CHAPTER V
Ben-Hur pitched
two tents out on the Upper Cedron east a short space of the Tombs of the Kings,
and furnished them with every comfort at his command; and thither, without loss
of time, he conducted his mother and sister, to remain until the examining
priest could certify their perfect cleansing.
In course of the
duty, the young man had subjected himself to such serious defilement as to
debar him from participation in the ceremonies of the great feast, then near at
hand. He could not enter the least sacred of the courts of the Temple. Of
necessity, not less than choice, therefore, he stayed at the tents with his
beloved people. There was a great deal to hear from them, and a great deal to
tell them of himself.
Stories such as
theirs - sad experiences extending through a lapse of years, sufferings of
body, acuter sufferings of mind - are usually long in the telling, the
incidents seldom following each other in threaded connection. He listened to
the narrative and all they told him, with outward patience masking inward
feeling. In fact, his hatred of Rome and Romans reached a higher mark than
ever; his desire for vengeance became a thirst which attempts at reflection
only intensified. In the almost savage bitterness of his humor many mad
impulses took hold of him. The opportunities of the highways presented
themselves with singular force of temptation; he thought seriously of
insurrection in Galilee; even the sea, ordinarily a retrospective horror to
him, stretched itself map-like before his fancy, laced and interlaced with
lines of passage crowded with imperial plunder and imperial travellers; but the
better judgment matured in calmer hours was happily too firmly fixed to be
supplanted by present passion however strong. Each mental venture in reach of
new expedients brought him back to the old conclusion - that there could be no
sound success except in a war involving all Israel in solid union; and all
musing upon the subject, all inquiry, all hope, ended where they began - in the
Nazarene and his purposes.
At odd moments
the excited schemer found a pleasure in fashioning a speech for that person:
"Hear, O
Israel! I am he, the promised of God, born King of the Jews - come to you with
the dominion spoken of by the prophets. Rise now, and lay hold on the
world!"
Would the
Nazarene but speak these few words, what a tumult would follow! How many mouths
performing the office of trumpets would take them up and blow them abroad for
the massing of armies!
Would he speak
them?
And eager to
begin the work, and answering in the worldly way, Ben-Hur lost sight of the
double nature of the man, and of the other possibility, that the divine in him
might transcend the human. In the miracle of which Tirzah and his mother were
the witnesses even more nearly than himself, he saw and set apart and dwelt
upon a power ample enough to raise and support a Jewish crown over the wrecks
of the Italian, and more than ample to remodel society, and convert mankind
into one purified happy family; and when that work was done, could any one say
the peace which might then be ordered without hindrance was not a mission
worthy a son of God? Could any one then deny the Redeemership of the Christ?
And discarding all consideration of political consequences, what unspeakable
personal glory there would then be to him as a man? It was not in the nature of
any mere mortal to refuse such a career.
Meantime down the
Cedron, and in towards Bezetha, especially on the roadsides quite up to the
Damascus Gate, the country filled rapidly with all kinds of temporary shelters
for pilgrims to the Passover. Ben-Hur visited the strangers, and talked with
them; and returning to his tents, he was each time more and more astonished at
the vastness of their numbers. And when he further discovered that every part
of the world was represented among them - cities upon both shores of the
Mediterranean far off as the Pillars of the West, river-towns in distant India,
provinces in northernmost Europe; and that, though they frequently saluted him
with tongues unacquainted with a syllable of the old Hebrew of the fathers, these
representatives had all the same object - celebration of the notable feast - an
idea tinged mistily with superstitious fancy forced itself upon him. Might he
not after all have misunderstood the Nazarene? Might not that person by patient
waiting be covering silent preparation, and proving his fitness for the
glorious task before him? How much better this time for the movement than that
other when, by Gennesaret, the Galileans would have forced assumption of the
crown? Then the support would have been limited to a few thousands; now his
proclamation would be responded to by millions - who could say how many?
