Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
the deep trail furrowed through them by centuries of wayfaring.
“I am afraid of the road,” the matron said. “Better that we keep to the
country among the rocks and trees. This is feast-day, and on the
hill-sides yonder I see signs of a great multitude in attendance. By
going across the Mount of Offence here we may avoid them.”
Tirzah had been walking with great difficulty; upon hearing this her
heart began to fail her.
“The mount is steep, mother; I cannot climb it.”
“Remember, we are going to find health and life. See, my child, how the
day brightens around us! And yonder are women coming this way to the
well. They will stone us if we stay here. Come, be strong this once.”
Thus the mother, not less tortured herself, sought to inspire the
daughter; and Amrah came to her aid. To this time the latter had not
touched the persons of the afflicted, nor they her; now, in disregard
of consequences as well as of command, the faithful creature went to
Tirzah, and put her arm over her shoulder, and whispered, “Lean on me.
I am strong, though I am old; and it is but a little way off. There—now
we can go.”
The face of the hill they essayed to cross was somewhat broken with
pits, and ruins of old structures; but when at last they stood upon the
top to rest, and looked at the spectacle presented them over in the
northwest—at the Temple and its courtly terraces, at Zion, at the
enduring towers white beetling into the sky beyond—the mother was
strengthened with a love of life for life’s sake.
“Look, Tirzah,” she said—“look at the plates of gold on the Gate
Beautiful. How they give back the flames of the sun, brightness for
brightness! Do you remember we used to go up there? Will it not be
pleasant to do so again? And think—home is but a little way off. I can
almost see it over the roof of the Holy of Holies; and Judah will be
there to receive us!”
From the side of the middle summit garnished green with myrtle and
olive trees, they saw, upon looking that way next, thin columns of
smoke rising lightly and straight up into the pulseless morning, each a
warning of restless pilgrims astir, and of the flight of the pitiless
hours, and the need of haste.
Though the good servant toiled faithfully to lighten the labor in
descending the hill-side, not sparing herself in the least, the girl
moaned at every step; sometimes in extremity of anguish she cried out.
Upon reaching the road—that is, the road between the Mount of Offence
and the middle or second summit of Olivet—she fell down exhausted.
“Go on with Amrah, mother, and leave me here,” she said, faintly.
“No, no, Tirzah. What would the gain be to me if I were healed and you
not? When Judah asks for you, as he will, what would I have to say to
him were I to leave you?”
“Tell him I loved him.”
The elder leper arose from bending over the fainting sufferer, and
gazed about her with that sensation of hope perishing which is more
nearly like annihilation of the soul than anything else. The supremest
joy of the thought of cure was inseparable from Tirzah, who was not too
old to forget, in the happiness of healthful life to come, the years of
misery by which she had been so reduced in body and broken in spirit.
Even as the brave woman was about leaving the venture they were engaged
in to the determination of God, she saw a man on foot coming rapidly up
the road from the east.
“Courage, Tirzah! Be of cheer,” she said. “Yonder I know is one to tell
us of the Nazarene.”
Amrah helped the girl to a sitting posture, and supported her while the
man advanced.
“In your goodness, mother, you forget what we are. The stranger will go
around us; his best gift to us will be a curse, if not a stone.”
“We will see.”
There was no other answer to be given, since the mother was too well
and sadly acquainted with the treatment outcasts of the class to which
she belonged were accustomed to at the hands of her countrymen.
As has been said, the road at the edge of which the group was posted
was little more than a worn path or trail, winding crookedly through
tumuli of limestone. If the stranger kept it, he must meet them face to
face; and he did so, until near enough to hear the cry she was bound to
give. Then, uncovering her head, a further demand of the law, she
shouted shrilly,
“Unclean, unclean!”
To her surprise, the man came steadily on.
“What would you have?” he asked, stopping opposite them not four yards
off.
“Thou seest us. Have a care,” the mother said, with dignity.
“Woman, I am the courier of him who speaketh but once to such as thou
and they are healed. I am not afraid.”
“The Nazarene?”
“The Messiah,” he said.
“Is it true that he cometh to the city to-day?”
“He is now at Bethphage.”
“On what road, master?”
“This one.”
She clasped her hands, and looked up thankfully.
“For whom takest thou him?” the man asked, with pity.
“The Son of God,” she replied.
“Stay thou here then; or, as there is a multitude with him, take thy
stand by the rock yonder, the white one under the tree; and as he goeth
by fail not to call to him; call, and fear not. If thy faith but equal
thy knowledge, he will hear thee though all the heavens thunder. I go
to tell Israel, assembled in and about the city, that he is at hand,
and to make ready to receive him. Peace to thee and thine, woman.”
The stranger moved on.
“Did you hear, Tirzah? Did you hear? The Nazarene is on the road, on
this one, and he will hear us. Once more, my child—oh, only once! and
let us to the rock. It is but a step.”
Thus encouraged Tirzah took Amrah’s hand and arose; but as they were
going, Amrah said, “Stay; the man is returning.” And they waited for
him.
