CHAPTER V
The third day of
the journey the party nooned by the river Jabbok, where there were a hundred or
more men, mostly of Peraea, resting themselves and their beasts. Hardly had
they dismounted, before a man came to them with a pitcher of water and a bowl,
and offered them drink; as they received the attention with much courtesy, he
said, looking at the camel, "I am returning from the Jordan, where just
now there are many people from distant parts, travelling as you are,
illustrious friend; but they had none of them the equal of your servant here. A
very noble animal. May I ask of what breed he is sprung?"
Balthasar
answered, and sought his rest; but Ben-Hur, more curious, took up the remark.
"At what
place on the river are the people?" he asked.
"At
Bethabara."
"It used to
be a lonesome ford," said Ben-Hur. "I cannot understand how it can
have become of such interest."
"I
see," the stranger replied; "you, too, are from abroad, and have not
heard the good tidings."
"What
tidings?"
"Well, a man
has appeared out of the wilderness - a very holy man - with his mouth full of
strange words, which take hold of all who hear them. He calls himself John the
Nazarite, son of Zacharias, and says he is the messenger sent before the
Messiah."
Even Iras
listened closely while the man continued:
"They say of
this John that he has spent his life from childhood in a cave down by En-Gedi,
praying and living more strictly than the Essenes. Crowds go to hear him
preach. I went to hear him with the rest."
"Have all
these, your friends, been there?"
"Most of
them are going; a few are coming away."
"What does
he preach?"
"A new
doctrine - one never before taught in Israel, as all say. He calls it
repentance and baptism. The rabbis do not know what to make of him; nor do we.
Some have asked him if he is the Christ, others if he is Elias; but to them all
he has the answer, 'I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make
straight the way of the Lord!'"
At this point the
man was called away by his friends; as he was going, Balthasar spoke.
"Good
stranger!" he said, tremulously, "tell us if we shall find the
preacher at the place you left him."
"Yes, at
Bethabara."
"Who should
this Nazarite be?" said Ben-Hur to Iras, "if not the herald of our
King?"
In so short a
time he had come to regard the daughter as more interested in the mysterious
personage he was looking for than the aged father! Nevertheless, the latter
with a positive glow in his sunken eyes half arose, and said,
"Let us make
haste. I am not tired."
They turned away
to help the slave.
There was little
conversation between the three at the stopping-place for the night west of
Ramoth-Gilead.
"Let us
arise early, son of Hur," said the old man. "The Saviour may come,
and we not there."
"The King
cannot be far behind his herald," Iras whispered, as she prepared to take
her place on the camel.
"To-morrow
we will see!" Ben-Hur replied, kissing her hand.
Next day about
the third hour, out of the pass through which, skirting the base of Mount
Gilead, they had journeyed since leaving Ramoth, the party came upon the barren
steppe east of the sacred river. Opposite them they saw the upper limit of the
old palm lands of Jericho, stretching off to the hill-country of Judea.
Ben-Hur's blood ran quickly, for he knew the ford was close at hand.
"Content
you, good Balthasar," he said; "we are almost there."
The driver
quickened the camel's pace. Soon they caught sight of booths and tents and
tethered animals; and then of the river, and a multitude collected down close
by the bank, and yet another multitude on the western shore. Knowing that the
preacher was preaching, they made greater haste; yet, as they were drawing
near, suddenly there was a commotion in the mass, and it began to break up and
disperse.
They were too
late!
"Let us stay
here," said Ben-Hur to Balthasar, who was wringing his hands. "The
Nazarite may come this way."
The people were
too intent upon what they had heard, and too busy in discussion, to notice the
new-comers. When some hundreds were gone by, and it seemed the opportunity to
so much as see the Nazarite was lost to the latter, up the river not far away
they beheld a person coming towards them of such singular appearance they
forgot all else.
Outwardly the man
was rude and uncouth, even savage. Over a thin, gaunt visage of the hue of
brown parchment, over his shoulders and down his back below the middle, in
witch-like locks, fell a covering of sun-scorched hair. His eyes were
burning-bright. All his right side was naked, and of the color of his face, and
quite as meagre; a shirt of the coarsest camel's-hair - coarse as Bedouin
tent-cloth - clothed the rest of his person to the knees, being gathered at the
waist by a broad girdle of untanned leather. His feet were bare. A scrip, also
of untanned leather, was fastened to the girdle. He used a knotted staff to
help him forward. His movement was quick, decided, and strangely watchful. Every
little while he tossed the unruly hair from his eyes, and peered round as if
searching for somebody.
The fair Egyptian
surveyed the son of the Desert with surprise, not to say disgust. Presently,
raising the curtain of the houdah, she spoke to Ben-Hur, who sat his horse near
by.
