BOOK SIXTH
"Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that woman's mate?
* * * *
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold."
COLERIDGE.
CHAPTER I
Our story moves
forward now thirty days from the night Ben-Hur left Antioch to go out with
Sheik Ilderim into the desert.
A great change
has befallen - great at least as respects the fortunes of our hero. VALERIUS
GRATUS HAS BEEN SUCCEEDED BY PONTIUS PILATE!
The removal, it
may be remarked, cost Simonides exactly five talents Roman money in hand paid
to Sejanus, who was then in height of power as imperial favorite; the object
being to help Ben-Hur, by lessening his exposure while in and about Jerusalem
attempting discovery of his people. To such pious use the faithful servant put
the winnings from Drusus and his associates; all of whom, having paid their
wagers, became at once and naturally the enemies of Messala, whose repudiation
was yet an unsettled question in Rome.
Brief as the time
was, already the Jews knew the change of rulers was not for the better.
The cohorts sent
to relieve the garrison of Antonia made their entry into the city by night;
next morning the first sight that greeted the people resident in the
neighborhood was the walls of the old Tower decorated with military ensigns,
which unfortunately consisted of busts of the emperor mixed with eagles and
globes. A multitude, in passion, marched to Caesarea, where Pilate was
lingering, and implored him to remove the detested images. Five days and nights
they beset his palace gates; at last he appointed a meeting with them in the
Circus. When they were assembled, he encircled them with soldiers; instead of
resisting, they offered him their lives, and conquered. He recalled the images
and ensigns to Caesarea, where Gratus, with more consideration, had kept such
abominations housed during the eleven years of his reign.
The worst of men
do once in a while vary their wickednesses by good acts; so with Pilate. He
ordered an inspection of all the prisons in Judea, and a return of the names of
the persons in custody, with a statement of the crimes for which they had been
committed. Doubtless, the motive was the one so common with officials just
installed - dread of entailed responsibility; the people, however, in thought
of the good which might come of the measure, gave him credit, and, for a
period, were comforted. The revelations were astonishing. Hundreds of persons
were released against whom there were no accusations; many others came to light
who had long been accounted dead; yet more amazing, there was opening of
dungeons not merely unknown at the time by the people, but actually forgotten
by the prison authorities. With one instance of the latter kind we have now to
deal; and, strange to say, it occurred in Jerusalem.
The Tower of
Antonia, which will be remembered as occupying two thirds of the sacred area on
Mount Moriah, was originally a castle built by the Macedonians. Afterwards,
John Hyrcanus erected the castle into a fortress for the defence of the Temple,
and in his day it was considered impregnable to assault; but when Herod came
with his bolder genius, he strengthened its walls and extended them, leaving a
vast pile which included every appurtenance necessary for the stronghold he intended
it to be forever; such as offices, barracks, armories, magazines, cisterns, and
last, though not least, prisons of all grades. He levelled the solid rock, and
tapped it with deep excavations, and built over them; connecting the whole
great mass with the Temple by a beautiful colonnade, from the roof of which one
could look down over the courts of the sacred structure. In such condition the
Tower fell at last out of his hands into those of the Romans, who were quick to
see its strength and advantages, and convert it to uses becoming such masters.
All through the administration of Gratus it had been a garrisoned citadel and
underground prison terrible to revolutionists. Woe when the cohorts poured from
its gates to suppress disorder! Woe not less when a Jew passed the same gates
going in under arrest!
With this
explanation, we hasten to our story.
The order of the
new procurator requiring a report of the persons in custody was received at the
Tower of Antonia, and promptly executed; and two days have gone since the last
unfortunate was brought up for examination. The tabulated statement, ready for
forwarding, lies on the table of the tribune in command; in five minutes more
it will be on the way to Pilate, sojourning in the palace up on Mount Zion.
The tribune's
office is spacious and cool, and furnished in a style suitable to the dignity
of the commandant of a post in every respect so important. Looking in upon him
about the seventh hour of the day, the officer appears weary and impatient;
when the report is despatched, he will to the roof of the colonnade for air and
exercise, and the amusement to be had watching the Jews over in the courts of
the Temple. His subordinates and clerks share his impatience.
