Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
Immediately a man climbed on the entablature at the west end of the
division wall, and took down one of the conical wooden balls. A dolphin
on the east entablature was taken down at the same time.
In like manner, the second ball and second dolphin disappeared.
And then the third ball and third dolphin.
Three rounds concluded: still Messala held the inside position; still
Ben-Hur moved with him side by side; still the other competitors
followed as before. The contest began to have the appearance of one of
the double races which became so popular in Rome during the later
Cæsarean period—Messala and Ben-Hur in the first, the Corinthian,
Sidonian, and Byzantine in the second. Meantime the ushers succeeded in
returning the multitude to their seats, though the clamor continued to
run the rounds, keeping, as it were, even pace with the rivals in the
course below.
In the fifth round the Sidonian succeeded in getting a place outside
Ben-Hur, but lost it directly.
The sixth round was entered upon without change of relative position.
Gradually the speed had been quickened—gradually the blood of the
competitors warmed with the work. Men and beasts seemed to know alike
that the final crisis was near, bringing the time for the winner to
assert himself.
The interest which from the beginning had centred chiefly in the
struggle between the Roman and the Jew, with an intense and general
sympathy for the latter, was fast changing to anxiety on his account.
On all the benches the spectators bent forward motionless, except as
their faces turned following the contestants. Ilderim quitted combing
his beard, and Esther forgot her fears.
“A hundred sestertii on the Jew!” cried Sanballat to the Romans under
the consul’s awning.
There was no reply.
“A talent—or five talents, or ten; choose ye!”
He shook his tablets at them defiantly.
“I will take thy sestertii,” answered a Roman youth, preparing to
write.
“Do not so,” interposed a friend.
“Why?”
“Messala hath reached his utmost speed. See him lean over his chariot
rim, the reins loose as flying ribbons. Look then at the Jew.”
The first one looked.
“By Hercules!” he replied, his countenance falling. “The dog throws all
his weight on the bits. I see, I see! If the gods help not our friend,
he will be run away with by the Israelite. No, not yet. Look! Jove with
us, Jove with us!”
The cry, swelled by every Latin tongue, shook the velaria over the
consul’s head.
If it were true that Messala had attained his utmost speed, the effort
was with effect; slowly but certainly he was beginning to forge ahead.
His horses were running with their heads low down; from the balcony
their bodies appeared actually to skim the earth; their nostrils showed
blood red in expansion; their eyes seemed straining in their sockets.
Certainly the good steeds were doing their best! How long could they
keep the pace? It was but the commencement of the sixth round. On they
dashed. As they neared the second goal, Ben-Hur turned in behind the
Roman’s car.
The joy of the Messala faction reached its bound: they screamed and
howled, and tossed their colors; and Sanballat filled his tablets with
wagers of their tendering.
Malluch, in the lower gallery over the Gate of Triumph, found it hard
to keep his cheer. He had cherished the vague hint dropped to him by
Ben-Hur of something to happen in the turning of the western pillars.
It was the fifth round, yet the something had not come; and he had said
to himself, the sixth will bring it; but, lo! Ben-Hur was hardly
holding a place at the tail of his enemy’s car.
Over in the east end, Simonides’ party held their peace. The merchant’s
head was bent low. Ilderim tugged at his beard, and dropped his brows
till there was nothing of his eyes but an occasional sparkle of light.
Esther scarcely breathed. Iras alone appeared glad.
Along the home-stretch—sixth round—Messala leading, next him Ben-Hur,
and so close it was the old story:
“First flew Eumelus on Pheretian steeds;
With those of Tros bold Diomed succeeds;
Close on Eumelus’ back they puff the wind,
And seem just mounting on his car behind;
Full on his neck he feels the sultry breeze,
And, hovering o’er, their stretching shadow sees.”
Thus to the first goal, and round it. Messala, fearful of losing his
place, hugged the stony wall with perilous clasp; a foot to the left,
and he had been dashed to pieces; yet, when the turn was finished, no
man, looking at the wheel-tracks of the two cars, could have said, here
went Messala, there the Jew. They left but one trace behind them.
As they whirled by, Esther saw Ben-Hur’s face again, and it was whiter
than before.
Simonides, shrewder than Esther, said to Ilderim, the moment the rivals
turned into the course, “I am no judge, good sheik, if Ben-Hur be not
about to execute some design. His face hath that look.”
To which Ilderim answered, “Saw you how clean they were and fresh? By
the splendor of God, friend, they have not been running! But now
watch!”
One ball and one dolphin remained on the entablatures; and all the
people drew a long breath, for the beginning of the end was at hand.
First, the Sidonian gave the scourge to his four, and, smarting with
fear and pain, they dashed desperately forward, promising for a brief
time to go to the front. The effort ended in promise. Next, the
Byzantine and the Corinthian each made the trial with like result,
after which they were practically out of the race. Thereupon, with a
readiness perfectly explicable, all the factions except the Romans
joined hope in Ben-Hur, and openly indulged their feeling.
“Ben-Hur! Ben-Hur!” they shouted, and the blent voices of the many
rolled overwhelmingly against the consular stand.
From the benches above him as he passed, the favor descended in fierce
injunctions.
“Speed thee, Jew!”
