy. But again he was
reminded of Tirzah, and a sudden tenderness fell upon him—just so the
lost sister stood with him on the house-top the calamitous morning of
the accident to Gratus. Poor Tirzah! Where was she now? Esther had the
benefit of the feeling evoked. If not his sister, he could never look
upon her as his servant; and that she was his servant in fact would
make him always the more considerate and gentle towards her.
“I cannot think of Rome,” she continued, recovering her voice, and
speaking in her quiet womanly way—“I cannot think of Rome as a city of
palaces and temples, and crowded with people; she is to me a monster
which has possession of one of the beautiful lands, and lies there
luring men to ruin and death—a monster which it is not possible to
resist—a ravenous beast gorging with blood. Why—”
She faltered, looked down, stopped.
“Go on,” said Ben-Hur, reassuringly.
She drew closer to him, looked up again, and said, “Why must you make
her your enemy? Why not rather make peace with her, and be at rest? You
have had many ills, and borne them; you have survived the snares laid
for you by foes. Sorrow has consumed your youth; is it well to give it
the remainder of your days?”
The girlish face under his eyes seemed to come nearer and get whiter as
the pleading went on; he stooped towards it, and asked, softly, “What
would you have me do, Esther?”