In the spell of
waiting a man appeared in a doorway leading to an adjoining apartment. He
rattled a bunch of keys, each heavy as a hammer, and at once attracted the
chief's attention.
"Ah, Gesius!
come in," the tribune said.
As the new-comer
approached the table behind which the chief sat in an easy-chair, everybody
present looked at him, and, observing a certain expression of alarm and
mortification on his face, became silent that they might hear what he had to
say.
"O
tribune!" he began, bending low, "I fear to tell what now I bring
you."
"Another
mistake - ha, Gesius?"
"If I could
persuade myself it is but a mistake, I would not be afraid."
"A crime
then - or, worse, a breach of duty. Thou mayst laugh at Caesar, or curse the
gods, and live; but if the offence be to the eagles - ah, thou knowest, Gesius
- go on!"
"It is now
about eight years since Valerius Gratus selected me to be keeper of prisoners
here in the Tower," said the man, deliberately. "I remember the
morning I entered upon the duties of my office. There had been a riot the day
before, and fighting in the streets. We slew many Jews, and suffered on our
side. The affair came, it was said, of an attempt to assassinate Gratus, who
had been knocked from his horse by a tile thrown from a roof. I found him
sitting where you now sit, O tribune, his head swathed in bandages. He told me
of my selection, and gave me these keys, numbered to correspond with the
numbers of the cells; they were the badges of my office, he said, and not to be
parted with. There was a roll of parchment on the table. Calling me to him, he
opened the roll. 'Here are maps of the cells,' said he. There were three of
them. 'This one,' he went on, 'shows the arrangement of the upper floor; this
second one gives you the second floor; and this last is of the lower floor. I give
them to you in trust.' I took them from his hand, and he said, further, 'Now
you have the keys and the maps; go immediately, and acquaint yourself with the
whole arrangement; visit each cell, and see to its condition. When anything is
needed for the security of a prisoner, order it according to your judgment, for
you are the master under me, and no other.'
"I saluted
him, and turned to go away; he called me back. 'Ah, I forgot,' he said. 'Give
me the map of the third floor.' I gave it to him, and he spread it upon the
table. 'Here, Gesius,' he said, 'see this cell.' He laid his finger on the one
numbered V. 'There are three men confined in that cell, desperate characters,
who by some means got hold of a state secret, and suffer for their curiosity,
which' - he looked at me severely - 'in such matters is worse than a crime.
Accordingly, they are blind and tongueless, and are placed there for life. They
shall have nothing but food and drink, to be given them through a hole, which
you will find in the wall covered by a slide. Do you hear, Gesius?' I made him
answer. 'It is well,' he continued. 'One thing more which you shall not forget,
or' - he looked at me threateningly - 'The door of their cell - cell number V.
on the same floor - this one, Gesius' - he put his finger on the particular
cell to impress my memory - 'shall never be opened for any purpose, neither to
let one in nor out, not even yourself.' 'But if they die?' I asked. 'If they
die,' he said, 'the cell shall be their tomb. They were put there to die, and
be lost. The cell is leprous. Do you understand?' With that he let me go."
Gesius stopped,
and from the breast of his tunic drew three parchments, all much yellowed by
time and use; selecting one of them, he spread it upon the table before the tribune,
saying, simply, "This is the lower floor."
The whole company looked at
THE MAP
__________________________________________
| |
| Passage |
| |
| - ][ - -+ - -][ - -+ - -][ - -+ - -][ - -+
- -][ - |
|
| | |
| |
|
V | IV
| III |
II | I |
|_______|________|________|________|_______|
"This is exactly, O tribune, as I had it from
Gratus. See, there is cell number V.," said Gesius.
"I
see," the tribune replied. "Go on now. The cell was leprous, he
said."
"I would
like to ask you a question," remarked the keeper, modestly.
The tribune
assented.
"Had I not a
right, under the circumstances, to believe the map a true one?"
"What else
couldst thou?"
"Well, it is
not a true one."
The chief looked
up surprised.
