CHAPTER III
About the hour
Gesius, the keeper, made his appearance before the tribune in the Tower of
Antonia, a footman was climbing the eastern face of Mount Olivet. The road was
rough and dusty, and vegetation on that side burned brown, for it was the dry
season in Judea. Well for the traveller that he had youth and strength, not to
speak of the cool, flowing garments with which he was clothed.
He proceeded
slowly, looking often to his right and left; not with the vexed, anxious
expression which marks a man going forward uncertain of the way, but rather the
air with which one approaches as old acquaintance after a long separation -
half of pleasure, half of inquiry; as if he were saying, "I am glad to be
with you again; let me see in what you are changed."
As he arose
higher, he sometimes paused to look behind him over the gradually widening view
terminating in the mountains of Moab; but when at length he drew near the
summit, he quickened his step, unmindful of fatigue, and hurried on without
pause or turning of the face. On the summit - to reach which he bent his steps
somewhat right of the beaten path - he came to a dead stop, arrested as if by a
strong hand. Then one might have seen his eyes dilate, his cheeks flush, his
breath quicken, effects all of one bright sweeping glance at what lay before
him.
The traveller,
good reader, was no other than Ben-Hur; the spectacle, Jerusalem.
Not the Holy City
of to-day, but the Holy City as left by Herod - the Holy City of the Christ.
Beautiful yet, as seen from old Olivet, what must it have been then?
Ben-Hur betook
him to a stone and sat down, and, stripping his head of the close white
handkerchief which served it for covering, made the survey at leisure.
The same has been
done often since by a great variety of persons, under circumstances
surpassingly singular - by the son of Vespasian, by the Islamite, by the
Crusader, conquerors all of them; by many a pilgrim from the great New World,
which waited discovery nearly fifteen hundred years after the time of our
story; but of the multitude probably not one has taken that view with
sensations more keenly poignant, more sadly sweet, more proudly bitter, than
Ben-Hur. He was stirred by recollections of his countrymen, their triumphs and
vicissitudes, their history the history of God. The city was of their building,
at once a lasting testimony of their crimes and devotion, their weakness and
genius, their religion and their irreligion. Though he had seen Rome to
familiarity, he was gratified. The sight filled a measure of pride which would
have made him drunk with vainglory but for the thought, princely as the
property was, it did not any longer belong to his countrymen; the worship in
the Temple was by permission of strangers; the hill where David dwelt was a
marbled cheat - an office in which the chosen of the Lord were wrung and wrung
for taxes, and scourged for very deathlessness of faith. These, however, were
pleasures and griefs of patriotism common to every Jew of the period; in
addition, Ben-Hur brought with him a personal history which would not out of
mind for other consideration whatever, which the spectacle served only to
freshen and vivify.
A country of
hills changes but little; where the hills are of rock, it changes not at all.
The scene Ben-Hur beheld is the same now, except as respects the city. The
failure is in the handiwork of man alone.
The sun dealt
more kindly by the west side of Olivet than by the east, and men were certainly
more loving towards it. The vines with which it was partially clad, and the
sprinkling of trees, chiefly figs and old wild olives, were comparatively
green. Down to the dry bed of the Cedron the verdure extended, a refreshment to
the vision; there Olivet ceased and Moriah began - a wall of bluff boldness,
white as snow, founded by Solomon, completed by Herod. Up, up the wall the eye
climbed course by course of the ponderous rocks composing it - up to Solomon's
Porch, which was as the pedestal of the monument, the hill being the plinth.
Lingering there a moment, the eye resumed its climbing, going next to the
Gentiles' Court, then to the Israelites' Court, then to the Women's Court, then
to the Court of the Priests, each a pillared tier of white marble, one above
the other in terraced retrocession; over them all a crown of crowns infinitely
sacred, infinitely beautiful, majestic in proportions, effulgent with beaten
gold - lo! the Tent, the Tabernacle, the Holy of Holies. The Ark was not there,
but Jehovah was - in the faith of every child of Israel he was there a personal
Presence. As a temple, as a monument, there was nowhere anything of man's
building to approach that superlative apparition. Now, not a stone of it
remains above another. Who shall rebuild that building? When shall the
rebuilding be begun? So asks every pilgrim who has stood where Ben-Hur was - he
asks, knowing the answer is in the bosom of God, whose secrets are not least
marvellous in their well-keeping. And then the third question, What of him who
foretold the ruin which has so certainly befallen? God? Or man of God? Or -
enough that the question is for us to answer.
