Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
imperial order, a proceeding of which the friends of the family had no
fear.
In reply the tribune stated circumstantially the discovery of the women
in the Tower, and permitted a reading of the memorandum he had taken of
their account of themselves; when leave to copy it was prayed, he even
permitted that.
Malluch thereupon hurried to Ben-Hur.
It were useless to attempt description of the effect the terrible story
had upon the young man. The pain was not relieved by tears or
passionate outcries; it was too deep for any expression. He sat still a
long time, with pallid face and laboring heart. Now and then, as if to
show the thoughts which were most poignant, he muttered,
“Lepers, lepers! They—my mother and Tirzah—they lepers! How long, how
long, O Lord!”
One moment he was torn by a virtuous rage of sorrow, next by a longing
for vengeance which, it must be admitted, was scarcely less virtuous.
At length he arose.
“I must look for them. They may be dying.”
“Where will you look?” asked Malluch.
“There is but one place for them to go.”
Malluch interposed, and finally prevailed so far as to have the
management of the further attempt intrusted to him. Together they went
to the gate over on the side opposite the Hill of Evil Counsel,
immemorially the lepers’ begging-ground. There they stayed all day,
giving alms, asking for the two women, and offering rich rewards for
their discovery. So they did in repetition day after day through the
remainder of the fifth month, and all the sixth. There was diligent
scouring of the dread city on the hill by lepers to whom the rewards
offered were mighty incentives, for they were only dead in law. Over
and over again the gaping tomb down by the well was invaded, and its
tenants subjected to inquiry; but they kept their secret fast. The
result was failure. And now, the morning of the first day of the
seventh month, the extent of the additional information gained was that
not long before two leprous women had been stoned from the Fish Gate by
the authorities. A little pressing of the clew, together with some
shrewd comparison of dates, led to the sad assurance that the sufferers
were the Hurs, and left the old questions darker than ever. Where were
they? And what had become of them?
“It was not enough that my people should be made lepers,” said the son,
over and over again, with what intensity of bitterness the reader may
imagine; “that was not enough. Oh no! They must be stoned from their
native city! My mother is dead! she has wandered to the wilderness! she
is dead! Tirzah is dead! I alone am left. And for what? How long, O
God, thou Lord God of my fathers, how long shall this Rome endure?”
Angry, hopeless, vengeful, he entered the court of the khan, and found
it crowded with people come in during the night. While he ate his
breakfast, he listened to some of them. To one party he was specially
attracted. They were mostly young, stout, active, hardy men, in manner
and speech provincial. In their look, the certain indefinable air, the
pose of the head, glance of the eye, there was a spirit which did not,
as a rule, belong to the outward seeming of the lower orders of
Jerusalem; the spirit thought by some to be a peculiarity of life in
mountainous districts, but which may be more surely traced to a life of
healthful freedom. In a short time he ascertained they were Galileans,
in the city for various purposes, but chiefly to take part in the Feast
of Trumpets, set for that day. They became to him at once objects of
interest, as hailing from the region in which he hoped to find readiest
support in the work he was shortly to set about.
While observing them, his mind running ahead in thought of achievements
possible to a legion of such spirits disciplined after the severe Roman
style, a man came into the court, his face much flushed, his eyes
bright with excitement.
“Why are you here?” he said to the Galileans. “The rabbis and elders
are going from the Temple to see Pilate. Come, make haste, and let us
go with them.”
They surrounded him in a moment.
“To see Pilate! For what?”
“They have discovered a conspiracy. Pilate’s new aqueduct is to be paid
for with money of the Temple.”
“What, with the sacred treasure?”
They repeated the question to each other with flashing eyes.
“It is Corban—money of God. Let him touch a shekel of it if he dare!”
“Come,” cried the messenger. “The procession is by this time across the
bridge. The whole city is pouring after. We may be needed. Make haste!”
As if the thought and the act were one, there was quick putting away of
useless garments, and the party stood forth bareheaded, and in the
short sleeveless under-tunics they were used to wearing as reapers in
the field and boatmen on the lake—the garb in which they climbed the
hills following the herds, and plucked the ripened vintage, careless of
the sun. Lingering only to tighten their girdles, they said, “We are
ready.”
Then Ben-Hur spoke to them.
“Men of Galilee,” he said, “I am a son of Judah. Will you take me in
your company?”
“We may have to fight,” they replied.
“Oh, then, I will not be first to run away!”
They took the retort in good humor, and the messenger said, “You seem
stout enough. Come along.”
Ben-Hur put off his outer garments.
“You think there may be fighting?” he asked, quietly, as he tightened
his girdle.
“Yes.”
“With whom?”
“The guard.”
“Legionaries?”
“Whom else can a Roman trust?”
“What have you to fight with?”
They looked at him silently.
“Well,” he continued, “we will have to do the best we can; but had we
not better choose a leader? The legionaries always have one, and so are
able to act with one mind.”
The Galileans stared more curiously, as if the idea were new to them.
“Let us at least agree to stay together,” he said. “Now I am ready, if
you are.”
“Yes, let us go.”