"Is that the
herald of thy King?"
"It is the
Nazarite," he replied, without looking up.
In truth, he was
himself more than disappointed. Despite his familiarity with the ascetic
colonists in En-Gedi - their dress, their indifference to all worldly opinion,
their constancy to vows which gave them over to every imaginable suffering of
body, and separated them from others of their kind as absolutely as if they had
not been born like them - and notwithstanding he had been notified on the way
to look for a Nazarite whose simple description of himself was a Voice from the
Wilderness - still Ben-Hur's dream of the King who was to be so great and do so
much had colored all his thought of him, so that he never doubted to find in the
forerunner some sign or token of the goodliness and royalty he was announcing.
Gazing at the savage figure before him, the long trains of courtiers whom he
had been used to see in the thermae and imperial corridors at Rome arose before
him, forcing a comparison. Shocked, shamed, bewildered, he could only answer,
"It is the
Nazarite."
With Balthasar it
was very different. The ways of God, he knew, were not as men would have them.
He had seen the Saviour a child in a manger, and was prepared by his faith for
the rude and simple in connection with the Divine reappearance. So he kept his
seat, his hands crossed upon his breast, his lips moving in prayer. He was not
expecting a king.
In this time of
such interest to the new-comers, and in which they were so differently moved,
another man had been sitting by himself on a stone at the edge of the river,
thinking yet, probably, of the sermon he had been hearing. Now, however, he
arose, and walked slowly up from the shore, in a course to take him across the
line the Nazarite was pursuing and bring him near the camel.
And the two - the
preacher and the stranger - kept on until they came, the former within twenty
yards of the animal, the latter within ten feet. Then the preacher stopped, and
flung the hair from his eyes, looked at the stranger, threw his hands up as a
signal to all the people in sight; and they also stopped, each in the pose of a
listener; and when the hush was perfect, slowly the staff in the Nazarite's
right hand came down and pointed to the stranger.
All those who
before were but listeners became watchers also.
At the same
instant, under the same impulse, Balthasar and Ben-Hur fixed their gaze upon
the man pointed out, and both took the same impression, only in different
degree. He was moving slowly towards them in a clear space a little to their
front, a form slightly above the average in stature, and slender, even
delicate. His action was calm and deliberate, like that habitual to men much
given to serious thought upon grave subjects; and it well became his costume,
which was an undergarment full-sleeved and reaching to the ankles, and an outer
robe called the talith; on his left arm he carried the usual handkerchief for
the head, the red fillet swinging loose down his side. Except the fillet and a
narrow border of blue at the lower edge of the talith, his attire was of linen
yellowed with dust and road stains. Possibly the exception should be extended
to the tassels, which were blue and white, as prescribed by law for rabbis. His
sandals were of the simplest kind. He was without scrip or girdle or staff.
These points of
appearance, however, the three beholders observed briefly, and rather as
accessories to the head and face of the man, which - especially the latter -
were the real sources of the spell they caught in common with all who stood
looking at him.
The head was open
to the cloudless light, except as it was draped with hair long and slightly
waved, and parted in the middle, and auburn in tint, with a tendency to reddish
golden where most strongly touched by the sun. Under a broad, low forehead,
under black well arched brows, beamed eyes dark-blue and large, and softened to
exceeding tenderness by lashes of the great length sometimes seen on children,
but seldom, if ever, on men. As to the other features, it would have been
difficult to decide whether they were Greek or Jewish. The delicacy of the
nostrils and mouth was unusual to the latter type; and when it was taken into
account with the gentleness of the eyes, the pallor of the complexion, the fine
texture of the hair, and the softness of the beard, which fell in waves over
his throat to his breast, never a soldier but would have laughed at him in
encounter, never a woman who would not have confided in him at sight, never a
child that would not, with quick instinct, have given him its hand and whole
artless trust; nor might any one have said he was not beautiful.
The features, it
should be further said, were ruled by a certain expression which, as the viewer
chose, might with equal correctness have been called the effect of
intelligence, love, pity, or sorrow; though, in better speech, it was a
blending of them all - a look easy to fancy as the mark of a sinless soul
doomed to the sight and understanding of the utter sinfulness of those among
whom it was passing; yet withal no one could have observed the face with a
thought of weakness in the man; so, at least, would not they who know that the
qualities mentioned - love, sorrow, pity - are the results of a consciousness
of strength to bear suffering oftener than strength to do; such has been the
might of martyrs and devotees and the myriads written down in saintly
calendars. And such, indeed, was the air of this one.
Slowly he drew
near - nearer the three.
