Ben Hur

by Lew Wallace

  "The sum lies there the measure of what I dare. Who of you dares so much! You are silent. Is it too great? I will strike off one talent. What! still silent? Come, then, throw me once for these three talents—only three; for two; for one—one at least—one for the honor of the river by which you were born—Rome East against Rome West!—Orontes the barbarous against Tiber the sacred!"

  He rattled the dice overhead while waiting.

  "The Orontes against the Tiber!" he repeated, with an increase of scornful emphasis.

  Not a man moved; then he flung the box upon the table and, laughing, took up the receipts.

  "Ha, ha, ha! By the Olympian Jove, I know now ye have fortunes to make or to mend; therefore are ye come to Antioch. Ho, Cecilius!"

  "Here, Messala!" cried a man behind him; "here am I, perishing in the mob, and begging a drachma to settle with the ragged ferryman. But, Pluto take me! these new ones have not so much as an obolus among them."

  The sally provoked a burst of laughter, under which the saloon rang and rang again. Messala alone kept his gravity.

  "Go, thou," he said to Cecilius, "to the chamber whence we came, and bid the servants bring the amphorae here, and the cups and goblets. If these our countrymen, looking for fortune, have not purses, by the Syrian Bacchus, I will see if they are not better blessed with stomachs! Haste thee!"

  Then he turned to Drusus, with a laugh heard throughout the apartment.

  "Ha, ha, my friend! Be thou not offended because I levelled the Caesar in thee down to the denarii. Thou seest I did but use the name to try these fine fledglings of our old Rome. Come, my Drusus, come!" He took up the box again and rattled the dice merrily. "Here, for what sum thou wilt, let us measure fortunes."

  The manner was frank, cordial, winsome. Drusus melted in a moment.

  "By the Nymphae, yes!" he said, laughing. "I will throw with thee, Messala—for a denarius."

  A very boyish person was looking over the table watching the scene. Suddenly Messala turned to him.

  "Who art thou?" he asked.

  The lad drew back.

  "Nay, by Castor! and his brother too! I meant not offence. It is a rule among men, in matters other than dice, to keep the record closest when the deal is least. I have need of a clerk. Wilt thou serve me?"

  The young fellow drew his tablets ready to keep the score: the manner was irresistible.

  "Hold, Messala, hold!" cried Drusus. "I know not if it be ominous to stay the poised dice with a question; but one occurs to me, and I must ask it though Venus slap me with her girdle."

  "Nay, my Drusus, Venus with her girdle off is Venus in love. To thy question—I will make the throw and hold it against mischance. Thus—"

  He turned the box upon the table and held it firmly over the dice.

  And Drusus asked, "Did you ever see one Quintus Arrius?"

  "The duumvir?"

  "No—his son?"

  "I knew not he had a son."

  "Well, it is nothing," Drusus added, indifferently; "only, my Messala, Pollux was not more like Castor than Arrius is like thee."

  The remark had the effect of a signal: twenty voices took it up.

  "True, true! His eyes—his face," they cried.

  "What!" answered one, disgusted. "Messala is a Roman; Arrius is a Jew."

  "Thou sayest right," a third exclaimed. "He is a Jew, or Momus lent his mother the wrong mask."

  There was promise of a dispute; seeing which, Messala interposed. "The wine is not come, my Drusus; and, as thou seest, I have the freckled Pythias as they were dogs in leash. As to Arrius, I will accept thy opinion of him, so thou tell me more about him."

  "Well, be he Jew or Roman—and, by the great god Pan, I say it not in disrespect of thy feelings, my Messala!—this Arrius is handsome and brave and shrewd. The emperor offered him favor and patronage, which he refused. He came up through mystery, and keepeth distance as if he felt himself better or knew himself worse than the rest of us. In the palaestrae he was unmatched; he played with the blue-eyed giants from the Rhine and the hornless bulls of Sarmatia as they were willow wisps. The duumvir left him vastly rich. He has a passion for arms, and thinks of nothing but war. Maxentius admitted him into his family, and he was to have taken ship with us, but we lost him at Ravenna. Nevertheless he arrived safely. We heard of him this morning. Perpol! Instead of coming to the palace or going to the citadel, he dropped his baggage at the khan, and hath disappeared again."

