Ben-Hur

by Wallace, Lew

  At last morning broke in full, the air without a breath. Off to the left he saw the land, too far to think of attempting to make it. Here and there men were adrift like himself. In spots the sea was blackened by charred and sometimes smoking fragments. A galley up a long way was lying to with a torn sail hanging from the tilted yard, and the oars all idle. Still farther away he could discern moving specks, which he thought might be ships in flight or pursuit, or they might be white birds a-wing.

  An hour passed thus. His anxiety increased. If relief came not speedily, Arrius would die. Sometimes he seemed already dead, he lay so still. He took the helmet off, and then, with greater difficulty, the cuirass; the heart he found fluttering. He took hope at the sign, and held on. There was nothing to do but wait, and, after the manner of his people, pray.

  CHAPTER VI

  THE throes of recovery from drowning are more painful than the drowning. These Arrius passed through, and, at length, to Ben-Hur’s delight, reached the point of speech.

  Gradually, from incoherent questions as to where he was, and by whom and how he had been saved, he reverted to the battle. The doubt of the victory stimulated his faculties to full return, a result aided not a little by a long rest—such as could be had on their frail support. After a while he became talkative.

  “Our rescue, I see, depends upon the result of the fight. I see also what thou hast done for me. To speak fairly, thou hast saved my life at the risk of thy own. I make the acknowledgment broadly; and, whatever cometh, thou hast my thanks. More than that, if fortune doth but serve me kindly, and we get well out of this peril, I will do thee such favor as becometh a Roman who hath power and opportunity to prove his gratitude. Yet, yet it is to be seen if, with thy good intent, thou hast really done me a kindness; or, rather, speaking to thy good-will”—he hesitated—“I would exact of thee a promise to do me, in a certain event, the greatest favor one man can do another—and of that let me have thy pledge now.”

  “If the thing be not forbidden, I will do it,” Ben-Hur replied.

  Arrius rested again.

  “Art thou, indeed, a son of Hur, the Jew?” he next asked.

  “It is as I have said.”

  “I knew thy father—”

  Judah drew himself nearer, for the tribune’s voice was weak—he drew nearer, and listened eagerly—at last he thought to hear of home.

  “I knew him, and loved him,” Arrius continued.

  There was another pause, during which something diverted the speaker’s thought.

  “It cannot be,” he proceeded, “that thou, a son of his, hast not heard of Cato and Brutus. They were very great men, and never as great as in death. In their dying, they left this law—A Roman may not survive his good-fortune. Art thou listening?”

  “I hear.”

  “It is a custom of gentlemen in Rome to wear a ring. There is one on my hand. Take it now.”

  He held the hand to Judah, who did as he asked.

  “Now put it on thine own hand.”

  Ben-Hur did so.

  “The trinket has its uses,” said Arrius next. “I have property and money. I am accounted rich even in Rome. I have no family. Show the ring to my freedman, who hath control in my absence; you will find him in a villa near Misenum. Tell him how it came to thee, and ask anything, or all he may have; he will not refuse the demand. If I live, I will do better by thee. I will make thee free, and restore thee to thy home and people; or thou mayst give thyself to the pursuit that pleaseth thee most. Dost thou hear!”

  “I could not choose but hear.”

  “Then pledge me. By the gods—”

  “Nay, good tribune, I am a Jew.”

  “By the God, then, or in the form most sacred to those of thy faith—pledge me to do what I tell thee now, and as I tell thee; I am waiting, let me have thy promise.”

  “Noble Arrius, I am warned by thy manner to expect something of gravest concern. Tell me thy wish first.”

  “Wilt thou promise then?”

  “That were to give the pledge, and—Blessed be the God of my fathers! yonder cometh a ship!”

  “In what direction?”

  “From the north.”

  “Canst thou tell her nationality by outward signs?”

  “No. My service hath been at the oars.”

  “Hath she a flag?”

  “I cannot see one.”