"It is not a
true one," the keeper repeated. "It shows but five cells upon that
floor, while there are six."
"Six, sayest
thou?"
"I will show
you the floor as it is - or as I believe it to be."
Upon a page of
his tablets, Gesius drew the following diagram, and gave it to the tribune:
__________________________________________
| |
| - ][ - -+ - -][ - -+ - -][ - -+ - -][ - -+
- -][ - |
|
| | |
| |
|
V | IV
| III |
II | I |
| - ][ - -+ -
- - - + -
- - - + -
- - - + -
- - -|
| VI |
|__________________________________________|
"Thou hast done well," said the tribune,
examining the drawing, and thinking the narrative at an end. "I will have
the map corrected, or, better, I will have a new one made, and given thee. Come
for it in the morning."
So saying, he
arose.
"But hear me
further, O tribune."
"To-morrow,
Gesius, to-morrow."
"That which
I have yet to tell will not wait."
The tribune
good-naturedly resumed his chair.
"I will
hurry," said the keeper, humbly, "only let me ask another question.
Had I not a right to believe Gratus in what he further told me as to the
prisoners in cell number V.?"
"Yes, it was
thy duty to believe there were three prisoners in the cell - prisoners of state
- blind and without tongues."
"Well,"
said the keeper, "that was not true either."
"No!"
said the tribune, with returning interest.
"Hear, and
judge for yourself, O tribune. As required, I visited all the cells, beginning
with those on the first floor, and ending with those on the lower. The order
that the door of number V. should not be opened had been respected; through all
the eight years food and drink for three men had been passed through a hole in
the wall. I went to the door yesterday, curious to see the wretches who, against
all expectation, had lived so long. The locks refused the key. We pulled a
little, and the door fell down, rusted from its hinges. Going in, I found but
one man, old, blind, tongueless, and naked. His hair dropped in stiffened mats
below his waist. His skin was like the parchment there. He held his hands out,
and the finger-nails curled and twisted like the claws of a bird. I asked him
where his companions were. He shook his head in denial. Thinking to find the
others, we searched the cell. The floor was dry; so were the walls. If three
men had been shut in there, and two of them had died, at least their bones
would have endured."
"Wherefore
thou thinkest -”
"I think, O
tribune, there has been but one prisoner there in the eight years."
The chief regarded
the keeper sharply, and said, "Have a care; thou art more than saying
Valerius lied."
Gesius bowed, but
said, "He might have been mistaken."
"No, he was
right," said the tribune, warmly. "By thine own statement he was
right. Didst thou not say but now that for eight years food and drink had been
furnished three men?"
The bystanders
approved the shrewdness of their chief; yet Gesius did not seem discomfited.
"You have
but half the story, O tribune. When you have it all, you will agree with me. You
know what I did with the man: that I sent him to the bath, and had him shorn
and clothed, and then took him to the gate of the Tower, and bade him go free.
I washed my hands of him. To-day he came back, and was brought to me. By signs
and tears he at last made me understand he wished to return to his cell, and I
so ordered. As they were leading him off, he broke away and kissed my feet,
and, by piteous dumb imploration, insisted I should go with him; and I went.
The mystery of the three men stayed in my mind. I was not satisfied about it.
Now I am glad I yielded to his entreaty."
The whole company
at this point became very still.
"When we
were in the cell again, and the prisoner knew it, he caught my hand eagerly,
and led me to a hole like that through which we were accustomed to pass him his
food. Though large enough to push your helmet through, it escaped me yesterday.
Still holding my hand, he put his face to the hole and gave a beast-like cry. A
sound came faintly back. I was astonished, and drew him away, and called out,
'Ho, here!' At first there was no answer. I called again, and received back
these words, 'Be thou praised, O Lord!' Yet more astonishing, O tribune, the
voice was a woman's. And I asked, 'Who are you?' and had reply, 'A woman of Israel,
entombed here with her daughter. Help us quickly, or we die.' I told them to be
of cheer, and hurried here to know your will."
The tribune arose
hastily.
"Thou wert
right, Gesius," he said, "and I see now. The map was a lie, and so
was the tale of the three men. There have been better Romans than Valerius
Gratus."
