Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
length of admitting a Soul to be a being, and on that account its
purpose is compressed darkness to them.
“Everything animate has a mind measurable by its wants. Is there to you
no meaning in the singularity that power in full degree to speculate
upon the future was given to man alone? By the sign as I see it, God
meant to make us know ourselves created for another and a better life,
such being in fact the greatest need of our nature. But, alas! into
what a habit the nations have fallen! They live for the day, as if the
present were the all in all, and go about saying, ‘There is no
to-morrow after death; or if there be, since we know nothing about it,
be it a care unto itself.’ So when Death calls them, ‘Come,’ they may
not enter into enjoyment of the glorious after-life because of their
unfitness. That is to say, the ultimate happiness of man was
everlasting life in the society of God. Alas, O son of Hur, that I
should say it! but as well yon sleeping camel constant in such society
as the holiest priests this day serving the highest altars in the most
renowned temples. So much are men given to this lower earthly life! So
nearly have they forgotten that other which is to come!
“See now, I pray you, that which is to be saved to us.
“For my part, speaking with the holiness of truth, I would not give one
hour of life as a Soul for a thousand years of life as a man.”
Here the Egyptian seemed to become unconscious of companionship and
fall away into abstraction.
“This life has its problems,” he said, “and there are men who spend
their days trying to solve them; but what are they to the problems of
the hereafter? What is there like knowing God? Not a scroll of the
mysteries, but the mysteries themselves would for that hour at least
lie before me revealed; even the innermost and most awful—the power
which now we shrink from thought of—which rimmed the void with shores,
and lighted the darkness, and out of nothing appointed the universe.
All places would be opened. I would be filled with divine knowledge; I
would see all glories, taste all delights; I would revel in being. And
if, at the end of the hour, it should please God to tell me, ‘I take
thee into my service forever,’ the furthest limit of desire would be
passed; after which the attainable ambitions of life, and its joys of
whatever kind, would not be so much as the tinkling of little bells.”
Balthasar paused as if to recover from very ecstasy of feeling; and to
Ben-Hur it seemed the speech had been the delivery of a Soul speaking
for itself.
“I pray pardon, son of Hur,” the good man continued, with a bow the
gravity of which was relieved by the tender look that followed it, “I
meant to leave the life of a Soul, its conditions, pleasures,
superiority, to your own reflection and finding out. The joy of the
thought has betrayed me into much speech. I set out to show, though
ever so faintly, the reason of my faith. It grieves me that words are
so weak. But help yourself to truth. Consider first the excellence of
the existence which was reserved for us after death, and give heed to
the feelings and impulses the thought is sure to awaken in you—heed
them, I say, because they are your own Soul astir, doing what it can to
urge you in the right way. Consider next that the afterlife has become
so obscured as to justify calling it a lost light. If you find it,
rejoice, O son of Hur—rejoice as I do, though in beggary of words. For
then, besides the great gift which is to be saved to us, you will have
found the need of a Saviour so infinitely greater than the need of a
king; and he we are going to meet will not longer hold place in your
hope a warrior with a sword or a monarch with a crown.
“A practical question presents itself—How shall we know him at sight?
If you continue in your belief as to his character—that he is to be a
king as Herod was—of course you will keep on until you meet a man
clothed in purple and with a sceptre. On the other hand, he I look for
will be one poor, humble, undistinguished—a man in appearance as other
men; and the sign by which I will know him will be never so simple. He
will offer to show me and all mankind the way to the eternal life; the
beautiful pure Life of the Soul.”
The company sat a moment in silence which was broken by Balthasar.
“Let us arise now,” he said—“let us arise and set forward again. What I
have said has caused a return of impatience to see him who is ever in
my thought; and if I seem to hurry you, O son of Hur—and you, my
daughter—be that my excuse.”
At his signal the slave brought them wine in a skin bottle; and they
poured and drank, and shaking the lap-cloths out arose.
While the slave restored the tent and wares to the box under the
houdah, and the Arab brought up the horses, the three principals laved
themselves in the pool.
In a little while they were retracing their steps back through the
wady, intending to overtake the caravan if it had passed them by.
CHAPTER IV
The caravan, stretched out upon the Desert, was very picturesque; in
motion, however, it was like a lazy serpent. By-and-by its stubborn
dragging became intolerably irksome to Balthasar, patient as he was;
so, at his suggestion, the party determined to go on by themselves.
If the reader be young, or if he has yet a sympathetic recollection of
the romanticisms of his youth, he will relish the pleasure with which
Ben-Hur, riding near the camel of the Egyptians, gave a last look at
the head of the straggling column almost out of sight on the shimmering
plain.