And still
Ben-Hur's eyes climbed on and up - up over the roof of the Temple, to the hill
Zion, consecrated to sacred memories, inseparable from the anointed kings. He
knew the Cheesemonger's Valley dipped deep down between Moriah and Zion; that
it was spanned by the Xystus; that there were gardens and palaces in its
depths; but over them all his thoughts soared with his vision to the great
grouping on the royal hill - the house of Caiaphas, the Central Synagogue, the
Roman Praetorium, Hippicus the eternal, and the sad but mighty cenotaphs
Phasaelus and Mariamne - all relieved against Gareb, purpling in the distance.
And when midst them he singled out the palace of Herod, what could he but think
of the King Who Was Coming, to whom he was himself devoted, whose path he had
undertaken to smooth, whose empty hands he dreamed of filling? And forward ran
his fancy to the day the new King should come to claim his own and take
possession of it - of Moriah and its Temple; of Zion and its towers and
palaces; of Antonia, frowning darkly there just to the right of the Temple; of
the new unwalled city of Bezetha; of the millions of Israel to assemble with
palm-branches and banners, to sing rejoicing because the Lord had conquered and
given them the world.
Men speak of
dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep. They should know
better. All results achieved by us are self-promised, and all self-promises are
made in dreams awake. Dreaming is the relief of labor, the wine that sustains
us in act. We learn to love labor, not for itself, but for the opportunity it
furnishes for dreaming, which is the great under-monotone of real life,
unheard, unnoticed, because of its constancy. Living is dreaming. Only in the
grave are there no dreams. Let no one smile at Ben-Hur for doing that which he
himself would have done at that time and place under the same circumstances.
The sun stooped
low in its course. Awhile the flaring disk seemed to perch itself on the far
summit of the mountains in the west, brazening all the sky above the city, and
rimming the walls and towers with the brightness of gold. Then it disappeared
as with a plunge. The quiet turned Ben-Hur's thought homeward. There was a
point in the sky a little north of the peerless front of the Holy of Holies
upon which he fixed his gaze: under it, straight as a leadline would have
dropped, lay his father's house, if yet the house endured.
The mellowing
influences of the evening mellowed his feelings, and, putting his ambitions
aside, he thought of the duty that was bringing him to Jerusalem.
Out in the desert
while with Ilderim, looking for strong places and acquainting himself with it
generally, as a soldier studies a country in which he has projected a campaign,
a messenger came one evening with the news that Gratus was removed, and Pontius
Pilate sent to take his place.
Messala was
disabled and believed him dead; Gratus was powerless and gone; why should Ben-Hur
longer defer the search for his mother and sister? There was nothing to fear
now. If he could not himself see into the prisons of Judea, he could examine
them with the eyes of others. If the lost were found, Pilate could have no
motive in holding them in custody - none, at least, which could not be overcome
by purchase. If found, he would carry them to a place of safety, and then, in
calmer mind, his conscience at rest, this one first duty done, he could give
himself more entirely to the King Who Was Coming. He resolved at once. That
night he counselled with Ilderim, and obtained his assent. Three Arabs came
with him to Jericho, where he left them and the horses, and proceeded alone and
on foot. Malluch was to meet him in Jerusalem.
Ben-Hur's scheme,
be it observed, was as yet a generality.
In view of the
future, it was advisable to keep himself in hiding from the authorities,
particularly the Romans. Malluch was shrewd and trusty; the very man to charge
with the conduct of the investigation.
Where to begin
was the first point. He had no clear idea about it. His wish was to commence
with the Tower of Antonia. Tradition not of long standing planted the gloomy
pile over a labyrinth of prison-cells, which, more even than the strong
garrison, kept it a terror to the Jewish fancy. A burial, such as his people
had been subjected to, might be possible there. Besides, in such a strait, the
natural inclination is to start search at the place where the loss occurred,
and he could not forget that his last sight of the loved ones was as the guard
pushed them along the street in the direction to the Tower. If they were not
there now, but had been, some record of the fact must remain, a clew which had
only to be followed faithfully to the end.