Pursuing this theory to its conclusions, Ben-Hur moved amidst brilliant
promises, and glowed with the thought that the melancholy man, under gentle seeming
and wondrous self-denial, was in fact carrying in disguise the subtlety of a
politician and the genius of a soldier.
Several times
also, in the meanwhile, low-set, brawny men, bareheaded and black-bearded, came
and asked for Ben-Hur at the tent; his interviews with them were always apart;
and to his mother's question who they were he answered,
"Some good
friends of mine from Galilee."
Through them he
kept informed of the movements of the Nazarene, and of the schemes of the
Nazarene's enemies, Rabbinical and Roman. That the good man's life was in
danger, he knew; but that there were any bold enough to attempt to take it at
that time, he could not believe. It seemed too securely intrenched in a great
fame and an assured popularity. The very vastness of the attendance in and
about the city brought with it a seeming guaranty of safety. And yet, to say
truth, Ben-Hur's confidence rested most certainly upon the miraculous power of
the Christ. Pondering the subject in the purely human view, that the master of
such authority over life and death, used so frequently for the good of others,
would not exert it in care of himself was simply as much past belief as it was
past understanding.
Nor should it be
forgotten that all these were incidents of occurrence between the twenty-first
day of March - counting by the modern calendar - and the twenty-fifth. The
evening of the latter day Ben-Hur yielded to his impatience, and rode to the
city, leaving behind him a promise to return in the night.
The horse was
fresh, and choosing his own gait, sped swiftly. The eyes of the clambering
vines winked at the rider from the garden fences on the way; there was nothing
else to see him, nor child nor woman nor man. Through the rocky float in the
hollows of the road the agate hoofs drummed, ringing like cups of steel; but
without notice from any stranger. In the houses passed there were no tenants;
the fires by the tent-doors were out; the road was deserted; for this was the
first Passover eve, and the hour "between the evenings" when the
visiting millions crowded the city, and the slaughter of lambs in offering
reeked the fore-courts of the Temple, and the priests in ordered lines caught
the flowing blood and carried it swiftly to the dripping altars - when all was
haste and hurry, racing with the stars fast coming with the signal after which
the roasting and the eating and the singing might go on, but not the
preparation more.
Through the great
northern gate the rider rode, and lo! Jerusalem before the fall, in ripeness of
glory, illuminated for the Lord.
CHAPTER VI
Ben-Hur alighted
at the gate of the khan from which the three Wise Men more than thirty years
before departed, going down to Bethlehem. There, in keeping of his Arab
followers, he left the horse, and shortly after was at the wicket of his
father's house, and in a yet briefer space in the great chamber. He called for
Malluch first; that worthy being out, he sent a salutation to his friends the
merchant and the Egyptian. They were being carried abroad to see the celebration.
The latter, he was informed, was very feeble, and in a state of deep dejection.
Young people of
that time who were supposed hardly to know their own hearts indulged the habit
of politic indirection quite as much as young people in the same condition
indulge it in this time; so when Ben-Hur inquired for the good Balthasar, and
with grave courtesy desired to know if he would be pleased to see him, he
really addressed the daughter a notice of his arrival. While the servant was
answering for the elder, the curtain of the doorway was drawn aside, and the
younger Egyptian came in, and walked - or floated, upborne in a white cloud of
the gauzy raiment she so loved and lived in - to the centre of the chamber,
where the light cast by lamps from the seven-armed brazen stick planted upon
the floor was the strongest. With her there was no fear of light.
The servant left
the two alone.
In the excitement
occasioned by the events of the few days past Ben-Hur had scarcely given a
thought to the fair Egyptian. If she came to his mind at all, it was merely as
a briefest pleasure, a suggestion of a delight which could wait for him, and
was waiting.
But now the
influence of the woman revived with all its force the instant Ben-Hur beheld
her. He advanced to her eagerly, but stopped and gazed. Such a change he had
never seen!