"Yes,"
said the keeper. "I gleaned from the prisoner that he had regularly given
the women of the food and drink he had received."
"It is
accounted for," replied the tribune, and observing the countenances of his
friends, and reflecting how well it would be to have witnesses, he added,
"Let us rescue the women. Come all."
Gesuis was
pleased.
"We will
have to pierce the wall," he said. "I found where a door had been,
but it was filled solidly with stones and mortar."
The tribune
stayed to say to a clerk, "Send workmen after me with tools. Make haste;
but hold the report, for I see it will have to be corrected."
In a short time
they were gone.
CHAPTER II
"A woman of
Israel, entombed here with her daughter. Help us quickly, or we die."
Such was the
reply Gesius, the keeper, had from the cell which appears on his amended map as
VI. The reader, when he observed the answer, knew who the unfortunates were,
and, doubtless, said to himself, "At last the mother of Ben-Hur, and
Tirzah, his sister!"
And so it was.
The morning of
their seizure, eight years before, they had been carried to the Tower, where
Gratus proposed to put them out of the way. He had chosen the Tower for the
purpose as more immediately in his own keeping, and cell VI. because, first, it
could be better lost than any other; and, secondly, it was infected with
leprosy; for these prisoners were not merely to be put in a safe place, but in
a place to die. They were, accordingly, taken down by slaves in the night-time,
when there were no witnesses of the deed; then, in completion of the savage
task, the same slaves walled up the door, after which they were themselves
separated, and sent away never to be heard of more. To save accusation, and, in
the event of discovery, to leave himself such justification as might be allowed
in a distinction between the infliction of a punishment and the commission of a
double murder, Gratus preferred sinking his victims where natural death was
certain, though slow. That they might linger along, he selected a convict who
had been made blind and tongueless, and sank him in the only connecting cell,
there to serve them with food and drink. Under no circumstances could the poor
wretch tell the tale or identify either the prisoners or their doomsman. So,
with a cunning partly due to Messala, the Roman, under color of punishing a
brood of assassins, smoothed a path to confiscation of the estate of the Hurs,
of which no portion ever reached the imperial coffers.
As the last step
in the scheme, Gratus summarily removed the old keeper of the prisons; not
because he knew what had been done - for he did not - but because, knowing the
underground floors as he did, it would be next to impossible to keep the
transaction from him. Then, with masterly ingenuity, the procurator had new
maps drawn for delivery to a new keeper, with the omission, as we have seen, of
cell VI. The instructions given the latter, taken with the omission on the map,
accomplished the design - the cell and its unhappy tenants were all alike lost.
What may be
thought of the life of the mother and daughter during the eight years must have
relation to their culture and previous habits. Conditions are pleasant or
grievous to us according to our sensibilities. It is not extreme to say, if
there was a sudden exit of all men from the world, heaven, as prefigured in the
Christian idea, would not be a heaven to the majority; on the other hand,
neither would all suffer equally in the so-called Tophet. Cultivation has its
balances. As the mind is made intelligent, the capacity of the soul for pure
enjoyment is proportionally increased. Well, therefore, if it be saved! If
lost, however, alas that it ever had cultivation! its capacity for enjoyment in
the one case is the measure of its capacity to suffer in the other. Wherefore
repentance must be something more than mere remorse for sins; it comprehends a
change of nature befitting heaven.
We repeat, to
form an adequate idea of the suffering endured by the mother of Ben-Hur, the
reader must think of her spirit and its sensibilities as much as, if not more
than, of the conditions of the immurement; the question being, not what the
conditions were, but how she was affected by them. And now we may be permitted
to say it was in anticipation of this thought that the scene in the
summer-house on the roof of the family palace was given so fully in the
beginning of the Second Book of our story. So, too, to be helpful when the
inquiry should come up, we ventured the elaborate description of the palace of
the Hurs.