Under this
inclination, moreover, there was a hope which he could not forego. From
Simonides he knew Amrah, the Egyptian nurse, was living. It will be remembered,
doubtless, that the faithful creature, the morning the calamity overtook the
Hurs, broke from the guard and ran back into the palace, where, along with
other chattels, she had been sealed up. During the years following, Simonides
kept her supplied; so she was there now, sole occupant of the great house,
which, with all his offers, Gratus had not been able to sell. The story of its
rightful owners sufficed to secure the property from strangers, whether
purchasers or mere occupants. People going to and fro passed it with whispers.
Its reputation was that of a haunted house; derived probably from the
infrequent glimpses of poor old Amrah, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in a
latticed window. Certainly no more constant spirit ever abided than she; nor
was there ever a tenement so shunned and fitted for ghostly habitation. Now, if
he could get to her, Ben-Hur fancied she could help him to knowledge which,
though faint, might yet be serviceable. Anyhow, sight of her in that place, so
endeared by recollection, would be to him a pleasure next to finding the
objects of his solicitude.
So, first of all
things, he would go to the old house, and look for Amrah.
Thus resolved, he
arose shortly after the going-down of the sun, and began descent of the Mount
by the road which, from the summit, bends a little north of east. Down nearly
at the foot, close by the bed of the Cedron, he came to the intersection with
the road leading south to the village of Siloam and the pool of that name.
There he fell in with a herdsman driving some sheep to market. He spoke to the
man, and joined him, and in his company passed by Gethsemane on into the city
through the Fish Gate.
CHAPTER IV
It was dark when,
parting with the drover inside the gate, Ben-Hur turned into a narrow lane
leading to the south. A few of the people whom he met saluted him. The
bouldering of the pavement was rough. The houses on both sides were low, dark,
and cheerless; the doors all closed: from the roofs, occasionally, he heard
women crooning to children. The loneliness of his situation, the night, the
uncertainty cloaking the object of his coming, all affected him cheerlessly. With
feelings sinking lower and lower, he came directly to the deep reservoir now
known as the Pool of Bethesda, in which the water reflected the over-pending
sky. Looking up, he beheld the northern wall of the Tower of Antonia, a black
frowning heap reared into the dim steel-gray sky. He halted as if challenged by
a threatening sentinel.
The Tower stood
up so high, and seemed so vast, resting apparently upon foundations so sure,
that he was constrained to acknowledge its strength. If his mother were there
in living burial, what could he do for her? By the strong hand, nothing. An
army might beat the stony face with ballista and ram, and be laughed at.
Against him alone, the gigantic southeast turret looked down in the
self-containment of a hill. And he thought, cunning is so easily baffled; and
God, always the last resort of the helpless - God is sometimes so slow to act!
In doubt and
misgiving, he turned into the street in front of the Tower, and followed it
slowly on to the west.
Over in Bezetha
he knew there was a khan, where it was his intention to seek lodging while in
the city; but just now he could not resist the impulse to go home. His heart
drew him that way.
The old formal
salutation which he received from the few people who passed him had never
sounded so pleasantly. Presently, all the eastern sky began to silver and
shine, and objects before invisible in the west - chiefly the tall towers on
Mount Zion - emerged as from a shadowy depth, and put on spectral distinctness,
floating, as it were, above the yawning blackness of the valley below, very
castles in the air.
He came, at
length, to his father's house.
Of those who read
this page, some there will be to divine his feelings without prompting. They
are such as had happy homes in their youth, no matter how far that may have
been back in time - homes which are now the starting-points of all
recollection; paradises from which they went forth in tears, and which they
would now return to, if they could, as little children; places of laughter and singing,
and associations dearer than any or all the triumphs of after-life.
At the gate on
the north side of the old house Ben-Hur stopped. In the corners the wax used in
the sealing-up was still plainly seen, and across the valves was the board with
the inscription -
"THIS IS THE PROPERTY OF
THE EMPEROR."
Nobody had gone in or out the gate since the
dreadful day of the separation. Should he knock as of old? It was useless, he
knew; yet he could not resist the temptation. Amrah might hear, and look out of
one of the windows on that side. Taking a stone, he mounted the broad stone
step, and tapped three times. A dull echo replied. He tried again, louder than
before; and again, pausing each time to listen. The silence was mocking.
Retiring into the street, he watched the windows; but they, too, were lifeless.
The parapet on the roof was defined sharply against the brightening sky;
nothing could have stirred upon it unseen by him, and nothing did stir.
From the north
side he passed to the west, where there were four windows which he watched long
and anxiously, but with as little effect. At times his heart swelled with
impotent wishes; at others, he trembled at the deceptions of his own fancy.