Theretofore she
had been a lover studious to win him - in manner all warmth, each glance an
admission, each action an avowal. She had showered him with incense of
flattery. While he was present, she had impressed him with her admiration;
going away, he carried the impression with him to remain a delicious expectancy
hastening his return. It was for him the painted eyelids drooped lowest over
the lustrous almond eyes; for him the love-stories caught from the
professionals abounding in the streets of Alexandria were repeated with
emphasis and lavishment of poetry; for him endless exclamations of sympathy,
and smiles, and little privileges with hand and hair and cheek and lips, and
songs of the Nile, and displays of jewelry, and subtleties of lace in veils and
scarfs, and other subtleties not less exquisite in flosses of Indian silk. The
idea, old as the oldest of peoples, that beauty is the reward of the hero had
never such realism as she contrived for his pleasure; insomuch that he could
not doubt he was her hero; she avouched it in a thousand artful ways as natural
with her as her beauty - winsome ways reserved, it would seem, by the
passionate genius of old Egypt for its daughters.
Such the Egyptian
had been to Ben-Hur from the night of the boat-ride on the lake in the Orchard
of Palms. But now!
Elsewhere in this
volume the reader may have observed a term of somewhat indefinite meaning used
reverently in a sacred connection; we repeat it now with a general application.
There are few persons who have not a double nature, the real and the acquired; the
latter a kind of addendum resulting from education, which in time often
perfects it into a part of the being as unquestionable as the first. Leaving
the thought to the thoughtful, we proceed to say that now the real nature of
the Egyptian made itself manifest.
It was not
possible for her to have received a stranger with repulsion more incisive; yet
she was apparently as passionless as a statue, only the small head was a little
tilted, the nostrils a little drawn, and the sensuous lower lip pushed the upper
the least bit out of its natural curvature.
She was the first
to speak.
"Your coming
is timely, O son of Hur," she said, in a voice sharply distinct. "I
wish to thank you for hospitality; after to-morrow I may not have the
opportunity to do so."
Ben-Hur bowed
slightly without taking his eyes from her.
"I have
heard of a custom which the dice-players observe with good result among
themselves," she continued. "When the game is over, they refer to
their tablets and cast up their accounts; then they libate the gods and put a
crown upon the happy winner. We have had a game - it has lasted through many
days and nights. Why, now that it is at an end, shall not we see to which the
chaplet belongs?"
Yet very
watchful, Ben-Hur answered, lightly, "A man may not balk a woman bent on
having her way."
"Tell
me," she continued, inclining her head, and permitting the sneer to become
positive -”tell me, O prince of Jerusalem, where is he, that son of the
carpenter of Nazareth, and son not less of God, from whom so lately such mighty
things were expected?"
He waved his hand
impatiently, and replied, "I am not his keeper."
The beautiful
head sank forward yet lower.
"Has he
broken Rome to pieces?"
Again, but with
anger, Ben-Hur raised his hand in deprecation.
"Where has
he seated his capital?" she proceeded. "Cannot I go see his 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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.
"You had
once a friend," she continued. "It was in your boyhood. There was a
quarrel, and you and he became enemies. He did you wrong. After many years you
met him again in the Circus at Antioch."
"Messala!"
"Yes,
Messala. You are his creditor. Forgive the past; admit him to friendship again;
restore the fortune he lost in the great wager; rescue him. The six talents are
as nothing to you; not so much as a bud lost upon a tree already in full leaf;
but to him - Ah, he must go about with a
broken body; wherever you meet him he must look up to you from the ground. O
Ben-Hur, noble prince! to a Roman descended as he is beggary is the other most
odious name for death. Save him from beggary!"
If the rapidity with
which she spoke was a cunning invention to keep him from thinking, either she
never knew or else had forgotten that there are convictions which derive
nothing from thought, but drop into place without leave or notice. It seemed to
him, when at last she paused to have his answer, that he could see Messala
himself peering at him over her shoulder; and in its expression the countenance
of the Roman was not that of a mendicant or a friend; the sneer was as
patrician as ever, and the fine edge of the hauteur as flawless and irritating.