In other words,
let the serene, happy, luxurious life in the princely house be recalled and
contrasted with this existence in the lower dungeon of the Tower of Antonia;
then if the reader, in his effort to realize the misery of the woman, persists
in mere reference to conditions physical, he cannot go amiss; as he is a lover
of his kind, tender of heart, he will be melted with much sympathy. But will he
go further; will he more than sympathize with her; will he share her agony of
mind and spirit; will he at least try to measure it - let him recall her as she
discoursed to her son of God and nations and heroes; one moment a philosopher,
the next a teacher, and all the time a mother.
Would you hurt a
man keenest, strike at his self-love; would you hurt a woman worst, aim at her
affections.
With quickened
remembrance of these unfortunates - remembrance of them as they were - let us
go down and see them as they are.
The cell VI. was
in form as Gesius drew it on his map. Of its dimensions but little idea can be
had; enough that it was a roomy, roughened interior, with ledged and broken
walls and floor.
In the beginning,
the site of the Macedonian Castle was separated from the site of the Temple by
a narrow but deep cliff somewhat in shape of a wedge. The workmen, wishing to
hew out a series of chambers, made their entry in the north face of the cleft,
and worked in, leaving a ceiling of the natural stone; delving farther, they
executed the cells V., IV., III., II., I., with no connection with number VI.
except through number V. In like manner, they constructed the passage and
stairs to the floor above. The process of the work was precisely that resorted
to in carving out the Tombs of the Kings, yet to be seen a short distance north
of Jerusalem; only when the cutting was done, cell VI. was enclosed on its
outer side by a wall of prodigious stones, in which, for ventilation, narrow
apertures were left bevelled like modern port-holes. Herod, when he took hold
of the Temple and Tower, put a facing yet more massive upon this outer wall,
and shut up all the apertures but one, which yet admitted a little vitalizing
air, and a ray of light not nearly strong enough to redeem the room from
darkness.
Such was cell VI.
Startle not now!
The description
of the blind and tongueless wretch just liberated from cell V. may be accepted
to break the horror of what is coming.
The two women are
grouped close by the aperture; one is seated, the other is half reclining
against her; there is nothing between them and the bare rock. The light,
slanting upwards, strikes them with ghastly effect, and we cannot avoid seeing
they are without vesture or covering. At the same time we are helped to the
knowledge that love is there yet, for the two are in each other's arms. Riches
take wings, comforts vanish, hope withers away, but love stays with us. Love is
God.
Where the two are
thus grouped the stony floor is polished shining smooth. Who shall say how much
of the eight years they have spent in that space there in front of the
aperture, nursing their hope of rescue by that timid yet friendly ray of light?
When the brightness came creeping in, they knew it was dawn; when it began to
fade, they knew the world was hushing for the night, which could not be
anywhere so long and utterly dark as with them. The world! Through that
crevice, as if it were broad and high as a king's gate, they went to the world
in thought, and passed the weary time going up and down as spirits go, looking
and asking, the one for her son, the other for her brother. On the seas they
sought him, and on the islands of the seas; to-day he was in this city,
to-morrow in that other; and everywhere, and at all times, he was a flitting
sojourner; for, as they lived waiting for him, he lived looking for them. How
often their thoughts passed each other in the endless search, his coming,
theirs going! It was such sweet flattery for them to say to each other,
"While he lives, we shall not be forgotten; as long as he remembers us,
there is hope!" The strength one can eke from little, who knows till he
has been subjected to the trial?
Our recollections
of them in former days enjoin us to be respectful; their sorrows clothe them
with sanctity. Without going too near, across the dungeon, we see they have
undergone a change of appearance not to be accounted for by time or long
confinement. The mother was beautiful as a woman, the daughter beautiful as a
child; not even love could say so much now. Their hair is long, unkempt, and
strangely white; they make us shrink and shudder with an indefinable repulsion,
though the effect may be from an illusory glozing of the light glimmering
dismally through the unhealthy murk; or they may be enduring the tortures of
hunger and thirst, not having had to eat or drink since their servant, the
convict, was taken away - that is, since yesterday.
Tirzah, reclining
against her mother in half embrace, moans piteously.
