Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
upon the table before the tribune, saying, simply, “This is the lower
floor.”
The whole company looked at
THE MAP
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| |
| Passage |
| |
|--][---+---][---+---][---+---][---+---][--|
| | | | | |
| V | IV | III | II | I |
|_______|________|________|________|_______|
“This is exactly, O tribune, as I had it from Gratus. See, there is
cell number V.,” said Gesius.
“I see,” the tribune replied. “Go on now. The cell was leprous, he
said.”
“I would like to ask you a question,” remarked the keeper, modestly.
The tribune assented.
“Had I not a right, under the circumstances, to believe the map a true
one?”
“What else couldst thou?”
“Well, it is not a true one.”
The chief looked up surprised.
“It is not a true one,” the keeper repeated. “It shows but five cells
upon that floor, while there are six.”
“Six, sayest thou?”
“I will show you the floor as it is—or as I believe it to be.”
Upon a page of his tablets, Gesius drew the following diagram, and gave
it to the tribune:
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| |
|--][---+---][---+---][---+---][---+---][--|
| | | | | |
| V | IV | III | II | I |
|--][---+--------+--------+--------+-------|
| VI |
|__________________________________________|
“Thou hast done well,” said the tribune, examining the drawing, and
thinking the narrative at an end. “I will have the map corrected, or,
better, I will have a new one made, and given thee. Come for it in the
morning.”
So saying, he arose.
“But hear me further, O tribune.”
“To-morrow, Gesius, to-morrow.”
“That which I have yet to tell will not wait.”
The tribune good-naturedly resumed his chair.
“I will hurry,” said the keeper, humbly, “only let me ask another
question. Had I not a right to believe Gratus in what he further told
me as to the prisoners in cell number V.?”
“Yes, it was thy duty to believe there were three prisoners in the
cell—prisoners of state—blind and without tongues.”
“Well,” said the keeper, “that was not true either.”
“No!” said the tribune, with returning interest.
“Hear, and judge for yourself, O tribune. As required, I visited all
the cells, beginning with those on the first floor, and ending with
those on the lower. The order that the door of number V. should not be
opened had been respected; through all the eight years food and drink
for three men had been passed through a hole in the wall. I went to the
door yesterday, curious to see the wretches who, against all
expectation, had lived so long. The locks refused the key. We pulled a
little, and the door fell down, rusted from its hinges. Going in, I
found but one man, old, blind, tongueless, and naked. His hair dropped
in stiffened mats below his waist. His skin was like the parchment
there. He held his hands out, and the finger-nails curled and twisted
like the claws of a bird. I asked him where his companions were. He
shook his head in denial. Thinking to find the others, we searched the
cell. The floor was dry; so were the walls. If three men had been shut
in there, and two of them had died, at least their bones would have
endured.”
“Wherefore thou thinkest—”
“I think, O tribune, there has been but one prisoner there in the eight
years.”
The chief regarded the keeper sharply, and said, “Have a care; thou art
more than saying Valerius lied.”
Gesius bowed, but said, “He might have been mistaken.”
“No, he was right,” said the tribune, warmly. “By thine own statement
he was right. Didst thou not say but now that for eight years food and
drink had been furnished three men?”
The bystanders approved the shrewdness of their chief; yet Gesius did
not seem discomfited.
“You have but half the story, O tribune. When you have it all, you will
agree with me. You know what I did with the man: that I sent him to the
bath, and had him shorn and clothed, and then took him to the gate of
the Tower, and bade him go free. I washed my hands of him. To-day he
came back, and was brought to me. By signs and tears he at last made me
understand he wished to return to his cell, and I so ordered. As they
were leading him off, he broke away and kissed my feet, and, by piteous
dumb imploration, insisted I should go with him; and I went. The
mystery of the three men stayed in my mind. I was not satisfied about
it. Now I am glad I yielded to his entreaty.”
The whole company at this point became very still.
“When we were in the cell again, and the prisoner knew it, he caught my
hand eagerly, and led me to a hole like that through which we were
accustomed to pass him his food. Though large enough to push your
helmet through, it escaped me yesterday. Still holding my hand, he put
his face to the hole and gave a beast-like cry. A sound came faintly
back. I was astonished, and drew him away, and called out, ‘Ho, here!’
At first there was no answer. I called again, and received back these
words, ‘Be thou praised, O Lord!’ Yet more astonishing, O tribune, the
voice was a woman’s. And I asked, ‘Who are you?’ and had reply, ‘A
woman of Israel, entombed here with her daughter. Help us quickly, or
we die.’ I told them to be of cheer, and hurried here to know your
will.”
The tribune arose hastily.
“Thou wert right, Gesius,” he said, “and I see now. The map was a lie,
and so was the tale of the three men. There have been better Romans
than Valerius Gratus.”
“Yes,” said the keeper. “I gleaned from the prisoner that he had
regularly given the women of the food and drink he had received.”