  At the beginning of the speech Messala listened with polite indifference; as it proceeded, he became more attentive; at the conclusion, he took his hand from the dice-box, and called out, "Ho, my Caius! Dost thou hear?"

  A youth at his elbow—his Myrtilus, or comrade, in the day's chariot practice—answered, much pleased with the attention, "Did I not, my Messala, I were not thy friend."

  "Dost thou remember the man who gave thee the fall to-day?"

  "By the love-locks of Bacchus, have I not a bruised shoulder to help me keep it in mind?" and he seconded the words with a shrug that submerged his ears.

  "Well, be thou grateful to the Fates—I have found thy enemy. Listen."

  Thereupon Messala turned to Drusus.

  "Tell us more of him—perpol!—of him who is both Jew and Roman— by Phoebus, a combination to make a Centaur lovely! What garments cloth he affect, my Drusus?"

  "Those of the Jews."

  "Hearest thou, Caius?" said Messala. "The fellow is young—one; he hath the visage of a Roman—two; he loveth best the garb of a Jew—three; and in the palaestrae fame and fortune come of arms to throw a horse or tilt a chariot, as the necessity may order—four. And, Drusus, help thou my friend again. Doubtless this Arrius hath tricks of language; otherwise he could not so confound himself, to-day a Jew, to-morrow a Roman; but of the rich tongue of Athene—discourseth he in that as well?"

  "With such purity, Messala, he might have been a contestant in the Isthmia."

  "Art thou listening, Caius?" said Messala. "The fellow is qualified to salute a woman—for that matter Aristomache herself—in the Greek; and as I keep the count, that is five. What sayest thou?"

  "Thou hast found him, my Messala," Caius answered; "or I am not myself."

  "Thy pardon, Drusus—and pardon of all—for speaking in riddles thus," Messala said, in his winsome way. "By all the decent gods, I would not strain thy courtesy to the point of breaking, but now help thou me. See!"—he put his hand on the dice-box again, laughing—"See how close I hold the Pythias and their secret! Thou didst speak, I think, of mystery in connection with the coming of the son of Arrius. Tell me of that."

  "'Tis nothing, Messala, nothing," Drusus replied; "a child's story. When Arrius, the father, sailed in pursuit of the pirates, he was without wife or family; he returned with a boy—him of whom we speak—and next day adopted him."

  "Adopted him?" Messala repeated. "By the gods, Drusus, thou dost, indeed, interest me! Where did the duumvir find the boy? And who was he?"

  "Who shall answer thee that, Messala? who but the young Arrius himself? Perpol! in the fight the duumvir—then but a tribune—lost his galley. A returning vessel found him and one other—all of the crew who survived—afloat upon the same plank. I give you now the story of the rescuers, which hath this excellence at least—it hath never been contradicted. They say, the duumvir's companion on the plank was a Jew—"

  "A Jew!" echoed Messala.

  "And a slave."

  "How Drusus? A slave?"

  "When the two were lifted to the deck, the duumvir was in his tribune's armor, and the other in the vesture of a rower."

  Messala rose from leaning against the table.

  "A galley"—he checked the debasing word, and looked around, for once in his life at loss. Just then a procession of slaves filed into the room, some with great jars of wine, others with baskets of fruits and confections, others again with cups and flagons, mostly silver. There was inspiration in the sight. Instantly Messala climbed upon a stool.

  "Men of the
Tiber," he said, in a clear voice, "let us turn this waiting for our chief into a feast of Bacchus. Whom choose ye for master?"

  Drusus arose.

  "Who shall be master but the giver of the feast?" he said. "Answer, Romans."

  They gave their reply in a shout.

  Messala took the chaplet from his head, gave it to Drusus, who climbed upon the table, and, in the view of all, solemnly replaced it, making Messala master of the night.

  "There came with me into the room," he said, "some friends just risen from table. That our feast may have the approval of sacred custom, bring hither that one of them most overcome by wine."

  A din of voices answered, "Here he is, here he is!"