"Be quiet,
Tirzah. They will come. God is good. We have been mindful of him, and forgotten
not to pray at every sounding of the trumpets over in the Temple. The light,
you see, is still bright; the sun is standing in the south sky yet, and it is
hardly more than the seventh hour. Somebody will come to us. Let us have faith.
God is good."
Thus the mother.
The words were simple and effective, although, eight years being now to be
added to the thirteen she had attained when last we saw her, Tirzah was no
longer a child.
"I will try
and be strong, mother," she said. "Your suffering must be as great as
mine; and I do so want to live for you and my brother! But my tongue burns, my
lips scorch. I wonder where he is, and if he will ever, ever find us!"
There is
something in the voices that strikes us singularly - an unexpected tone, sharp,
dry, metallic, unnatural.
The mother draws
the daughter closer to her breast, and says, "I dreamed about him last
night, and saw him as plainly, Tirzah, as I see you. We must believe in dreams,
you know, because our fathers did. The Lord spoke to them so often in that way.
I thought we were in the Women's Court just before the Gate Beautiful; there
were many women with us; and he came and stood in the shade of the Gate, and
looked here and there, at this one and that. My heart beat strong. I knew he
was looking for us, and stretched my arms to him, and ran, calling him. He
heard me and saw me, but he did not know me. In a moment he was gone."
"Would it
not be so, mother, if we were to meet him in fact? We are so changed."
"It might be
so; but -” The mother's head droops, and her face knits as with a wrench of
pain; recovering, however, she goes on -”but we could make ourselves known to
him."
Tirzah tossed her
arms, and moaned again.
"Water,
mother, water, though but a drop."
The mother stares
around in blank helplessness. She has named God so often, and so often promised
in his name, the repetition is beginning to have a mocking effect upon herself.
A shadow passes before her dimming the dim light, and she is brought down to
think of death as very near, waiting to come in as her faith goes out. Hardly
knowing what she does, speaking aimlessly, because speak she must, she says
again,
Patience, Tirzah;
they are coming - they are almost here."
She thought she
heard a sound over by the little trap in the partition-wall through which they
held all their actual communication with the world. And she was not mistaken. A
moment, and the cry of the convict rang through the cell. Tirzah heard it also;
and they both arose, still keeping hold of each other.
"Praised be
the Lord forever!" exclaimed the mother, with the fervor of restored faith
and hope.
"Ho,
there!" they heard next; and then, "Who are you?"
The voice was
strange. What matter? Except from Tirzah, they were the first and only words
the mother had heard in eight years. The revulsion was mighty - from death to
life - and so instantly!
"A woman of
Israel, entombed here with her daughter. Help us quickly, or we die."
"Be of
cheer. I will return."
The women sobbed
aloud. They were found; help was coming. From wish to wish hope flew as the
twittering swallows fly. They were found; they would be released. And
restoration would follow - restoration to all they had lost - home, society,
property, son and brother! The scanty light glozed them with the glory of day,
and, forgetful of pain and thirst and hunger, and of the menace of death, they
sank upon the floor and cried, keeping fast hold of each other the while.
And this time
they had not long to wait. Gesius, the keeper, told his tale methodically, but
finished it at last. The tribune was prompt.
"Within
there!" he shouted through the trap.
"Here!"
said the mother, rising.
Directly she
heard another sound in another place, as of blows on the wall - blows quick,
ringing, and delivered with iron tools. She did not speak, nor did Tirzah, but
they listened, well knowing the meaning of it all - that a way to liberty was
being made for them. So men a long time buried in deep mines hear the coming of
rescuers, heralded by thrust of bar and beat of pick, and answer gratefully
with heart-throbs, their eyes fixed upon the spot whence the sounds proceed;
and they cannot look away, lest the work should cease, and they be returned to
despair.
The arms outside
were strong, the hands skillful, the will good. Each instant the blows sounded
more plainly; now and then a piece fell with a crash; and liberty came nearer
and nearer. Presently the workmen could be heard speaking. Then - O happiness!
- through a crevice flashed a red ray of torches. Into the darkness it cut
incisive as diamond brilliance, beautiful as if from a spear of the morning.