“It is accounted for,” replied the tribune, and observing the
countenances of his friends, and reflecting how well it would be to
have witnesses, he added, “Let us rescue the women. Come all.”
Gesuis was pleased.
“We will have to pierce the wall,” he said. “I found where a door had
been, but it was filled solidly with stones and mortar.”
The tribune stayed to say to a clerk, “Send workmen after me with
tools. Make haste; but hold the report, for I see it will have to be
corrected.”
In a short time they were gone.
CHAPTER II
“A woman of Israel, entombed here with her daughter. Help us quickly,
or we die.”
Such was the reply Gesius, the keeper, had from the cell which appears
on his amended map as VI. The reader, when he observed the answer, knew
who the unfortunates were, and, doubtless, said to himself, “At last
the mother of Ben-Hur, and Tirzah, his sister!”
And so it was.
The morning of their seizure, eight years before, they had been carried
to the Tower, where Gratus proposed to put them out of the way. He had
chosen the Tower for the purpose as more immediately in his own
keeping, and cell VI. because, first, it could be better lost than any
other; and, secondly, it was infected with leprosy; for these prisoners
were not merely to be put in a safe place, but in a place to die. They
were, accordingly, taken down by slaves in the night-time, when there
were no witnesses of the deed; then, in completion of the savage task,
the same slaves walled up the door, after which they were themselves
separated, and sent away never to be heard of more. To save accusation,
and, in the event of discovery, to leave himself such justification as
might be allowed in a distinction between the infliction of a
punishment and the commission of a double murder, Gratus preferred
sinking his victims where natural death was certain, though slow. That
they might linger along, he selected a convict who had been made blind
and tongueless, and sank him in the only connecting cell, there to
serve them with food and drink. Under no circumstances could the poor
wretch tell the tale or identify either the prisoners or their
doomsman. So, with a cunning partly due to Messala, the Roman, under
color of punishing a brood of assassins, smoothed a path to
confiscation of the estate of the Hurs, of which no portion ever
reached the imperial coffers.
As the last step in the scheme, Gratus summarily removed the old keeper
of the prisons; not because he knew what had been done—for he did
not—but because, knowing the underground floors as he did, it would be
next to impossible to keep the transaction from him. Then, with
masterly ingenuity, the procurator had new maps drawn for delivery to a
new keeper, with the omission, as we have seen, of cell VI. The
instructions given the latter, taken with the omission on the map,
accomplished the design—the cell and its unhappy tenants were all alike
lost.
What may be thought of the life of the mother and daughter during the
eight years must have relation to their culture and previous habits.
Conditions are pleasant or grievous to us according to our
sensibilities. It is not extreme to say, if there was a sudden exit of
all men from the world, heaven, as prefigured in the Christian idea,
would not be a heaven to the majority; on the other hand, neither would
all suffer equally in the so-called Tophet. Cultivation has its
balances. As the mind is made intelligent, the capacity of the soul for
pure enjoyment is proportionally increased. Well, therefore, if it be
saved! If lost, however, alas that it ever had cultivation! its
capacity for enjoyment in the one case is the measure of its capacity
to suffer in the other. Wherefore repentance must be something more
than mere remorse for sins; it comprehends a change of nature befitting
heaven.
We repeat, to form an adequate idea of the suffering endured by the
mother of Ben-Hur, the reader must think of her spirit and its
sensibilities as much as, if not more than, of the conditions of the
immurement; the question being, not what the conditions were, but how
she was affected by them. And now we may be permitted to say it was in
anticipation of this thought that the scene in the summer-house on the
roof of the family palace was given so fully in the beginning of the
Second Book of our story. So, too, to be helpful when the inquiry
should come up, we ventured the elaborate description of the palace of
the Hurs.
In other words, let the serene, happy, luxurious life in the princely
house be recalled and contrasted with this existence in the lower
dungeon of the Tower of Antonia; then if the reader, in his effort to
realize the misery of the woman, persists in mere reference to
conditions physical, he cannot go amiss; as he is a lover of his kind,
tender of heart, he will be melted with much sympathy. But will he go
further; will he more than sympathize with her; will he share her agony
of mind and spirit; will he at least try to measure it—let him recall
her as she discoursed to her son of God and nations and heroes; one
moment a philosopher, the next a teacher, and all the time a mother.
Would you hurt a man keenest, strike at his self-love; would you hurt a
woman worst, aim at her affections.
With quickened remembrance of these unfortunates—remembrance of them as
they were—let us go down and see them as they are.
The cell VI. was in form as Gesius drew it on his map. Of its
dimensions but little idea can be had; enough that it was a roomy,
roughened interior, with ledged and broken walls and floor.
In the beginning, the site of the Macedonian Castle was separated from
the site of the Temple by a narrow but deep cliff somewhat in shape of
a wedge. The workmen, wishing to hew out a series of chambers, made
their entry in the north face of the cleft, and worked in, leaving a
ceiling of the natural stone; delving farther, they executed the cells