Amrah made no sign - not even a ghost stirred.
Silently, then,
he stole round to the south. There, too, the gate was sealed and inscribed. The
mellow splendor of the August moon, pouring over the crest of Olivet, since
termed the Mount of Offence, brought the lettering boldly out; and he read, and
was filled with rage. All he could do was to wrench the board from its nailing,
and hurl it into the ditch. Then he sat upon the step, and prayed for the New
King, and that his coming might be hastened. As his blood cooled, insensibly he
yielded to the fatigue of long travel in the summer heat, and sank down lower,
and, at last, slept.
About that time
two women came down the street from the direction of the Tower of Antonia,
approaching the palace of the Hurs. They advanced stealthily, with timid steps,
pausing often to listen. At the corner of the rugged pile, one said to the
other, in a low voice,
"This is it,
Tirzah!"
And Tirzah, after
a look, caught her mother's hand, and leaned upon her heavily, sobbing, but
silent.
"Let us go
on, my child, because" - the mother hesitated and trembled; then, with an
effort to be calm, continued -”because when morning comes they will put us out
of the gate of the city to - return no more."
Tirzah sank
almost to the stones.
"Ah,
yes!" she said, between sobs; "I forgot. I had the feeling of going
home. But we are lepers, and have no homes; we belong to the dead!"
The mother
stooped and raised her tenderly, saying, "We have nothing to fear. Let us
go on."
Indeed, lifting
their empty hands, they could have run upon a legion and put it to flight.
And, creeping in
close to the rough wall, they glided on, like two ghosts, till they came to the
gate, before which they also paused. Seeing the board, they stepped upon the
stone in the scarce cold tracks of Ben-Hur, and read the inscription -”This is
the Property of the Emperor."
Then the mother
clasped her hands, and, with upraised eyes, moaned in unutterable anguish.
"What now,
mother? You scare me!"
And the answer
was, presently, "Oh, Tirzah, the poor are dead! He is dead!"
"Who,
mother?"
"Your
brother! They took everything from him - everything - even this house!"
"Poor!"
said Tirzah, vacantly.
"He will
never be able to help us."
"And then,
mother?"
"To-morrow -
to-morrow, my child, we must find a seat by the wayside, and beg alms as the lepers
do; beg, or -”
Tirzah leaned
upon her again, and said, whispering, "Let us - let us die!"
"No!" the mother said, firmly. "The
Lord has appointed our times, and we are believers in the Lord. We will wait on
him even in this. Come away!"
She caught
Tirzah's hand as she spoke, and hastened to the west corner of the house,
keeping close to the wall. No one being in sight there, they kept on to the
next corner, and shrank from the moonlight, which lay exceedingly bright over
the whole south front, and along a part of the street. The mother's will was
strong. Casting one look back and up to the windows on the west side, she
stepped out into the light, drawing Tirzah after her; and the extent of their
affliction was then to be seen - on their lips and cheeks, in their bleared
eyes, in their cracked hands; especially in the long, snaky locks, stiff with
loathsome ichor, and, like their eyebrows, ghastly white. Nor was it possible
to have told which was mother, which daughter; both alike seemed witch-like
old.
"Hist!"
said the mother. "There is some one lying upon the step - a man. Let us go
round him."
They crossed to
the opposite side of the street quickly, and, in the shade there, moved on till
before the gate, where they stopped.
"He is asleep,
Tirzah!"
The man was very
still.
"Stay here,
and I will try the gate."
So saying, the
mother stole noiselessly across, and ventured to touch the wicket; she never
knew if it yielded, for that moment the man sighed, and, turning restlessly,
shifted the handkerchief on his head in such manner that the face was left
upturned and fair in the broad moonlight. She looked down at it and started;
then looked again, stooping a little, and arose and clasped her hands and
raised her eyes to heaven in mute appeal. An instant so, and she ran back to
Tirzah.
"As the Lord
liveth, the man is my son - thy brother!" she said, in an awe-inspiring
whisper.
"My brother?
- Judah?"
The mother caught
her hand eagerly.
"Come!"
she said, in the same enforced whisper, "let us look at him together -
once more - only once - then help thou thy servants, Lord!"
They crossed the
street hand in hand ghostly-quick, ghostly-still. When their shadows fell upon
him, they stopped. One of his hands was lying out upon the step palm up. Tirzah
fell upon her knees, and would have kissed it; but the mother drew her back.