"The appeal
has been decided then, and for once a Messala takes nothing. I must go and
write it in my book of great occurrences - a judgment by a Roman against a
Roman! But did he - did Messala send you to me with this request, O
Egypt?"
"He has a
noble nature, and judged you by it."
Ben-Hur took the
hand upon arm.
"As you know
him in such friendly way, fair Egyptian, tell me, would he do for me, there
being a reversal of the conditions, that he asks of me? Answer, by Isis!
Answer, for the truth's sake!"
There was
insistence in the touch of his hand, and in his look also.
"Oh!"
she began, "he is -”
"A Roman,
you were about to say; meaning that I, a Jew, must not determine dues from me
to him by any measure of dues from him to me; being a Jew, I must forgive him
my winnings because he is a Roman. If you have more to tell me, daughter of
Balthasar, speak quickly, quickly; for by the Lord God of Israel, when this
heat of blood, hotter waxing, attains its highest, I may not be able longer to
see that you are a woman, and beautiful! I may see but the spy of a master the
more hateful because the master is a Roman. Say on, and quickly."
She threw his
hand off and stepped back into the full light, with all the evil of her nature
collected in her eyes and voice.
"Thou
drinker of lees, feeder upon husks! To think I could love thee, having seen
Messala! Such as thou were born to serve him. He would have been satisfied with
release of the six talents; but I say to the six thou shalt add twenty -
twenty, dost thou hear? The kissings of my little finger which thou hast taken
from him, though with my consent, shall be paid for; and that I have followed
thee with affection of sympathy, and endured thee so long, enter into the
account not less because I was serving him. The merchant here is thy keeper of
moneys. If by to-morrow at noon he has not thy order acted upon in favor of my
Messala for six-and-twenty talents - mark the sum! - thou shalt settle with the
Lord Sejanus. Be wise and - farewell."
As she was going
to the door, he put himself in her way.
"The old
Egypt lives in you," he said. "Whether you see Messala to-morrow or
the next day, here or in Rome, give him this message. Tell him I have back the
money, even the six talents, he robbed me of by robbing my father's estate;
tell him I survived the galleys to which he had me sent, and in my strength
rejoice in his beggary and dishonor; tell him I think the affliction of body
which he has from my hand is the curse of our Lord God of Israel upon him more
fit than death for his crimes against the helpless; tell him my mother and
sister whom he had sent to a cell in Antonia that they might die of leprosy,
are alive and well, thanks to the power of the Nazarene whom you so despise;
tell him that, to fill my measure of happiness, they are restored to me, and
that I will go hence to their love, and find in it more than compensation for
the impure passions which you leave me to take to him; tell him - this for your
comfort, O cunning incarnate, as much as his - tell him that when the Lord
Sejanus comes to despoil me he will find nothing; for the inheritance I had
from the duumvir, including the villa by Misenum, has been sold, and the money
from the sale is out of reach, afloat in the marts of the world as bills of
exchange; and that this house and the goods and merchandise and the ships and
caravans with which Simonides plies his commerce with such princely profits are
covered by imperial safeguards - a wise head having found the price of the favor,
and the Lord Sejanus preferring a reasonable gain in the way of gift to much
gain fished from pools of blood and wrong; tell him if all this were not so, if
the money and property were all mine, yet should he not have the least part of
it, for when he finds our Jewish bills, and forces them to give up their
values, there is yet another resort left me - a deed of gift to Caesar - so
much, O Egypt, I found out in the atria of the great capital; tell him that
along with my defiance I do not send him a curse in words, but, as a better
expression of my undying hate, I send him one who will prove to him the sum of
all curses; and when he looks at you repeating this my message, daughter of
Balthasar, his Roman shrewdness will tell him all I mean. Go now - and I will
go."
He conducted her
to the door, and, with ceremonious politeness, held back the curtain while she
passed out.
"Peace to
you," he said, as she disappeared.
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