  Arrius remained quiet some time, apparently in deep reflection.

  “Does the ship hold this way yet?” he at length asked.

  “Still this way.”

  “Look for the flag now.”

  “She hath none.”

  “Nor any other sign?”

  “She hath a sail set, and is of three banks, and cometh swiftly—that is all I can say of her.”

  “A Roman in triumph would have out many flags. She must be an enemy. Hear now,” said Arrius, becoming grave again, “hear, while yet I may speak. If the galley be a pirate, thy life is safe; they may not give thee freedom; they may put thee to the oar again; but they will not kill thee. On the other hand, I—”

  The tribune faltered.

  “Perpol!” he continued, resolutely. “I am too old to submit to dishonor. In Rome, let them tell how Quintus Arrius, as became a Roman tribune, went down with his ship in the midst of the foe. This is what I would have thee do. If the galley prove a pirate, push me from the plank and drown me. Dost thou hear? Swear thou wilt do it.”

  “I will not swear,” said Ben-Hur, firmly; “neither will I do the deed. The Law, which is to me most binding, O tribune, would make me answerable for thy life. Take back the ring”—he took the seal from his finger—“take it back, and all thy promises of favor in the event of delivery from this peril. The judgment which sent me to the oar for life made me a slave, yet I am not a slave; no more am I thy freedman. I am a son of Israel, and this moment, at least, my own master. Take back the ring.”

  Arrius remained passive.

  “Thou wilt not?” Judah continued. “Not in anger, then, nor in any despite, but to free myself from a hateful obligation, I will give thy gift to the sea. See, O tribune!”

  He tossed the ring away. Arrius heard the splash where it struck and sank, though he did not look.

  “Thou hast done a foolish thing,” he said; “foolish for one placed as thou art. I am not dependent upon thee for death. Life is a thread I can break without thy help; and, if I do, what will become of thee? Men determined on death prefer it at the hands of others, for the reason that the soul which Plato giveth us is rebellious at the thought of self-destruction; that is all. If the ship be a pirate, I will escape from the world. My mind is fixed. I am a Roman. Success and honor are all in all. Yet I would have served thee; thou wouldst not. The ring was the only witness of my will available in this situation. We are both lost. I will die regretting the victory and glory wrested from me; thou wilt live to die a little later, mourning the pious duties undone because of this folly. I pity thee.”

  Ben-Hur saw the consequences of his act more distinctly than before, yet he did not falter.

  “In the three years of my servitude, O tribune, thou wert the first to look upon me kindly. No, no! There was another.” The voice dropped, the eyes became humid, and he saw plainly as if it were then before him the face of the boy who helped him to a drink by the old well at Nazareth. “At least,” he proceeded, “thou wert the first to ask me who I was; and if, when I reached out and caught thee, blind and sinking the last time, I, too, had thought of the many ways in which thou couldst be useful to me in my wretchedness, still the act was not all selfish; this I pray you to believe. Moreover, seeing as God giveth me to now, the ends I dream of are to be wrought by fair means alone. As a thing of conscience, I would rather die with thee than be thy slayer. My mind is firmly set as thine; though thou wert to offer me all Rome, O tribune, and it belonged to thee to make the gift good, I would not kill thee. Thy Cato and Brutus were as little children compared to the Hebrew whose law a Jew must obey.”

>   “But my request. Hast—”

  “Thy command would be of more weight, and that would not move me. I have said.”

  Both became silent, waiting.

  Ben-Hur looked often at the coming ship. Arrius rested with closed eyes, indifferent.

  “Art thou sure she is an enemy?” Ben-Hur asked.

  “I think so,” was the reply.

  “She stops, and puts a boat over the side.”

  “Dost thou see her flag?”

  “Is there no other sign by which she may be known if Roman?”

  “If Roman, she hath a helmet over the mast’s top.”

  “Then be of cheer, I see the helmet.”

  Still Arrius was not assured.

