Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
throne and its lions of bronze? And his palace—he raised the dead; and
to such a one, what is it to raise a golden house? He has but to stamp
his foot and say the word, and the house is, pillared like Karnak, and
wanting nothing.”
There was by this time slight ground left to believe her playing; the
questions were offensive, and her manner pointed with unfriendliness;
seeing which, he on his side became more wary, and said, with good
humor, “O Egypt, let us wait another day, even another week, for him,
the lions, and the palace.”
She went on without noticing the suggestion.
“And how is it I see you in that garb? Such is not the habit of
governors in India or vice-kings elsewhere. I saw the satrap of Teheran
once, and he wore a turban of silk and a cloak of cloth of gold, and
the hilt and scabbard of his sword made me dizzy with their splendor of
precious stones. I thought Osiris had lent him a glory from the sun. I
fear you have not entered upon your kingdom—the kingdom I was to share
with you.”
“The daughter of my wise guest is kinder than she imagines herself; she
is teaching me that Isis may kiss a heart without making it better.”
Ben-Hur spoke with cold courtesy, and Iras, after playing with the
pendent solitaire of her necklace of coins, rejoined, “For a Jew, the
son of Hur is clever. I saw your dreaming Cæsar make his entry into
Jerusalem. You told us he would that day proclaim himself King of the
Jews from the steps of the Temple. I beheld the procession descend the
mountain bringing him. I heard their singing. They were beautiful with
palms in motion. I looked everywhere among them for a figure with a
promise of royalty—a horseman in purple, a chariot with a driver in
shining brass, a stately warrior behind an orbed shield, rivalling his
spear in stature. I looked for his guard. It would have been pleasant
to have seen a prince of Jerusalem and a cohort of the legions of
Galilee.”
She flung her listener a glance of provoking disdain, then laughed
heartily, as if the ludicrousness of the picture in her mind were too
strong for contempt.
“Instead of a Sesostris returning in triumph or a Cæsar helmed and
sworded—ha, ha, ha!—I saw a man with a woman’s face and hair, riding an
ass’s colt, and in tears. The King! the Son of God! the Redeemer of the
world! Ha, ha, ha!”
In spite of himself, Ben-Hur winced.
“I did not quit my place, O prince of Jerusalem,” she said, before he
could recover. “I did not laugh. I said to myself, ‘Wait. In the Temple
he will glorify himself as becomes a hero about to take possession of
the world.’ I saw him enter the Gate of Shushan and the Court of the
Women. I saw him stop and stand before the Gate Beautiful. There were
people with me on the porch and in the courts, and on the cloisters and
on the steps of the three sides of the Temple there were other people—I
will say a million of people, all waiting breathlessly to hear his
proclamation. The pillars were not more still than we. Ha, ha, ha! I
fancied I heard the axles of the mighty Roman machine begin to crack.
Ha, ha, ha! O prince, by the soul of Solomon, your King of the World
drew his gown about him and walked away, and out by the farthest gate,
nor opened his mouth to say a word; and—the Roman machine is running
yet!”
In simple homage to a hope that instant lost—a hope which, as it began
to fall and while it was falling, he unconsciously followed with a
parting look down to its disappearance—Ben-Hur lowered his eyes.
At no previous time, whether when Balthasar was plying him with
arguments, or when miracles were being done before his face, had the
disputed nature of the Nazarene been so plainly set before him. The
best way, after all, to reach an understanding of the divine is by
study of the human. In the things superior to men we may always look to
find God. So with the picture given by the Egyptian of the scene when
the Nazarene turned from the Gate Beautiful; its central theme was an
act utterly beyond performance by a man under control of merely human
inspirations. A parable to a parable-loving people, it taught what the
Christ had so often asserted—that his mission was not political. There
was not much more time for thought of all this than that allowed for a
common respiration; yet the idea took fast hold of Ben-Hur, and in the
same instant he followed his hope of vengeance out of sight, and the
man with the woman’s face and hair, and in tears, came near to him—near
enough to leave something of his spirit behind.
“Daughter of Balthasar,” he said, with dignity, “if this be the game of
which you spoke to me, take the chaplet—I accord it yours. Only let us
make an end of words. That you have a purpose I am sure. To it, I pray,
and I will answer you; then let us go our several ways, and forget we
ever met. Say on; I will listen, but not to more of that which you have
given me.”
She regarded him intently a moment, as if determining what to
do—possibly she might have been measuring his will—then she said,
coldly, “You have my leave—go.”
“Peace to you,” he responded, and walked away.
As he was about passing out of the door, she called to him.
“A word.”
He stopped where he was, and looked back.
“Consider all I know about you.”
“O most fair Egyptian,” he said, returning, “what all do you know about
me?”
She looked at him absently.
“You are more of a Roman, son of Hur, then any of your Hebrew
brethren.”
“Am I so unlike my countrymen?” he asked, indifferently.
“The demi-gods are all Roman now,” she rejoined.
“And therefore you will tell me what more you know about me?”
“The likeness is not lost upon me. It might induce me to save you.”
“Save me!”
The pink-stained fingers toyed daintily with the lustrous pendant at
the throat, and her voice was exceeding low and soft; only a tapping on
the floor with her silken sandal admonished him to have a care.
