Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
Though the manner was halting, she met his gaze with modest sincerity.
Slowly his chin sank into the roll of flesh puffed out under it like a
cushion.
“You love him, Esther,” he said, quietly.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Have you thought well of what you do?”
“I have tried not to think of him, father, except as the master to whom
I am dutifully bound. The effort has not helped me to strength.”
“A good girl, a good girl, even as thy mother was,” he said, dropping
into reverie, from which she roused him by unrolling the paper.
“The Lord forgive me, but—but thy love might not have been vainly given
had I kept fast hold of all I had, as I might have done—such power is
there in money!”
“It would have been worse for me had you done so, father; for then I
had been unworthy a look from him, and without pride in you. Shall I
not read now?”
“In a moment,” he said. “Let me, for your sake, my child, show you the
worst. Seeing it with me may make it less terrible to you. His love,
Esther, is all bestowed.”
“I know it,” she said, calmly.
“The Egyptian has him in her net,” he continued. “She has the cunning
of her race, with beauty to help her—much beauty, great cunning; but,
like her race again, no heart. The daughter who despises her father
will bring her husband to grief.”
“Does she that?”
Simonides went on:
“Balthasar is a wise man who has been wonderfully favored for a
Gentile, and his faith becomes him; yet she makes a jest of it. I heard
her say, speaking of him yesterday, ‘The follies of youth are
excusable; nothing is admirable in the aged except wisdom, and when
that goes from them, they should die.’ A cruel speech, fit for a Roman.
I applied it to myself, knowing a feebleness like her father’s will
come to me also—nay, it is not far off. But you, Esther, will never say
of me—no, never—‘It were better he were dead.’ No, your mother was a
daughter of Judah.”
With half-formed tears, she kissed him, and said, “I am my mother’s
child.”
“Yes, and my daughter—my daughter, who is to me all the Temple was to
Solomon.”
After a silence, he laid his hand upon her shoulder, and resumed: “When
he has taken the Egyptian to wife, Esther, he will think of you with
repentance and much calling of the spirit; for at last he will awake to
find himself but the minister of her bad ambition. Rome is the centre
of all her dreams. To her he is the son of Arrius the duumvir, not the
son of Hur, Prince of Jerusalem.”
Esther made no attempt to conceal the effect of these words.
“Save him, father! It is not too late!” she said, entreatingly.
He answered, with a dubious smile, “A man drowning may be saved; not so
a man in love.”
“But you have influence with him. He is alone in the world. Show him
his danger. Tell him what a woman she is.”
“That might save him from her. Would it give him to you, Esther? No,”
and his brows fell darkly over his eyes. “I am a servant, as my fathers
were for generations; yet I could not say to him, ‘Lo, master, my
daughter! She is fairer than the Egyptian, and loves thee better!’ I
have caught too much from years of liberty and direction. The words
would blister my tongue. The stones upon the old hills yonder would
turn in their beds for shame when I go out to them. No, by the
patriarchs, Esther, I would rather lay us both with your mother to
sleep as she sleeps!”
A blush burned Esther’s whole face.
“I did not mean you to tell him so, father. I was concerned for him
alone—for his happiness, not mine. Because I have dared love him, I
shall keep myself worthy his respect; so only can I excuse my folly.
Let me read his letter now.”
“Yes, read it.”
She began at once, in haste to conclude the distasteful subject.
“Nisan, 8th day.
“On the road from Galilee to Jerusalem.
“The Nazarene is on the way also. With him, though without his
knowledge, I am bringing a full legion of mine. A second legion
follows. The Passover will excuse the multitude. He said upon setting
out, ‘We will go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by
the prophets concerning me shall be accomplished.’
“Our waiting draws to an end.
“In haste.
“Peace to thee, Simonides.
“BEN-HUR.”
Esther returned the letter to her father, while a choking sensation
gathered in her throat. There was not a word in the missive for her—not
even in the salutation had she a share—and it would have been so easy
to have written “and to thine, peace.” For the first time in her life
she felt the smart of a jealous sting.
“The eighth day,” said Simonides, “the eighth day; and this, Esther,
this is the—”
“The ninth,” she replied.
“Ah, then, they may be in Bethany now.”
“And possibly we may see him to-night,” she added, pleased into
momentary forgetfulness.
“It may be, it may be! To-morrow is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and
he may wish to celebrate it; so may the Nazarene; and we may see him—we
may see both of them, Esther.”
At this point the servant appeared with the wine and water. Esther
helped her father, and in the midst of the service Iras came upon the
roof.
To the Jewess the Egyptian never appeared so very, very beautiful as at
that moment. Her gauzy garments fluttered about her like a little cloud
of mist; her forehead, neck, and arms glittered with the massive
jewelry so affected by her people. Her countenance was suffused with
pleasure. She moved with buoyant steps, and self-conscious, though
without affectation. Esther at the sight shrank within herself, and
nestled closer to her father.
“Peace to you, Simonides, and to the pretty Esther peace,” said Iras,
inclining her head to the latter. “You remind me, good master—if I may
say it without offence-you remind me of the priests in Persia who climb
their temples at the decline of day to send prayers after the departing
sun. Is there anything in the worship you do not know, let me call my
father. He is Magian-bred.”