  “The men in the small boat are taking in the people afloat. Pirates are not humane.”

  “They may need rowers,” Arrius replied, recurring, possibly, to times when he had made rescues for the purpose.

  Ben-Hur was very watchful of the actions of the strangers.

  “The ship moves off,” he said.

  “Whither?”

  “Over on our right there is a galley which I take to be deserted. The new-comer heads towards it. Now she is alongside. Now she is sending men aboard.”

  Then Arrius opened his eyes and threw off his calm.

  “Thank thou thy God,” he said to Ben-Hur, after a look at the galleys, “thank thou thy God, as I do my many gods. A pirate would sink, not save, yon ship. By the act and the helmet on the mast I know a Roman. The victory is mine. Fortune hath not deserted me. We are saved. Wave thy hand—call to them—bring them quickly. I shall be duumvir, and thou! I knew thy father, and loved him. He was a prince indeed. He taught me a Jew was not a barbarian. I will take thee with me. I will make thee my son. Give thy God thanks, and call the sailors. Haste! The pursuit must be kept. Not a robber shall escape. Hasten them!”

  Judah raised himself upon the plank, and waved his hand, and called with all his might; at last he drew the attention of the sailors in the small boat, and they were speedily taken up.

  Arrius was received on the galley with all the honors due a hero so the favorite of Fortune. Upon a couch on the deck he heard the particulars of the conclusion of the fight. When the survivors afloat upon the water were all saved and the prize secured, he spread his flag of commandant anew, and hurried northward to rejoin the fleet and perfect the victory. In due time the fifty vessels coming down the channel closed in upon the fugitive pirates, and crushed them utterly; not one escaped. To swell the tribune’s glory, twenty galleys of the enemy were captured.

  Upon his return from the cruise, Arrius had warm welcome on the mole at Misenum. The young man attending him very early attracted the attention of his friends there; and to their questions as to who he was the tribune proceeded in the most affectionate manner to tell the story of his rescue and introduce the stranger, omitting carefully all that pertained to the latter’s previous history. At the end of the narrative he called Ben-Hur to him, and said, with a hand resting affectionately upon his shoulder,

  “Good friends, this is my son and heir, who, as he is to take my property—if it be the will of the gods that I leave any—shall be known to you by my name. I pray you all to love him as you love me.”

  Speedily as opportunity permitted, the adoption was formally perfected. And in such manner the brave Roman kept his faith with Ben-Hur, giving him happy introduction into the imperial world. The month succeeding Arrius’s return, the armilustrium was celebrated with the utmost magnificence in the theatre of Scaurus. One side of the structure was taken up with military trophies; among which by far the most conspicuous and most admired were twenty prows, complemented by their corresponding aplustra, cut bodily from as many galleys; and over them, so as to be legible to the eighty thousand spectators in the seats, was this inscription:

  TAKEN FROM THE PIRATES IN THE

  GULF OF EURIPUS,

  BY

  QUINTUS ARRIUS,

  DUUMVIR.

  BOOK FOURTH

  “Alva. Should the monarch prove unjust—

  And, at this time—

  Queen. Then I must wait for justice

  Until it come; and they are happiest far

  Whose consciences may calmly wait their right.”

  SCHILLER, Don Carlos (act iv., sc. xv.).

  CHAPTER I

  THE month to which we now come is July, the year that of our Lord 29, and the place Antioch, then Queen of the East, and next to Rome the strongest, if not the most populous, city in the world.

  There is an opinion that the extravagance and disso luteness of the age had their origin in Rome, and spread thence throughout the empire; that the great cities but reflected the manners of their mistress on the Tiber. This may be doubted. The reaction of the conquest would seem to have been upon the morals of the conqueror. In Greece she found a spring of corruption; so also in Egypt; and the student, having exhausted the subject, will close the books assured that the flow of the demoralizing river was from the East westwardly, and that this very city of Antioch, one of the oldest seats of Assyrian power and splendor, was a principal source of the deadly stream.