Now Ben-Hur,
mounted and spear in hand, was an object to claim the glance of a king; yet the
eyes of the man approaching were all the time raised above him - and not to
Iras, whose loveliness has been so often remarked, but to Balthasar, the old
and unserviceable.
The hush was
profound.
Presently the
Nazarite, still pointing with his staff, cried, in a loud voice,
"Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!"
The many standing
still, arrested by the action of the speaker, and listening for what might
follow, were struck with awe by words so strange and past their understanding;
upon Balthasar they were overpowering. He was there to see once more the
Redeemer of men. The faith which had brought him the singular privileges of the
time long gone abode yet in his heart; and if now it gave him a power of vision
above that of his fellows - a power to see and know him for whom he was looking
- better than calling the power a miracle, let it be thought of as the faculty
of a soul not yet entirely released from the divine relations to which it had
been formerly admitted, or as the fitting reward of a life in that age so
without examples of holiness - a life itself a miracle. The ideal of his faith
was before him, perfect in face, form, dress, action, age; and he was in its view,
and the view was recognition. Ah, now if something should happen to identify
the stranger beyond all doubt!
And that was what
did happen.
Exactly at the
fitting moment, as if to assure the trembling Egyptian, the Nazarite repeated
the outcry,
"Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!"
Balthasar fell
upon his knees. For him there was no need of explanation; and as if the
Nazarite knew it, he turned to those more immediately about him staring in
wonder, and continued:
"This is he
of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was
before me. And I knew him not: but that he should be manifest to Israel,
therefore am I come baptizing with water. I saw the Spirit descending from
heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent
me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the
Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the
Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record, that this" - he paused, his staff
still pointing at the stranger in the white garments, as if to give a more
absolute certainty to both his words and the conclusions intended -”I bare
record, THAT THIS IS THE SON OF GOD!"
"It is he,
it is he!" Balthasar cried, with upraised tearful eyes. Next moment he
sank down insensible.
In this time, it
should be remembered, Ben-Hur was studying the face of the stranger, though
with an interest entirely different. He was not insensible to its purity of
feature, and its thoughtfulness, tenderness, humility, and holiness; but just
then there was room in his mind for but one thought - Who is this man? And
what? Messiah or king? Never was apparition more unroyal. Nay, looking at that
calm, benignant countenance, the very idea of war and conquest, and lust of
dominion, smote him like a profanation. He said, as if speaking to his own
heart, Balthasar must be right and Simonides wrong. This man has not come to
rebuild the throne of Solomon; he has neither the nature nor the genius of
Herod; king he may be, but not of another and greater than Rome.
It should be
understood now that this was not a conclusion with Ben-Hur, but an impression
merely; and while it was forming, while yet he gazed at the wonderful
countenance, his memory began to throe and struggle. "Surely," he
said to himself, "I have seen the man; but where and when?" That the
look, so calm, so pitiful, so loving, had somewhere in a past time beamed upon
him as that moment it was beaming upon Balthasar became an assurance. Faintly
at first, at last a clear light, a burst of sunshine, the scene by the well at
Nazareth what time the Roman guard was dragging him to the galleys returned,
and all his being thrilled. Those hands had helped him when he was perishing.
The face was one of the pictures he had carried in mind ever since. In the
effusion of feeling excited, the explanation of the preacher was lost by him,
all but the last words - words so marvellous that the world yet rings with
them:
"- this is
the SON OF GOD!"
Ben-Hur leaped
from his horse to render homage to his benefactor; but Iras cried to him,
"Help, son of Hur, help, or my father will die!"
He stopped,
looked back, then hurried to her assistance. She gave him a cup; and leaving
the slave to bring the camel to its knees, he ran to the river for water. The
stranger was gone when he came back.
At last Balthasar
was restored to consciousness. Stretching forth his hands, he asked, feebly,
"Where is he?"
"Who?"
asked Iras.
An intense
instant interest shone upon the good man's face, as if a last wish had been
gratified, and he answered,
"He - the
Redeemer - the Son of God, whom I have seen again."
"Believest
thou so?" Iras asked in a low voice of Ben-Hur.
"The time is
full of wonders; let us wait," was all he said.
And next day
while the three were listening to him, the Nazarite broke off in mid-speech,
saying reverently, "Behold the Lamb of God!"
Looking to where
he pointed, they beheld the stranger again. As Ben-Hur surveyed the slender
figure, and holy beautiful countenance compassionate to sadness, a new idea
broke upon him.
"Balthasar
is right - so is Simonides. May not the Redeemer be a king also?"
And he asked one
at his side, "Who is the man walking yonder?"
The other laughed
mockingly, and replied,
"He is the
son of a carpenter over in Nazareth."
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