“Take the wall now!”
“On! loose the Arabs! Give them rein and scourge!”
“Let him not have the turn on thee again. Now or never!”
Over the balustrade they stooped low, stretching their hands
imploringly to him.
Either he did not hear, or could not do better, for halfway round the
course and he was still following; at the second goal even still no
change!
And now, to make the turn, Messala began to draw in his left-hand
steeds, an act which necessarily slackened their speed. His spirit was
high; more than one altar was richer of his vows; the Roman genius was
still president. On the three pillars only six hundred feet away were
fame, increase of fortune, promotions, and a triumph ineffably
sweetened by hate, all in store for him! That moment Malluch, in the
gallery, saw Ben-Hur lean forward over his Arabs, and give them the
reins. Out flew the many-folded lash in his hand; over the backs of the
startled steeds it writhed and hissed, and hissed and writhed again and
again; and though it fell not, there were both sting and menace in its
quick report; and as the man passed thus from quiet to resistless
action, his face suffused, his eyes gleaming, along the reins he seemed
to flash his will; and instantly not one, but the four as one, answered
with a leap that landed them alongside the Roman’s car. Messala, on the
perilous edge of the goal, heard, but dared not look to see what the
awakening portended. From the people he received no sign. Above the
noises of the race there was but one voice, and that was Ben-Hur’s. In
the old Aramaic, as the sheik himself, he called to the Arabs,
“On, Atair! On, Rigel! What, Antares! dost thou linger now? Good
horse—oho, Aldebaran! I hear them singing in the tents. I hear the
children singing and the women—singing of the stars, of Atair, Antares,
Rigel, Aldebaran, victory!—and the song will never end. Well done! Home
to-morrow, under the black tent—home! On, Antares! The tribe is waiting
for us, and the master is waiting! ’Tis done! ’tis done! Ha, ha! We
have overthrown the proud. The hand that smote us is in the dust. Ours
the glory! Ha, ha!—steady! The work is done—soho! Rest!”
There had never been anything of the kind more simple; seldom anything
so instantaneous.
At the moment chosen for the dash, Messala was moving in a circle round
the goal. To pass him, Ben-Hur had to cross the track, and good
strategy required the movement to be in a forward direction; that is,
on a like circle limited to the least possible increase. The thousands
on the benches understood it all: they saw the signal given—the
magnificent response; the four close outside Messala’s outer wheel;
Ben-Hur’s inner wheel behind the other’s car—all this they saw. Then
they heard a crash loud enough to send a thrill through the Circus,
and, quicker than thought, out over the course a spray of shining white
and yellow flinders flew. Down on its right side toppled the bed of the
Roman’s chariot. There was a rebound as of the axle hitting the hard
earth; another and another; then the car went to pieces; and Messala,
entangled in the reins, pitched forward headlong.
To increase the horror of the sight by making death certain, the
Sidonian, who had the wall next behind, could not stop or turn out.
Into the wreck full speed he drove; then over the Roman, and into the
latter’s four, all mad with fear. Presently, out of the turmoil, the
fighting of horses, the resound of blows, the murky cloud of dust and
sand, he crawled, in time to see the Corinthian and Byzantine go on
down the course after Ben-Hur, who had not been an instant delayed.
The people arose, and leaped upon the benches, and shouted and
screamed. Those who looked that way caught glimpses of Messala, now
under the trampling of the fours, now under the abandoned cars. He was
still; they thought him dead; but far the greater number followed
Ben-Hur in his career. They had not seen the cunning touch of the reins
by which, turning a little to the left, he caught Messala’s wheel with
the iron-shod point of his axle, and crushed it; but they had seen the
transformation of the man, and themselves felt the heat and glow of his
spirit, the heroic resolution, the maddening energy of action with
which, by look, word, and gesture, he so suddenly inspired his Arabs.
And such running! It was rather the long leaping of lions in harness;
but for the lumbering chariot, it seemed the four were flying. When the
Byzantine and Corinthian were halfway down the course, Ben-Hur turned
the first goal.
AND THE RACE WAS WON!
The consul arose; the people shouted themselves hoarse; the editor came
down from his seat, and crowned the victors.
The fortunate man among the boxers was a low-browed, yellow-haired
Saxon, of such brutalized face as to attract a second look from
Ben-Hur, who recognized a teacher with whom he himself had been a
favorite at Rome. From him the young Jew looked up and beheld Simonides
and his party on the balcony. They waved their hands to him. Esther
kept her seat; but Iras arose, and gave him a smile and a wave of her
fan—favors not the less intoxicating to him because we know, O reader,
they would have fallen to Messala had he been the victor.
The procession was then formed, and, midst the shouting of the
multitude which had had its will, passed out of the Gate of Triumph.
And the day was over.
CHAPTER XV
Ben-Hur tarried across the river with Ilderim; for at midnight, as
previously determined, they would take the road which the caravan, then
thirty hours out, had pursued.
The sheik was happy; his offers of gifts had been royal; but Ben-Hur
had refused everything, insisting that he was satisfied with the
humiliation of his enemy. The generous dispute was long continued.
“Think,” the sheik would say, “what thou hast done for me. In every
black tent down to the Akaba and to the ocean, and across to the