Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
for the rope, then for the coveted inner line. So, all six aiming at
the same point and speeding furiously, a collision seemed inevitable;
nor that merely. What if the editor, at the last moment, dissatisfied
with the start, should withhold the signal to drop the rope? Or if he
should not give it in time?
The crossing was about two hundred and fifty feet in width. Quick the
eye, steady the hand, unerring the judgment required. If now one look
away! or his mind wander! or a rein slip! And what attraction in the
ensemble of the thousands over the spreading balcony! Calculating upon
the natural impulse to give one glance—just one—in sooth of curiosity
or vanity, malice might be there with an artifice; while friendship and
love, did they serve the same result, might be as deadly as malice.
The divine last touch in perfecting the beautiful is animation. Can we
accept the saying, then these latter days, so tame in pastime and dull
in sports, have scarcely anything to compare to the spectacle offered
by the six contestants. Let the reader try to fancy it; let him first
look down upon the arena, and see it glistening in its frame of
dull-gray granite walls; let him then, in this perfect field, see the
chariots, light of wheel, very graceful, and ornate as paint and
burnishing can make them—Messala’s rich with ivory and gold; let him
see the drivers, erect and statuesque, undisturbed by the motion of the
cars, their limbs naked, and fresh and ruddy with the healthful polish
of the baths—in their right hands goads, suggestive of torture dreadful
to the thought—in their left hands, held in careful separation, and
high, that they may not interfere with view of the steeds, the reins
passing taut from the fore ends of the carriage-poles; let him see the
fours, chosen for beauty as well as speed; let him see them in
magnificent action, their masters not more conscious of the situation
and all that is asked and hoped from them—their heads tossing, nostrils
in play, now distent, now contracted—limbs too dainty for the sand
which they touch but to spurn—limbs slender, yet with impact crushing
as hammers—every muscle of the rounded bodies instinct with glorious
life, swelling, diminishing, justifying the world in taking from them
its ultimate measure of force; finally, along with chariots, drivers,
horses, let the reader see the accompanying shadows fly; and, with such
distinctness as the picture comes, he may share the satisfaction and
deeper pleasure of those to whom it was a thrilling fact, not a feeble
fancy. Every age has its plenty of sorrows; Heaven help where there are
no pleasures!
The competitors having started each on the shortest line for the
position next the wall, yielding would be like giving up the race; and
who dared yield? It is not in common nature to change a purpose in
mid-career; and the cries of encouragement from the balcony were
indistinguishable and indescribable: a roar which had the same effect
upon all the drivers.
The fours neared the rope together. Then the trumpeter by the editor’s
side blew a signal vigorously. Twenty feet away it was not heard.
Seeing the action, however, the judges dropped the rope, and not an
instant too soon, for the hoof of one of Messala’s horses struck it as
it fell. Nothing daunted, the Roman shook out his long lash, loosed the
reins, leaned forward, and, with a triumphant shout, took the wall.
“Jove with us! Jove with us!” yelled all the Roman faction, in a frenzy
of delight.
As Messala turned in, the bronze lion’s head at the end of his axle
caught the fore-leg of the Athenian’s right-hand trace-mate, flinging
the brute over against its yoke-fellow. Both staggered, struggled, and
lost their headway. The ushers had their will at least in part. The
thousands held their breath with horror; only up where the consul sat
was there shouting.
“Jove with us!” screamed Drusus, frantically.
“He wins! Jove with us!” answered his associates, seeing Messala speed
on.
Tablet in hand, Sanballat turned to them; a crash from the course below
stopped his speech, and he could not but look that way.
Messala having passed, the Corinthian was the only contestant on the
Athenian’s right, and to that side the latter tried to turn his broken
four; and then; as ill-fortune would have it, the wheel of the
Byzantine, who was next on the left, struck the tail-piece of his
chariot, knocking his feet from under him. There was a crash, a scream
of rage and fear, and the unfortunate Cleanthes fell under the hoofs of
his own steeds: a terrible sight, against which Esther covered her
eyes.
On swept the Corinthian, on the Byzantine, on the Sidonian.
Sanballat looked for Ben-Hur, and turned again to Drusus and his
coterie.
“A hundred sestertii on the Jew!” he cried.
“Taken!” answered Drusus.
“Another hundred on the Jew!” shouted Sanballat.
Nobody appeared to hear him. He called again; the situation below was
too absorbing, and they were too busy shouting, “Messala! Messala! Jove
with us!”
When the Jewess ventured to look again, a party of workmen were
removing the horses and broken car; another party were taking off the
man himself; and every bench upon which there was a Greek was vocal
with execrations and prayers for vengeance. Suddenly she dropped her
hands; Ben-Hur, unhurt, was to the front, coursing freely forward along
with the Roman! Behind them, in a group, followed the Sidonian, the
Corinthian, and the Byzantine.
The race was on; the souls of the racers were in it; over them bent the
myriads.