“Fair Egyptian,” the merchant replied, nodding with grave politeness,
“your father is a good man who would not be offended if he knew I told
you his Persian lore is the least part of his wisdom.”
Iras’s lip curled slightly.
“To speak like a philosopher, as you invite me,” she said, “the least
part always implies a greater. Let me ask what you esteem the greater
part of the rare quality you are pleased to attribute to him.”
Simonides turned upon her somewhat sternly.
“Pure wisdom always directs itself towards God; the purest wisdom is
knowledge of God; and no man of my acquaintance has it in higher
degree, or makes it more manifest in speech and act, than the good
Balthasar.”
To end the parley, he raised the cup and drank.
The Egyptian turned to Esther a little testily.
“A man who has millions in store, and fleets of ships at sea, cannot
discern in what simple women like us find amusement. Let us leave him.
By the wall yonder we can talk.”
They went to the parapet then, stopping at the place where, years
before, Ben-Hur loosed the broken tile upon the head of Gratus.
“You have not been to Rome?” Iras began, toying the while with one of
her unclasped bracelets.
“No,” said Esther, demurely.
“Have you not wished to go?”
“No.”
“Ah, how little there has been of your life!”
The sigh that succeeded the exclamation could not have been more
piteously expressive had the loss been the Egyptian’s own. Next moment
her laugh might have been heard in the street below; and she said “Oh,
oh, my pretty simpleton! The half-fledged birds nested in the ear of
the great bust out on the Memphian sands know nearly as much as you.”
Then, seeing Esther’s confusion, she changed her manner, and said in a
confiding tone, “You must not take offence. Oh no! I was playing. Let
me kiss the hurt, and tell you what I would not to any other—not if
Simbel himself asked it of me, offering a lotus-cup of the spray of the
Nile!”
Another laugh, masking excellently the look she turned sharply upon the
Jewess, and she said, “The King is coming.”
Esther gazed at her in innocent surprise.
“The Nazarene,” Iras continued—“he whom our fathers have been talking
about so much, whom Ben-Hur has been serving and toiling for so
long”—her voice dropped several tones lower—“the Nazarene will be here
to-morrow, and Ben-Hur to-night.”
Esther struggled to maintain her composure, but failed: her eyes fell,
the tell-tale blood surged to her cheek and forehead, and she was saved
sight of the triumphant smile that passed, like a gleam, over the face
of the Egyptian.
“See, here is his promise.”
And from her girdle she took a roll.
“Rejoice with me, O my friend! He will be here tonight! On the Tiber
there is a house, a royal property, which he has pledged to me; and to
be its mistress is to be—”
A sound of some one walking swiftly along the street below interrupted
the speech, and she leaned over the parapet to see. Then she drew back,
and cried, with hands clasped above her head, “Now blessed be Isis!
’Tis he—Ben-Hur himself! That he should appear while I had such thought
of him! There are no gods if it be not a good omen. Put your arms about
me, Esther—and a kiss!”
The Jewess looked up. Upon each cheek there was a glow; her eyes
sparkled with a light more nearly of anger than ever her nature emitted
before. Her gentleness had been too roughly overridden. It was not
enough for her to be forbidden more than fugitive dreams of the man she
loved; a boastful rival must tell her in confidence of her better
success, and of the brilliant promises which were its rewards. Of her,
the servant of a servant, there had been no hint of remembrance; this
other could show his letter, leaving her to imagine all it breathed. So
she said,
“Dost thou love him so much, then, or Rome so much better?”
The Egyptian drew back a step; then she bent her haughty head quite
near her questioner.
“What is he to thee, daughter of Simonides?”
Esther, all thrilling, began, “He is my—”
A thought blasting as lightning stayed the words: she paled, trembled,
recovered, and answered,
“He is my father’s friend.”
Her tongue had refused to admit her servile condition.
Iras laughed more lightly than before.
“Not more than that?” she said. “Ah, by the lover-gods of Egypt, thou
mayst keep thy kisses—keep them. Thou hast taught me but now that there
are others vastly more estimable waiting me here in Judea; and”—she
turned away, looking back over her shoulder—“I will go get them. Peace
to thee.”
Esther saw her disappear down the steps, when, putting her hands over
her face, she burst into tears so they ran scalding through her
fingers—tears of shame and choking passion. And, to deepen the paroxysm
to her even temper so strange, up with a new meaning of withering force
rose her father’s words—“Thy love might not have been vainly given had
I kept fast hold of all I had, as I might have done.”
And all the stars were out, burning low above the city and the dark
wall of mountains about it, before she recovered enough to go back to
the summer-house, and in silence take her accustomed place at her
father’s side, humbly waiting his pleasure. To such duty it seemed her
youth, if not her life, must be given. And, let the truth be said, now
that the pang was spent, she went not unwillingly back to the duty.
CHAPTER II
An hour or thereabouts after the scene upon the roof, Balthasar and
Simonides, the latter attended by Esther, met in the great chamber of
the palace; and while they were talking, Ben-Hur and Iras came in
together.
The young Jew, advancing in front of his companion, walked first to
Balthasar, and saluted him, and received his reply; then he turned to
Simonides, but paused at sight of Esther.
It is not often we have hearts roomy enough for more than one of the