The khan, it should not be forgotten, was in Bezetha, the new town; and
to get to the Praetorium, as the Romans resonantly styled the palace of
Herod on Mount Zion, the party had to cross the lowlands north and west
of the Temple. By streets—if they may be so called—trending north and
south, with intersections hardly up to the dignity of alleys, they
passed rapidly round the Akra district to the Tower of Mariamne, from
which the way was short to the grand gate of the walled heights. In
going, they overtook, or were overtaken by, people like themselves
stirred to wrath by news of the proposed desecration. When, at length,
they reached the gate of the Praetorium, the procession of elders and
rabbis had passed in with a great following, leaving a greater crowd
clamoring outside.
A centurion kept the entrance with a guard drawn up full armed under
the beautiful marble battlements. The sun struck the soldiers fervidly
on helm and shield; but they kept their ranks indifferent alike to its
dazzle and to the mouthings of the rabble. Through the open bronze
gates a current of citizens poured in, while a much lesser one poured
out.
“What is going on?” one of the Galileans asked an outcomer.
“Nothing,” was the reply. “The rabbis are before the door of the palace
asking to see Pilate. He has refused to come out. They have sent one to
tell him they will not go away till he has heard them. They are
waiting.”
“Let us go in,” said Ben-Hur, in his quiet way, seeing what his
companions probably did not, that there was not only a disagreement
between the suitors and the governor, but an issue joined, and a
serious question as to who should have his will.
Inside the gate there was a row of trees in leaf, with seats under
them. The people, whether going or coming, carefully avoided the shade
cast gratefully upon the white, clean-swept pavement; for, strange as
it may seem, a rabbinical ordinance, alleged to have been derived from
the law, permitted no green thing to be grown within the walls of
Jerusalem. Even the wise king, it was said, wanting a garden for his
Egyptian bride, was constrained to found it down in the meeting-place
of the valleys above En-rogel.
Through the tree-tops shone the outer fronts of the palace. Turning to
the right, the party proceeded a short distance to a spacious square,
on the west side of which stood the residence of the governor. An
excited multitude filled the square. Every face was directed towards a
portico built over a broad doorway which was closed. Under the portico
there was another array of legionaries.
The throng was so close the friends could not well have advanced if
such had been their desire; they remained therefore in the rear,
observers of what was going on. About the portico they could see the
high turbans of the rabbis, whose impatience communicated at times to
the mass behind them; a cry was frequent to the effect “Pilate, if thou
be a governor, come forth, come forth!”
Once a man coming out pushed through the crowd, his face red with
anger.
“Israel is of no account here,” he said, in a loud voice. “On this holy
ground we are no better than dogs of Rome.”
“Will he not come out, think you?”
“Come? Has he not thrice refused?”
“What will the rabbis do?”
“As at Cæsarea—camp here till he gives them ear.”
“He will not dare touch the treasure, will he?” asked one of the
Galileans.
“Who can say? Did not a Roman profane the Holy of Holies? Is there
anything sacred from Romans?”
An hour passed, and though Pilate deigned them no answer, the rabbis
and crowd remained. Noon came, bringing a shower from the west, but no
change in the situation, except that the multitude was larger and much
noisier, and the feeling more decidedly angry. The shouting was almost
continuous, Come forth, come forth! The cry was sometimes with
disrespectful variations. Meanwhile Ben-Hur held his Galilean friends
together. He judged the pride of the Roman would eventually get the
better of his discretion, and that the end could not be far off. Pilate
was but waiting for the people to furnish him an excuse for resort to
violence.
And at last the end came. In the midst of the assemblage there was
heard the sound of blows, succeeded instantly by yells of pain and
rage, and a most furious commotion. The venerable men in front of the
portico faced about aghast. The common people in the rear at first
pushed forward; in the centre, the effort was to get out; and for a
short time the pressure of opposing forces was terrible. A thousand
voices made inquiry, raised all at once; as no one had time to answer,
the surprise speedily became a panic.
Ben-Hur kept his senses.
“You cannot see?” he said to one of the Galileans.
“No.”
“I will raise you up.”
He caught the man about the middle, and lifted him bodily.
“What is it?”
“I see now,” said the man. “There are some armed with clubs, and they
are beating the people. They are dressed like Jews.”
“Who are they?”
“Romans, as the Lord liveth! Romans in disguise. Their clubs fly like
flails! There, I saw a rabbi struck down—an old man! They spare
nobody!”
Ben-Hur let the man down.
“Men of Galilee,” he said, “it is a trick of Pilate’s. Now, will you do
what I say, we will get even with the club-men.”
The Galilean spirit arose.
“Yes, yes!” they answered.
“Let us go back to the trees by the gate, and we may find the planting
of Herod, though unlawful, has some good in it after all. Come!”
They ran back all of them fast as they could; and, by throwing their
united weight upon the limbs, tore them from the trunks. In a brief
time they, too, were armed. Returning, at the corner of the square they
met the crowd rushing madly for the gate. Behind, the clamor
continued—a medley of shrieks, groans, and execrations.
“To the wall!” Ben-Hur shouted. “To the wall!—and let the herd go by!”