"Not for thy
life; not for thy life! Unclean, unclean!" she whispered.
Tirzah shrank
from him, as if he were the leprous one.
Ben-Hur was
handsome as the manly are. His cheeks and forehead were swarthy from exposure
to the desert sun and air; yet under the light mustache the lips were red, and
the teeth shone white, and the soft beard did not hide the full roundness of
chin and throat. How beautiful he appeared to the mother's eyes! How mightily
she yearned to put her arms about him, and take his head upon her bosom and
kiss him, as had been her wont in his happy childhood! Where got she the
strength to resist the impulse? From her love, O, reader! - her mother-love,
which, if thou wilt observe well, hath this unlikeness to any other love:
tender to the object, it can be infinitely tyrannical to itself, and thence all
its power of self-sacrifice. Not for restoration to health and fortune, not for
any blessing of life, not for life itself, would she have left her leprous kiss
upon his cheek! Yet touch him she must; in that instant of finding him she must
renounce him forever! How bitter, bitter hard it was, let some other mother say!
She knelt down, and, crawling to his feet, touched the sole of one of his
sandals with her lips, yellow though it was with the dust of the street - and
touched it again and again; and her very soul was in the kisses.
He stirred, and
tossed his hand. They moved back, but heard him mutter in his dream,
"Mother!
Amrah! Where is -”
He fell off into
the deep sleep.
Tirzah stared
wistfully. The mother put her face in the dust, struggling to suppress a sob so
deep and strong it seemed her heart was bursting. Almost she wished he might
waken.
He had asked for
her; she was not forgotten; in his sleep he was thinking of her. Was it not
enough?
Presently mother
beckoned to Tirzah, and they arose, and taking one more look, as if to print
his image past fading, hand in hand they recrossed the street. Back in the
shade of the wall there, they retired and knelt, looking at him, waiting for
him to wake - waiting some revelation, they knew not what. Nobody has yet given
us a measure for the patience of a love like theirs.
By-and-by, the
sleep being yet upon him, another woman appeared at the corner of the palace.
The two in the shade saw her plainly in the light; a small figure, much bent,
dark-skinned, gray-haired, dressed neatly in servant's garb, and carrying a
basket full of vegetables.
At sight of the
man upon the step the new-comer stopped; then, as if decided, she walked on -
very lightly as she drew near the sleeper. Passing round him, she went to the
gate, slid the wicket latch easily to one side, and put her hand in the
opening. One of the broad boards in the left valve swung ajar without noise.
She put the basket through, and was about to follow, when, yielding to
curiosity, she lingered to have one look at the stranger whose face was below
her in open view.
The spectators
across the street heard a low exclamation, and saw the woman rub her eyes as if
to renew their power, bend closer down, clasp her hands, gaze wildly around,
look at the sleeper, stoop and raise the outlying hand, and kiss it fondly -
that which they wished so mightily to do, but dared not.
Awakened by the
action, Ben-Hur instinctively withdrew the hand; as he did so, his eyes met the
woman's.
"Amrah! O
Amrah, is it thou?" he said.
The good heart
made no answer in words, but fell upon his neck, crying for joy.
Gently he put her
arms away, and lifting the dark face wet with tears, kissed it, his joy only a
little less than hers. Then those across the way heard him say,
"Mother -
Tirzah - O Amrah, tell me of them! Speak, speak, I pray thee!"
Amrah only cried
afresh.
"Thou has
seen them, Amrah. Thou knowest where they are; tell me they are at home."
Tirzah moved, but
her mother, divining her purpose, caught her and whispered, "Do not go -
not for life. Unclean, unclean!"
Her love was in tyrannical
mood. Though both their hearts broke, he should not become what they were; and
she conquered.
Meantime, Amrah,
so entreated, only wept the more.
"Wert thou
going in?" he asked, presently, seeing the board swung back. "Come,
then. I will go with thee." He arose as he spoke. "The Romans - be
the curse of the Lord upon them! - the Romans lied. The house is mine. Rise,
Amrah, and let us go in." A moment and they were gone, leaving the two in
the shade to behold the gate staring blankly at them - the gate which they
might not ever enter more. They nestled together in the dust.
They had done
their duty.
Their love was
proven.
Next morning they
were found, and driven out the city with stones.
"Begone! Ye
are of the dead; go to the dead!"
With the doom
ringing in their ears, they went forth.
