CHAPTER VII
Next
day a detachment of legionaries went to the desolated palace, and, closing the
gates permanently, plastered the corners with wax, and at the sides nailed a
notice in Latin:
"THIS IS THE PROPERTY OF THE EMPEROR."
In the haughty Roman idea, the sententious
announcement was thought sufficient for the purpose - and it was.
The day after
that again, about noon, a decurion with his command of ten horsemen approached
Nazareth from the south - that is, from the direction of Jerusalem. The place
was then a straggling village, perched on a hill-side, and so insignificant
that its one street was little more than a path well beaten by the coming and
going of flocks and herds. The great plain of Esdraelon crept close to it on
the south, and from the height on the west a view could be had of the shores of
the Mediterranean, the region beyond the Jordan, and Hermon. The valley below,
and the country on every side, were given to gardens, vineyards, orchards, and
pasturage. Groves of palm-trees Orientalized the landscape. The houses, in
irregular assemblage, were of the humbler class - square, one-story,
flat-roofed, and covered with bright-green vines. The drought that had burned
the hills of Judea to a crisp, brown and lifeless, stopped at the boundary-line
of Galilee.
A trumpet,
sounded when the cavalcade drew near the village, had a magical effect upon the
inhabitants. The gates and front doors cast forth groups eager to be the first
to catch the meaning of a visitation so unusual.
Nazareth, it must
be remembered, was not only aside from any great highway, but within the sway
of Judas of Gamala; wherefore it should not be hard to imagine the feelings
with which the legionaries were received. But when they were up and traversing
the street, the duty that occupied them became apparent, and then fear and
hatred were lost in curiosity, under the impulse of which the people, knowing
there must be a halt at the well in the northeastern part of the town, quit
their gates and doors, and closed in after the procession.
A prisoner whom
the horsemen were guarding was the object of curiosity. He was afoot,
bareheaded, half naked, his hands bound behind him. A thong fixed to his wrists
was looped over the neck of a horse. The dust went with the party when in
movement, wrapping him in yellow fog, sometimes in a dense cloud. He drooped
forward, footsore and faint. The villagers could see he was young.
At the well the
decurion halted, and, with most of the men, dismounted. The prisoner sank down
in the dust of the road, stupefied, and asking nothing: apparently he was in
the last stage of exhaustion. Seeing, when they came near, that he was but a
boy, the villagers would have helped him had they dared.
In the midst of
their perplexity, and while the pitchers were passing among the soldiers, a man
was descried coming down the road from Sepphoris. At sight of him a woman cried
out, "Look! Yonder comes the carpenter. Now we will hear something."
The person spoken
of was quite venerable in appearance. Thin white locks fell below the edge of
his full turban, and a mass of still whiter beard flowed down the front of his
coarse gray gown. He came slowly, for, in addition to his age, he carried some
tools - an axe, a saw, and a drawing-knife, all very rude and heavy - and had
evidently travelled some distance without rest.
He stopped close
by to survey the assemblage.
"O Rabbi,
good Rabbi Joseph!" cried a woman, running to him. "Here is a
prisoner; come ask the soldiers about him, that we may know who he is, and what
he has done, and what they are going to do with him."
The rabbi's face
remained stolid; he glanced at the prisoner, however, and presently went to the
officer.
"The peace
of the Lord be with you!" he said, with unbending gravity.
"And that of
the gods with you," the decurion replied.
"Are you
from Jerusalem?"
"Yes."
"Your
prisoner is young."
"In years,
yes."
"May I ask
what he has done?"
"He is an
assassin."
The people
repeated the word in astonishment, but Rabbi Joseph pursued his inquest.
"Is he a son
of Israel?"
"He is a
Jew," said the Roman, dryly.
The wavering pity
of the bystanders came back.
"I know
nothing of your tribes, but can speak of his family," the speaker
continued. "You may have heard of a prince of Jerusalem named Hur -
Ben-Hur, they called him. He lived in Herod's day."
"I have seen
him," Joseph said.
"Well, this
is his son."
Exclamations
became general, and the decurion hastened to stop them.
"In the
streets of Jerusalem, day before yesterday, he nearly killed the noble Gratus
by flinging a tile upon his head from the roof of a palace - his father's, I
believe."
There was a pause
in the conversation during which the Nazarenes gazed at the young Ben-Hur as at
a wild beast.
"Did he kill
him?" asked the rabbi.
"No."
"He is under
sentence."
"Yes - the
galleys for life."
"The Lord
help him!" said Joseph, for once moved out of his stolidity.
Thereupon a youth
who came up with Joseph, but had stood behind him unobserved, laid down an axe
he had been carrying, and, going to the great stone standing by the well, took
from it a pitcher of water. The action was so quiet that before the guard could
interfere, had they been disposed to do so, he was stooping over the prisoner,
and offering him drink.
The hand laid
kindly upon his shoulder awoke the unfortunate Judah, and, looking up, he saw a
face he never forgot - the face of a boy about his own age, shaded by locks of
yellowish bright chestnut hair; a face lighted by dark-blue eyes, at the time
so soft, so appealing, so full of love and holy purpose, that they had all the
power of command and will. The spirit of the Jew, hardened though it was by
days and nights of suffering, and so embittered by wrong that its dreams of
revenge took in all the world, melted under the stranger's look, and became as
a child's. He put his lips to the pitcher, and drank long and deep. Not a word
was said to him, nor did he say a word.
When the draught
was finished, the hand that had been resting upon the sufferer's shoulder was
placed upon his head, and stayed there in the dusty locks time enough to say a
blessing; the stranger then returned the pitcher to its place on the stone, and,
taking his axe again, went back to Rabbi Joseph. All eyes went with him, the
decurion's as well as those of the villagers.
This was the end
of the scene at the well. When the men had drunk, and the horses, the march was
resumed. But the temper of the decurion was not as it had been; he himself
raised the prisoner from the dust, and helped him on a horse behind a soldier.
The Nazarenes went to their houses - among them Rabbi Joseph and his
apprentice.
And so, for the
first time, Judah and the son of Mary met and parted.
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