“I pray your grace, woman,” he said, upon overtaking them. “Remembering
that the sun will be hot before the Nazarene arrives, and that the city
is near by to give me refreshment should I need it, I thought this
water would do thee better than it will me. Take it and be of good
cheer. Call to him as he passes.”
He followed the words by offering her a gourd full of water, such as
foot-travellers sometimes carried with them in their journeys across
the hills; and instead of placing the gift on the ground for her to
take up when he was at a safe distance, he gave it into her hand.
“Art thou a Jew?” she asked, surprised.
“I am that, and better; I am a disciple of the Christ who teacheth
daily by word and example this thing which I have done unto you. The
world hath long known the word charity without understanding it. Again
I say peace and good cheer to thee and thine.”
He went on, and they went slowly to the rock he had pointed out to
them, high as their heads, and scarcely thirty yards from the road on
the right. Standing in front of it, the mother satisfied herself they
could be seen and heard plainly by passers-by whose notice they desired
to attract. There they cast themselves under the tree in its shade, and
drank of the gourd, and rested refreshed. Ere long Tirzah slept, and
fearing to disturb her, the others held their peace.
CHAPTER IV
During the third hour the road in front of the resting-place of the
lepers became gradually more and more frequented by people going in the
direction of Bethphage and Bethany; now, however, about the
commencement of the fourth hour, a great crowd appeared over the crest
of Olivet, and as it defiled down the road thousands in number, the two
watchers noticed with wonder that every one in it carried a palm-branch
freshly cut. As they sat absorbed by the novelty, the noise of another
multitude approaching from the east drew their eyes that way. Then the
mother awoke Tirzah.
“What is the meaning of it all?” the latter asked.
“He is coming,” answered the mother. “These we see are from the city
going to meet him; those we hear in the east are his friends bearing
him company; and it will not be strange if the processions meet here
before us.
“I fear, if they do, we cannot be heard.”
The same thought was in the elder’s mind.
“Amrah,” she asked, “when Judah spoke of the healing of the ten, in
what words did he say they called to the Nazarene?”
“Either they said, ‘Lord, have mercy upon us,’ or ‘Master, have
mercy.’”
“Only that?”
“No more that I heard.”
“Yet it was enough,” the mother added, to herself.
“Yes,” said Amrah, “Judah said he saw them go away well.”
Meantime the people in the east came up slowly. When at length the
foremost of them were in sight, the gaze of the lepers fixed upon a man
riding in the midst of what seemed a chosen company which sang and
danced about him in extravagance of joy. The rider was bareheaded and
clad all in white. When he was in distance to be more clearly observed,
these, looking anxiously, saw an olive-hued face shaded by long
chestnut hair slightly sunburned and parted in the middle. He looked
neither to the right nor left. In the noisy abandon of his followers he
appeared to have no part; nor did their favor disturb him in the least,
or raise him out of the profound melancholy into which, as his
countenance showed, he was plunged. The sun beat upon the back of his
head, and lighting up the floating hair gave it a delicate likeness to
a golden nimbus. Behind him the irregular procession, pouring forward
with continuous singing and shouting, extended out of view. There was
no need of any one to tell the lepers that this was he—the wonderful
Nazarene!
“He is here, Tirzah,” the mother said; “he is here. Come, my child.”
As she spoke she glided in front of the white rock and fell upon her
knees.
Directly the daughter and servant were by her side. Then at sight of
the procession in the west, the thousands from the city halted, and
began to wave their green branches, shouting, or rather chanting (for
it was all in one voice),
“Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord!”
And all the thousands who were of the rider’s company, both those near
and those afar, replied so the air shook with the sound, which was as a
great wind threshing the side of the hill. Amidst the din, the cries of
the poor lepers were not more than the twittering of dazed sparrows.
The moment of the meeting of the hosts was come, and with it the
opportunity the sufferers were seeking; if not taken, it would be lost
forever, and they would be lost as well.
“Nearer, my child—let us get nearer. He cannot hear us,” said the
mother.
She arose, and staggered forward. Her ghastly hands were up, and she
screamed with horrible shrillness. The people saw her—saw her hideous
face, and stopped awe-struck—an effect for which extreme human misery,
visible as in this instance, is as potent as majesty in purple and
gold. Tirzah, behind her a little way, fell down too faint and
frightened to follow farther.
“The lepers! the lepers!”
“Stone them!”
“The accursed of God! Kill them!”
These, with other yells of like import, broke in upon the hosannas of
the part of the multitude too far removed to see and understand the
cause of the interruption. Some there were, however, near by familiar
with the nature of the man to whom the unfortunates were appealing—some
who, by long intercourse with him, had caught somewhat of his divine
compassion: they gazed at him, and were silent while, in fair view, he
rode up and stopped in front of the woman. She also beheld his
face—calm, pitiful, and of exceeding beauty, the large eyes tender with
benignant purpose.
And this was the colloquy that ensued:
“O Master, Master! Thou seest our need; thou canst make us clean. Have
mercy upon us—mercy!”
“Believest thou I am able to do this?” he asked.
“Thou art he of whom the prophets spake—thou art the Messiah!” she
replied.
His eyes grew radiant, his manner confident.