  A transport galley entered the mouth of the river Orontes from the blue waters of the sea. It was in the forenoon. The heat was great, yet all on board who could avail themselves of the privilege were on deck—Ben-Hur among others.

  The five years had brought the young Jew to perfect manhood. Though the robe of white linen in which he was attired somewhat masked his form, his appearance was unusually attractive. For an hour and more he had occupied a seat in the shade of the sail, and in that time several fellow-passengers of his own nationality had tried to engage him in conversation, but without avail. His replies to their questions had been brief, though gravely courteous, and in the Latin tongue. The purity of his speech, his cultivated manners, his reticence, served to stimulate their curiosity the more. Such as observed him closely were struck by an incongruity between his demeanor, which had the ease and grace of a patrician, and certain points of his person. Thus his arms were disproportionately long; and when, to steady himself against the motion of the vessel, he took hold of anything near by, the size of his hands and their evident power compelled remark; so the wonder who and what he was mixed continually with a wish to know the particulars of his life. In other words, his air cannot be better described than as a notice—This man has a story to tell.

  The galley, in coming, had stopped at one of the ports of Cyprus, and picked up a Hebrew of most respectable appearance, quiet, reserved, paternal. Ben-Hur ventured to ask him some questions; the replies won his confidence, and resulted finally in an extended conversation.

  It chanced also that as the galley from Cyprus entered the receiving bay of the Orontes, two other vessels which had been sighted out in the sea met it and passed into the river at the same time; and as they did so both the strangers threw out small flags of brightest yellow. There was much conjecture as to the meaning of the signals. At length a passenger addressed himself to the respectable Hebrew for information upon the subject.

  “Yes, I know the meaning of the flags,” he replied; “they do not signify nationality—they are merely marks of ownership.”

  “Has the owner many ships?”

  “He has.”

  “You know him?”

  “I have dealt with him.”

  The passengers looked at the speaker as if requesting him to go on. Ben-Hur listened with interest.

  “He lives in Antioch,” the Hebrew continued, in his quiet way. “That he is vastly rich has brought him into notice, and the talk about him is not always kind. There used to be in Jerusalem a prince of very ancient family named Hur.”

  Judah strove to be composed, yet his heart beat quicker.

  “The prince was a merchant, with a genius for business. He set on foot many enterprises, some reaching far East, others West. In the great cities he had branch houses. The one in Antioch was in charge of a man said by some to have
been a family servant called Simonides, Greek in name, yet an Israelite. The master was drowned at sea. His business, however, went on, and was scarcely less prosperous. After a while misfortune overtook the family. The prince’s only son, nearly grown, tried to kill the procurator Gratus in one of the streets of Jerusalem. He failed by a narrow chance, and has not since been heard of. In fact, the Roman’s rage took in the whole house—not one of the name was left alive. Their palace was sealed up, and is now a rookery for pigeons; the estate was confiscated; everything that could be traced to the ownership of the Hurs was confiscated. The procurator cured his hurt with a golden salve.”

  The passengers laughed.

  “You mean he kept the property,” said one of them.

  “They say so,” the Hebrew replied; “I am only telling a story as I received it. And, to go on, Simonides, who had been the prince’s agent here in Antioch, opened trade in a short time on his own account, and in a space incredibly brief became the master merchant of the city. In imitation of his master, he sent caravans to India; and on the sea at present he has galleys enough to make a royal fleet. They say nothing goes amiss with him. His camels do not die, except of old age; his ships never founder; if he throw a chip into the river, it will come back to him gold.”

  “How long has he been going on thus?”

  “Not ten years.”

  “He must have had a good start.”

  “Yes, they say the procurator took only the prince’s property ready at hand—his horses, cattle, houses, land, vessels, goods. The money could not be found, though there must have been vast sums of it. What became of it has been an unsolved mystery.”

  “Not to me,” said a passenger, with a sneer.