  And from the floor where he had fallen, a youth was brought forward, so effeminately beautiful he might have passed for the drinking-god himself—only the crown would have dropped from his head, and the thyrsus from his hand.

  "Lift him upon the table," the master said.

  It was found he could not sit.

  "Help him, Drusus, as the fair Nyone may yet help thee."

  Drusus took the inebriate in his arms.

  Then addressing the limp figure, Messala said, amidst profound silence, "O Bacchus! greatest of the gods, be thou propitious to-night. And for myself, and these thy votaries, I vow this chaplet"—and from his head he raised it reverently—"I vow this chaplet to thy altar in the Grove of Daphne."

  He bowed, replaced the crown upon his locks, then stooped and uncovered the dice, saying, with a laugh, "See, my Drusus, by the ass of Silenus, the denarius is mine!"

  There was a shout that set the floor to quaking, and the grim Atlantes to dancing, and the orgies began.

  Chapter XIII

  *

  Sheik Ilderim was a man of too much importance to go about with a small establishment. He had a reputation to keep with his tribe, such as became a prince and patriarch of the greatest following in all the Desert east of Syria; with the people of the cities he had another reputation, which was that of one of the richest personages not a king in all the East; and, being rich in fact—in money as well as in servants, camels, horses, and flocks of all kinds—he took pleasure in a certain state, which, besides magnifying his dignity with strangers, contributed to his personal pride and comfort. Wherefore the reader must not be misled by the frequent reference to his tent in the Orchard of Palms. He had there really a respectable dowar; that is to say, he had there three large tents—one for himself, one for visitors, one for his favorite wife and her women; and six or eight lesser ones, occupied by his servants and such tribal retainers as he had chosen to bring with him as a body-guard—strong men of approved courage, and skillful with bow, spear, and horses.

  To be sure, his property of whatever kind was in no danger at the Orchard; yet as the habits of a man go with him to town not less than the country, and as it is never wise to slip the bands of discipline, the interior of the dowar was devoted to his cows, camels, goats, and such property in general as might tempt a lion or a thief.

  To do him full justice, Ilderim kept well all the customs of his people, abating none, not even the smallest; in consequence his life at the Orchard was a continuation of his life in the Desert; nor that alone, it was a fair reproduction of the old patriarchal modes—the genuine pastoral life of primitive Israel.

  Recurring to the morning the caravan arrived at the Orchard—"Here, plant it here," he said, stopping his horse, and thrusting a spear into the ground. "Door to the south; the lake before it thus; and these, the children of the Desert, to sit under at the going-down of the sun."

  At the last words he went to a group of three great palm-trees, and patted one of them as he would have patted his horse's neck, or the cheek of the child of his love.

  Who but the sheik could of right say to the caravan, Halt! or of the tent, Here be it pitched? The spear was wrested from the ground, and over the wound it had riven in the sod the base of the first pillar of the tent was planted, marking the centre of the front door. Then eight others were planted—in all, three rows of pillars, three in a row. Then, at call, the women and children came, and unfolded the canvas from its packing on the camels. Who might do this but the women? Had they not sheared the hair from the brown goats of the flock? and twisted it into thread? and woven the thread into cloth? and stitched the cloth together, making the perfect roof, dark-brown in fact, though in the distance black as the tents of Kedar? And, finally, with what jests and laughter, and pulls altogether, the united following of the sheik stretched the canvas from pillar to pillar, driving the stakes and fastening the cords as they went! And when the walls of open reed matting were put in place—the finishing-touch to the building after the style of the Desert—with what hush of anxiety they waited the good man's judgment! When he walked in and out, looking at the house in connection with the sun, the trees, and the lake, and said, rubbing his hands with might of heartiness, "Well done! Make the dowar now as ye well know, and to-night we will sweeten the bread with arrack, and the milk with honey, and at every fire there shall be a kid. God with ye! Want of sweet water there shall not be, for the lake is our well; neither shall the bearers of burden hunger, or the least of the flock, for here is green pasture also. God with you all, my children! Go."