CHAPTER XIV
When the dash for position began, Ben-Hur, as we have seen, was on the
extreme left of the six. For a moment, like the others, he was half
blinded by the light in the arena; yet he managed to catch sight of his
antagonists and divine their purpose. At Messala, who was more than an
antagonist to him, he gave one searching look. The air of passionless
hauteur characteristic of the fine patrician face was there as of old,
and so was the Italian beauty, which the helmet rather increased; but
more—it may have been a jealous fancy, or the effect of the brassy
shadow in which the features were at the moment cast, still the
Israelite thought he saw the soul of the man as through a glass,
darkly: cruel, cunning, desperate; not so excited as determined—a soul
in a tension of watchfulness and fierce resolve.
In a time not longer than was required to turn to his four again,
Ben-Hur felt his own resolution harden to a like temper. At whatever
cost, at all hazards, he would humble this enemy! Prize, friends,
wagers, honor—everything that can be thought of as a possible interest
in the race was lost in the one deliberate purpose. Regard for life
even should not hold him back. Yet there was no passion, on his part;
no blinding rush of heated blood from heart to brain, and back again;
no impulse to fling himself upon Fortune: he did not believe in
Fortune; far otherwise. He had his plan, and, confiding in himself, he
settled to the task never more observant, never more capable. The air
about him seemed aglow with a renewed and perfect transparency.
When not half-way across the arena, he saw that Messala’s rush would,
if there was no collision, and the rope fell, give him the wall; that
the rope would fall, he ceased as soon to doubt; and, further, it came
to him, a sudden flash-like insight, that Messala knew it was to be let
drop at the last moment (prearrangement with the editor could safely
reach that point in the contest); and it suggested, what more
Roman-like than for the official to lend himself to a countryman who,
besides being so popular, had also so much at stake? There could be no
other accounting for the confidence with which Messala pushed his four
forward the instant his competitors were prudentially checking their
fours in front of the obstruction—no other except madness.
It is one thing to see a necessity and another to act upon it. Ben-Hur
yielded the wall for the time.
The rope fell, and all the fours but his sprang into the course under
urgency of voice and lash. He drew head to the right, and, with all the
speed of his Arabs, darted across the trails of his opponents, the
angle of movement being such as to lose the least time and gain the
greatest possible advance. So, while the spectators were shivering at
the Athenian’s mishap, and the Sidonian, Byzantine, and Corinthian were
striving, with such skill as they possessed, to avoid involvement in
the ruin, Ben-Hur swept around and took the course neck and neck with
Messala, though on the outside. The marvellous skill shown in making
the change thus from the extreme left across to the right without
appreciable loss did not fail the sharp eyes upon the benches; the
Circus seemed to rock and rock again with prolonged applause. Then
Esther clasped her hands in glad surprise; then Sanballat, smiling,
offered his hundred sestertii a second time without a taker; and then
the Romans began to doubt, thinking Messala might have found an equal,
if not a master, and that in an Israelite!
And now, racing together side by side, a narrow interval between them,
the two neared the second goal.
The pedestal of the three pillars there, viewed from the west, was a
stone wall in the form of a half-circle, around which the course and
opposite balcony were bent in exact parallelism. Making this turn was
considered in all respects the most telling test of a charioteer; it
was, in fact, the very feat in which Oraetes failed. As an involuntary
admission of interest on the part of the spectators, a hush fell over
all the Circus, so that for the first time in the race the rattle and
clang of the cars plunging after the tugging steeds were distinctly
heard. Then, it would seem, Messala observed Ben-Hur, and recognized
him; and at once the audacity of the man flamed out in an astonishing
manner.
“Down Eros, up Mars!” he shouted, whirling his lash with practised
hand—“Down Eros, up Mars!” he repeated, and caught the well-doing Arabs
of Ben-Hur a cut the like of which they had never known.
The blow was seen in every quarter, and the amazement was universal.
The silence deepened; up on the benches behind the consul the boldest
held his breath, waiting for the outcome. Only a moment thus: then,
involuntarily, down from the balcony, as thunder falls, burst the
indignant cry of the people.
The four sprang forward affrighted. No hand had ever been laid upon
them except in love; they had been nurtured ever so tenderly; and as
they grew, their confidence in man became a lesson to men beautiful to
see. What should such dainty natures do under such indignity but leap
as from death?
Forward they sprang as with one impulse, and forward leaped the car.
Past question, every experience is serviceable to us. Where got Ben-Hur
the large hand and mighty grip which helped him now so well? Where but
from the oar with which so long he fought the sea? And what was this
spring of the floor under his feet to the dizzy eccentric lurch with
which in the old time the trembling ship yielded to the beat of
staggering billows, drunk with their power? So he kept his place, and
gave the four free rein, and called to them in soothing voice, trying
merely to guide them round the dangerous turn; and before the fever of
the people began to abate, he had back the mastery. Nor that only: on
approaching the first goal, he was again side by side with Messala,
bearing with him the sympathy and admiration of every one not a Roman.
So clearly was the feeling shown, so vigorous its manifestation, that
Messala, with all his boldness, felt it unsafe to trifle further.
As the cars whirled round the goal, Esther caught sight of Ben-Hur’s
face—a little pale, a little higher raised, otherwise calm, even
placid.