“There was a Jew, an escaped galley-slave, who killed a man in the
Palace of Idernee,” she began, slowly.
Ben-Hur was startled.
“The same Jew slew a Roman soldier before the Market-place here in
Jerusalem; the same Jew has three trained legions from Galilee to seize
the Roman governor to-night; the same Jew has alliances perfected for
war upon Rome, and Ilderim the Sheik is one of his partners.”
Drawing nearer him, she almost whispered,
“You have lived in Rome. Suppose these things repeated in ears we know
of. Ah! you change color.”
He drew back from her with somewhat of the look which may be imagined
upon the face of a man who, thinking to play with a kitten, has run
upon a tiger; and she proceeded:
“You are acquainted in the antechamber, and know the Lord Sejanus.
Suppose it were told him with the proofs in hand—or without the
proofs—that the same Jew is the richest man in the East—nay, in all the
empire. The fishes of the Tiber would have fattening other than that
they dig out of its ooze, would they not? And while they were
feeding—ha! son of Hur!—what splendor there would be on exhibition in
the Circus! Amusing the Roman people is a fine art; getting the money
to keep them amused is another art even finer; and was there ever an
artist the equal of the Lord Sejanus?”
Ben-Hur was not too much stirred by the evident baseness of the woman
for recollection. Not unfrequently when all the other faculties are
numb and failing memory does its offices with the greatest fidelity.
The scene at the spring on the way to the Jordan reproduced itself; and
he remembered thinking then that Esther had betrayed him, and thinking
so now, he said calmly as he could,
“To give you pleasure, daughter of Egypt, I acknowledge your cunning,
and that I am at your mercy. It may also please you to hear me
acknowledge I have no hope of your favor. I could kill you, but you are
a woman. The Desert is open to receive me; and though Rome is a good
hunter of men, there she would follow long and far before she caught
me, for in its heart there are wildernesses of spears as well as
wildernesses of sand, and it is not unlovely to the unconquered
Parthian. In the toils as I am—dupe that I have been—yet there is one
thing my due: who told you all you know about me? In flight or
captivity, dying even, there will be consolation in leaving the traitor
the curse of a man who has lived knowing nothing but wretchedness. Who
told you all you know about me?”
It might have been a touch of art, or might have been sincere—that as
it may—the expression of the Egyptian’s face became sympathetic.
“There are in my country, O son of Hur,” she said, presently, “workmen
who make pictures by gathering vari-colored shells here and there on
the sea-shore after storms, and cutting them up, and patching the
pieces as inlaying on marble slabs. Can you not see the hint there is
in the practice to such as go searching for secrets? Enough that from
this person I gathered a handful of little circumstances, and from that
other yet another handful, and that afterwhile I put them together, and
was happy as a woman can be who has at disposal the fortune and life of
a man whom”—she stopped, and beat the floor with her foot, and looked
away as if to hide a sudden emotion from him; with an air of even
painful resolution she presently finished the sentence—“whom she is at
loss what to do with.”
“No, it is not enough,” Ben-Hur said, unmoved by the play—“it is not
enough. To-morrow you will determine what to do with me. I may die.”
“True,” she rejoined quickly and with emphasis, “I had something from
Sheik Ilderim as he lay with my father in a grove out in the Desert.
The night was still, very still, and the walls of the tent, sooth to
say, were poor ward against ears outside listening to—birds and beetles
flying through the air.”
She smiled at the conceit, but proceeded:
“Some other things—bits of shell for the picture—I had from—”
“Whom?”
“The son of Hur himself.”
“Was there no other who contributed?”
“No, not one.”
Hur drew a breath of relief, and said, lightly, “Thanks. It were not
well to keep the Lord Sejanus waiting for you. The Desert is not so
sensitive. Again, O Egypt, peace!”
To this time he had been standing uncovered; now he took the
handkerchief from his arm where it had been hanging, and adjusting it
upon his head, turned to depart. But she arrested him; in her
eagerness, she even reached a hand to him.
“Stay,” she said.
He looked back at her, but without taking the hand, though it was very
noticeable for its sparkling of jewels; and he knew by her manner that
the reserved point of the scene which was so surprising to him was now
to come.
“Stay, and do not distrust me, O son of Hur, if I declare I know why
the noble Arrius took you for his heir. And, by Isis! by all the gods
of Egypt! I swear I tremble to think of you, so brave and generous,
under the hand of the remorseless minister. You have left a portion of
your youth in the atria of the great capital; consider, as I do, what
the Desert will be to you in contrast of life. Oh, I give you
pity—pity! And if you but do what I say, I will save you. That, also, I
swear, by our holy Isis!”
Words of entreaty and prayer these, poured forth volubly and with
earnestness and the mighty sanction of beauty.
“Almost—almost I believe you,” Ben-Hur said, yet hesitatingly, and in a
voice low and indistinct; for a doubt remained with him grumbling
against the yielding tendency of the man—a good sturdy doubt, such a
one as has saved many a life and fortune.
“The perfect life for a woman is to live in love; the greatest
happiness for a man is the conquest of himself; and that, O prince, is
what I have to ask of you.”
She spoke rapidly, and with animation; indeed, she had never appeared
to him so fascinating.