"It is he,
mother, it is he! He has found us at last!" cried Tirzah, with the
quickened fancy of youth.
But the mother
answered meekly, "God is good!"
A block fell
inside, and another - then a great mass, and the door was open. A man grimed
with mortar and stone-dust stepped in, and stopped, holding a torch over his
head. Two or three others followed with torches, and stood aside for the
tribune to enter.
Respect for women
is not all a conventionality, for it is the best proof of their proper nature.
The tribune stopped, because they fled from him - not with fear, be it said,
but shame; nor yet, O reader, from shame alone! From the obscurity of their
partial hiding he heard these words, the saddest, most dreadful, most utterly
despairing of the human tongue:
"Come not
near us - unclean, unclean!"
The men flared
their torches while they stared at each other.
"Unclean,
unclean!" came from the corner again, a slow tremulous wail exceedingly
sorrowful. With such a cry we can imagine a spirit vanishing from the gates of
Paradise, looking back the while.
So the widow and
mother performed her duty, and in the moment realized that the freedom she had
prayed for and dreamed of, fruit of scarlet and gold seen afar, was but an
apple of Sodom in the hand.
SHE AND TIRZAH
WERE - LEPERS!
Possibly the
reader does not know all the word means. Let him be told it with reference to
the Law of that time, only a little modified in this.
"These four
are accounted as dead - the blind, the leper, the poor, and the
childless." Thus the Talmud.
That is, to be a
leper was to be treated as dead - to be excluded from the city as a corpse; to
be spoken to by the best beloved and most loving only at a distance; to dwell
with none but lepers; to be utterly unprivileged; to be denied the rites of the
Temple and the synagogue; to go about in rent garments and with covered mouth,
except when crying, "Unclean, unclean!" to find home in the
wilderness or in abandoned tombs; to become a materialized specter of Hinnom
and Gehenna; to be at all times less a living offence to others than a
breathing torment to self; afraid to die, yet without hope except in death.
Once - she might
not tell the day or the year, for down in the haunted hell even time was lost -
once the mother felt a dry scurf in the palm of her right hand, a trifle which
she tried to wash away. It clung to the member pertinaciously; yet she thought
but little of the sign till Tirzah complained that she, too, was attacked in the
same way. The supply of water was scant, and they denied themselves drink that
they might use it as a curative. At length the whole hand was attacked; the
skin cracked open, the fingernails loosened from the flesh. There was not much
pain withal, chiefly a steadily increasing discomfort. Later their lips began
to parch and seam. One day the mother, who was cleanly to godliness, and
struggled against the impurities of the dungeon with all ingenuity, thinking
the enemy was taking hold on Tirzah's face, led her to the light, and, looking
with the inspiration of a terrible dread, lo! the young girl's eyebrows were
white as snow.
Oh, the anguish
of that assurance!
The mother sat
awhile speechless, motionless, paralyzed of soul, and capable of but one
thought - leprosy, leprosy!
When she began to
think, mother-like, it was not of herself, but her child, and, mother-like, her
natural tenderness turned to courage, and she made ready for the last sacrifice
of perfect heroism. She buried her knowledge in her heart; hopeless herself,
she redoubled her devotion to Tirzah, and with wonderful ingenuity - wonderful
chiefly in its very inexhaustibility - continued to keep the daughter ignorant
of what they were beset with, and even hopeful that it was nothing. She repeated
her little games, and retold her stories, and invented new ones, and listened
with ever so much pleasure to the songs she would have from Tirzah, while on
her own wasting lips the psalms of the singing king and their race served to
bring soothing of forgetfulness, and keep alive in them both the recollection
of the God who would seem to have abandoned them - the world not more lightly
or utterly.
Slowly, steadily,
with horrible certainty, the disease spread, after a while bleaching their
heads white, eating holes in their lips and eyelids, and covering their bodies
with scales; then it fell to their throats shrilling their voices, and to their
joints, hardening the tissues and cartilages - slowly, and, as the mother well
knew, past remedy, it was affecting their lungs and arteries and bones, at each
advance making the sufferers more and more loathsome; and so it would continue
till death, which might be years before them.