  And, shouting, the many happy went their ways then to pitch their own habitations. A few remained to arrange the interior for the sheik; and of these the men-servants hung a curtain to the central row of pillars, making two apartments; the one on the right sacred to Ilderim himself, the other sacred to his horses—his jewels of Solomon—which they led in, and with kisses and love-taps set at liberty. Against the middle pillar they then erected the arms-rack, and filled it with javelins and spears, and bows, arrows, and shields; outside of them hanging the master's sword, modelled after the new moon; and the glitter of its blade rivalled the glitter of the jewels bedded in its grip. Upon one end of the rack they hung the housings of the horses, gay some of them as the livery of a king's servant, while on the other end they displayed the great man's wearing apparel—his robes woollen and robes linen, his tunics and trousers, and many colored kerchiefs for the head. Nor did they give over the work until he pronounced it well.

  Meantime the women drew out and set up the divan, more indispensable to him than the beard down-flowing over his breast, white as Aaron's. They put a frame together in shape of three sides of a square, the opening to the door, and covered it with cushions and base curtains, and the cushions with a changeable spread striped brown and yellow; at the corners they placed pillows and bolsters sacked in cloth blue and crimson; then around the divan they laid a margin of carpet, and the inner space they carpeted as well; and when the carpet was carried from the opening of the divan to the door of the tent, their work was done; whereupon they again waited until the master said it was good. Nothing remained then but to bring and fill the jars with water, and hang the skin bottles of arrack ready for the hand—to-morrow the leben. Nor might an Arab see why Ilderim should not be both happy and generous—in his tent by the lake of sweet waters, under the palms of the Orchard of Palms.

  Such was the tent at the door of which we left Ben-Hur.

  Servants were already waiting the master's direction. One of them took off his sandals; another unlatched Ben-Hur's Roman shoes; then the two exchanged their dusty outer garments for fresh ones of white linen.

  "Enter—in God's name, enter, and take thy rest," said the host, heartily, in the dialect of the Market-place of Jerusalem; forthwith he led the way to the divan.

  "I will sit here," he said next, pointing; "and there the stranger."

  A woman—in the old time she would have been called a handmaid—answered, and dexterously piled the pillows and bolsters as rests for the back; after which they sat upon the side of the divan, while water was brought fresh from the lake, and their feet bathed and dried with napkins.

  "We have a saying in the Desert," Ilderim began, gathering his beard, and combing it with his slender fingers, "that a
good appetite is the promise of a long life. Hast thou such?"

  "By that rule, good sheik, I will live a hundred years. I am a hungry wolf at thy door," Ben-Hur replied.

  "Well, thou shalt not be sent away like a wolf. I will give thee the best of the flocks."

  Ilderim clapped his hands.

  "Seek the stranger in the guest-tent, and say I, Ilderim, send him a prayer that his peace may be as incessant as the flowing of waters."

  The man in waiting bowed.

  "Say, also," Ilderim continued, "that I have returned with another for breaking of bread; and, if Balthasar the wise careth to share the loaf, three may partake of it, and the portion of the birds be none the less."

  The second servant went away.

  "Let us take our rest now."

  Thereupon Ilderim settled himself upon the divan, as at this day merchants sit on their rugs in the bazaars of Damascus; and when fairly at rest, he stopped combing his beard, and said, gravely, "That thou art my guest, and hast drunk my leben, and art about to taste my salt, ought not to forbid a question: Who art thou?"

  "Sheik Ilderim," said Ben-Hur, calmly enduring his gaze, "I pray thee not to think me trifling with thy just demand; but was there never a time in thy life when to answer such a question would have been a crime to thyself?"

  "By the splendor of Solomon, yes!" Ilderim answered. "Betrayal of self is at times as base as the betrayal of a tribe."

  "Thanks, thanks, good sheik!" Ben-Hur exclaimed.

  "Never answer became thee better. Now I know thou cost but seek assurance to justify the trust I have come to ask, and that such assurance is of more interest to thee than the affairs of my poor life."

  The sheik in his turn bowed, and Ben-Hur hastened to pursue his advantage.

  "So it please thee then," he said, "first, I am not a Roman, as the name given thee as mine implieth."

  Ilderim clasped the beard overflowing his breast, and gazed at the speaker with eyes faintly twinkling through the shade of the heavy close-drawn brows.