To be definite as may be, and perfectly confidential, Ben-Hur found a
certain charm in Iras’s presence. If she looked down upon him from her
high place, he made haste to get near her; if she spoke to him, his
heart beat out of its usual time. The desire to be agreeable to her was
a constant impulse. Objects on the way, though ever so common, became
interesting the moment she called attention to them; a black swallow in
the air pursued by her pointing finger went off in a halo; if a bit of
quartz or a flake of mica was seen to sparkle in the drab sand under
kissing of the sun, at a word he turned aside and brought it to her;
and if she threw it away in disappointment, far from thinking of the
trouble he had been put to, he was sorry it proved so worthless, and
kept a lookout for something better—a ruby, perchance a diamond. So the
purple of the far mountains became intensely deep and rich if she
distinguished it with an exclamation of praise; and when, now and then,
the curtain of the houdah fell down, it seemed a sudden dulness had
dropped from the sky bedraggling all the landscape. Thus disposed,
yielding to the sweet influence, what shall save him from the dangers
there are in days of the close companionship with the fair Egyptian
incident to the solitary journey they were entered upon?
For that there is no logic in love, nor the least mathematical element,
it is simply natural that she shall fashion the result who has the
wielding of the influence.
To quicken the conclusion, there were signs, too, that she well knew
the influence she was exercising over him. From some place under hand
she had since morning drawn a caul of golden coins, and adjusted it so
the gleaming strings fell over her forehead and upon her cheeks,
blending lustrously with the flowing of her blue-black hair. From the
same safe deposit she had also produced articles of jewelry—rings for
finger and ear, bracelets, a necklace of pearls—also, a shawl
embroidered with threads of fine gold—the effect of all which she
softened with a scarf of Indian lace skillfully folded about her throat
and shoulders. And so arrayed, she plied Ben-Hur with countless
coquetries of speech and manner; showering him with smiles; laughing in
flute-like tremolo—and all the while following him with glances, now
melting-tender, now sparkling-bright. By such play Antony was weaned
from his glory; yet she who wrought his ruin was really not half so
beautiful as this her countrywoman.
And so to them the nooning came, and the evening.
The sun at its going down behind a spur of the old Bashan, left the
party halted by a pool of clear water of the rains out in the Abilene
Desert. There the tent was pitched, the supper eaten, and preparations
made for the night.
The second watch was Ben-Hur’s; and he was standing, spear in hand,
within arm-reach of the dozing camel, looking awhile at the stars, then
over the veiled land. The stillness was intense; only after long spells
a warm breath of wind would sough past, but without disturbing him, for
yet in thought he entertained the Egyptian, recounting her charms, and
sometimes debating how she came by his secrets, the uses she might make
of them, and the course he should pursue with her. And through all the
debate Love stood off but a little way—a strong temptation, the
stronger of a gleam of policy behind. At the very moment he was most
inclined to yield to the allurement, a hand very fair even in the
moonless gloaming was laid softly upon his shoulder. The touch thrilled
him; he started, turned—and she was there.
“I thought you asleep,” he said, presently.
“Sleep is for old people and little children, and I came out to look at
my friends, the stars in the south—those now holding the curtains of
midnight over the Nile. But confess yourself surprised!”
He took the hand which had fallen from his shoulder, and said, “Well,
was it by an enemy?”
“Oh no! To be an enemy is to hate, and hating is a sickness which Isis
will not suffer to come near me. She kissed me, you should know, on the
heart when I was a child.”
“Your speech does not sound in the least like your father’s. Are you
not of his faith?”
“I might have been”—and she laughed low—“I might have been had I seen
what he has. I may be when I get old like him. There should be no
religion for youth, only poetry and philosophy; and no poetry except
such as is the inspiration of wine and mirth and love, and no
philosophy that does not nod excuse for follies which cannot outlive a
season. My father’s God is too awful for me. I failed to find him in
the Grove of Daphne. He was never heard of as present in the atria of
Rome. But, son of Hur, I have a wish.”
“A wish! Where is he who could say it no?”
“I will try you.”
“Tell it then.”
“It is very simple. I wish to help you.”
She drew closer as she spoke.
He laughed, and replied, lightly, “O Egypt!—I came near saying dear
Egypt!—does not the sphinx abide in your country?”
“Well?”
“You are one of its riddles. Be merciful, and give me a little clew to
help me understand you. In what do I need help? And how can you help
me?”
She took her hand from him, and, turning to the camel, spoke to it
endearingly, and patted its monstrous head as it were a thing of
beauty.
“O thou last and swiftest and stateliest of the herds of Job! Sometimes
thou, too, goest stumbling, because the way is rough and stony and the
burden grievous. How is it thou knowest the kind intent by a word; and
always makest answer gratefully, though the help offered is from a
woman? I will kiss thee, thou royal brute!”—she stooped and touched its
broad forehead with her lips, saying immediately, “because in thy
intelligence there is no suspicion!”
And Ben-Hur, restraining himself, said calmly, “The reproach has not
failed its mark, O Egypt! I seem to say thee no; may it not be because
I am under seal of honor, and by my silence cover the lives and
fortunes of others?”
“May be!” she said, quickly. “It is so.”
He shrank a step, and asked, his voice sharp with amazement, “What all
knowest thou?”
She answered, after a laugh,
“Why do men deny that the senses of women are sharper than theirs? Your