Another day of
dread at length came - the day the mother, under impulsion of duty, at last
told Tirzah the name of their ailment; and the two, in agony of despair, prayed
that the end might come quickly.
Still, as is the
force of habit, these so afflicted grew in time not merely to speak composedly
of their disease; they beheld the hideous transformation of their persons as of
course, and in despite clung to existence. One tie to earth remained to them;
unmindful of their own loneliness, they kept up a certain spirit by talking and
dreaming of Ben-Hur. The mother promised reunion with him to the sister, and
she to the mother, not doubting, either of them, that he was equally faithful
to them, and would be equally happy of the meeting. And with the spinning and
respinning of this slender thread they found pleasure, and excused their not
dying. In such manner as we have seen, they were solacing themselves the moment
Gesius called them, at the end of twelve hours' fasting and thirst.
The torches
flashed redly through the dungeon, and liberty was come. "God is
good," the widow cried - not for what had been, O reader, but for what
was. In thankfulness for present mercy, nothing so becomes us as losing sight
of past ills.
The tribune came
directly; then in the corner to which she had fled, suddenly a sense of duty
smote the elder of the women, and straightway the awful warning -
"Unclean,
unclean!"
Ah, the pang the
effort to acquit herself of that duty cost the mother! Not all the selfishness
of joy over the prospect could keep her blind to the consequences of release,
now that it was at hand. The old happy life could never be again. If she went
near the house called home, it would be to stop at the gate and cry,
"Unclean, unclean!" She must go about with the yearnings of love
alive in her breast strong as ever, and more sensitive even, because return in
kind could not be. The boy of whom she had so constantly thought, and with all
sweet promises such as mothers find their purest delight in, must, at meeting
her, stand afar off. If he held out his hands to her, and called "Mother,
mother," for very love of him she must answer, "Unclean,
unclean!" And this other child, before whom, in want of other covering,
she was spreading her long tangled locks, bleached unnaturally white - ah! that
she was she must continue, sole partner of her blasted remainder of life. Yet,
O reader, the brave woman accepted the lot, and took up the cry which had been
its sign immemorially, and which thenceforward was to be her salutation without
change -”Unclean, unclean!"
The tribune heard
it with a tremor, but kept his place.
"Who are
you?" he asked.
"Two women
dying of hunger and thirst. Yet" - the mother did not falter -”come not
near us, nor touch the floor or the wall. Unclean, unclean!"
"Give me thy
story, woman - thy name, and when thou wert put here, and by whom, and for
what."
"There was
once in this city of Jerusalem a Prince Ben-Hur, the friend of all generous
Romans, and who had Caesar for his friend. I am his widow, and this one with me
is his child. How may I tell you for what we were sunk here, when I do not
know, unless it was because we were rich? Valerius Gratus can tell you who our
enemy was, and when our imprisonment began. I cannot. See to what we have been
reduced - oh, see, and have pity!"
The air was heavy
with the pest and the smoke of the torches, yet the Roman called one of the
torch-bearers to his side, and wrote the answer nearly word for word. It was
terse, and comprehensive, containing at once a history, an accusation, and a
prayer. No common person could have made it, and he could not but pity and
believe.
"Thou shalt
have relief, woman," he said, closing the tablets. "I will send thee
food and drink."
"And
raiment, and purifying water, we pray you, O generous Roman!"
"As thou
wilt," he replied.
"God is
good," said the widow, sobbing. "May his peace abide with you!"
"And,
further," he added, "I cannot see thee again. Make preparation, and
to-night I will have thee taken to the gate of the Tower, and set free. Thou
knowest the law. Farewell."
He spoke to the
men, and went out the door.
Very shortly some
slaves came to the cell with a large gurglet of water, a basin and napkins, a
platter with bread and meat, and some garments of women's wear; and, setting
them down within reach of the prisoners, they ran away.
About the middle
of the first watch, the two were conducted to the gate, and turned into the
street. So the Roman quit himself of them, and in the city of their fathers
they were once more free.
Up to the stars,
twinkling merrily as of old, they looked; then they asked themselves,
"What next?
and where to?"
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