Ben-Hur

by Wallace, Lew

  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 dost 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.

  “In the next place,” Ben-Hur continued, “I am an Israelite of the tribe of Judah.”

  The sheik raised his brows a little.

  “Nor that merely. Sheik, I am a Jew with a grievance against Rome compared with which thine is not more than a child’s trouble.”

  The old man combed his beard with nervous haste, and let fall his brows until even the twinkle of the eyes went out.

  “Still further: I swear to thee, Sheik Ilderim—I swear by the covenant the Lord made with my fathers—so thou but give me the revenge I seek, the money and the glory of the race shall be thine.”

  Ilderim’s brows relaxed; his head arose; his face began to beam; and it was almost possible to see the satisfaction taking possession of him.

  “Enough!” he said. “If at the roots of thy tongue there is a lie in coil, Solomon himself had not been safe against thee. That thou art not a Roman—that as a Jew thou hast a grievance against Rome, and revenge to compass, I believe; and on that score enough. But as to thy skill. What experience hast thou in racing with chariots? And the horses—canst thou make them creatures of thy will?—to know thee? to come at call? to go, if thou sayest it, to the last extreme of breath and strength? and then, in the perishing moment, out of the depths of thy life thrill them to one exertion the mightiest of all? The gift, my son, is not to every one. Ah, by the splendor of God! I knew a king who governed millions of men, their perfect master, but could not win the respect of a horse. Mark! I speak not of the dull brutes whose round it is to slave for slaves—the debased in blood and image—the dead in spirit; but of such as mine here—the kings of their kind; of a lineage reaching back to the broods of the first Pharaoh; my comrades and friends, dwellers in tents, whom long association with me has brought up to my plane; who to their instincts have added our wits and to their senses joined our souls, until they feel all we know of ambition, love, hate, and contempt; in war, heroes; in trust, faithful as women. Ho, there!”

  A servant came forward.

  “Let my Arabs come!”

  The man drew aside part of the division curtain of the tent, exposing to view a group of horses, which lingered a moment where they were as if to make certain of the invitation.

  “Come!” Ilderim said to them. “Why stand ye there? What have I that is not yours? Come, I say!”

  They stalked slowly in.

  “Son of Israel,” the master said, “thy Moses was a mighty man, but—ha, ha, ha!—I must laugh when I think of his allowing thy fathers the plodding ox and the dull, slow-natured ass, and forbidding them property in horses. Ha, ha, ha! Thinkest thou he would have done so had he seen that one—and that—and this?” At the word he laid his hand upon the face of the first to reach him, and patted it with infinite pride and tenderness.

  “It is a misjudgment, sheik, a misjudgment,” Ben-Hur said, warmly. “Moses was a warrior as well as a lawgiver beloved by God; and to follow war—ah, what is it but to love all its creatures—these among the rest?”

  A head of exquisite turn—with large eyes, soft as a deer’s, and half hidden by the dense forelock, and small ears, sharp-pointed and sloped well forward—approached then quite to his breast, the nostrils open, and the upper lip in motion. “Who are you?” it asked, plainly as ever man spoke. Ben-Hur recognized one of the four racers he had seen on the course, and gave his open hand to the beautiful brute.

  “They will tell you, the blasphemers!—may their days shorten as they grow fewer!”—the sheik spoke with the feeling of a man repelling a personal defamation—“they will tell you, I say, that our horses of the best blood are derived from the Nesaean pastures of Persia. God gave the first Arab a measureless waste of sand, with some treeless mountains, and here and there a well of bitter waters; and said to him, ‘Behold thy country!’ And when the poor man complained, the Mighty One pitied him, and said again, ‘Be of cheer! For I will twice bless thee above other men.’ The Arab heard, and gave thanks, and with faith set out to find the blessings. He travelled all the boundaries first, and failed; then he made a path into the desert, and went on and on—and in the heart of the waste there was an island of green very beautiful to see; and in the heart of the island, lo! a herd of camels, and another of horses! He took them joyfully and kept them with care for what they were—best gifts of God. And from that green isle went forth all the horses of the earth; even to the pastures of Nesaea they went; and northward to the dreadful vales perpetually threshed by blasts from the Sea of Chill Winds. Doubt not the story; or if thou dost, may never amulet have charm for an Arab again. Nay, I will give thee proof.”

  He clapped his hands.

  “Bring me the records of the tribe,” he said to the servant who responded.

  While waiting, the sheik played with the horses, patting their cheeks, combing their forelocks with his fingers, giving each one a token of remembrance. Presently six men appeared with chests of cedar reinforced by bands of brass, and hinged and bolted with brass.

  “Nay,” said Ilderim, when the
y were all set down by the divan, “I meant not all of them; only the records of the horses—that one. Open it and take back the others.”

  The chest was opened, disclosing a mass of ivory tablets strung on rings of silver wire; and as the tablets were scarcely thicker than wafers, each ring held several hundreds of them.

  “I know,” said Ilderim, taking some of the rings in his hand—“I know with what care and zeal, my son, the scribes of the Temple in the Holy City keep the names of the newly born, that every son of Israel may trace his line of ancestry to its beginning, though it antedate the patriarchs. My fathers—may the recollection of them be green forever!—did not think it sinful to borrow the idea, and apply it to their dumb servants. See these tablets!”

  Ben-Hur took the rings, and separating the tablets saw they bore rude hieroglyphs in Arabic, burned on the smooth surface by a sharp point of heated metal.

  “Canst thou read them, O son of Israel?”

  “No. Thou must tell me their meaning.”

  “Know thou, then, each tablet records the name of a foal of the pure blood born to my fathers through the hundreds of years passed; and also the names of sire and dam. Take them, and note their age, that thou mayst the more readily believe.”

  Some of the tablets were nearly worn away. All were yellow with age.

  “In the chest there, I can tell thee now, I have the perfect history; perfect because certified as history seldom is—showing of what stock all these are sprung—this one, and that now supplicating thy notice and caress; and as they come to us here, their sires, even the furthest removed in time, came to my sires, under a tent-roof like this of mine, to eat their measure of barley from the open hand, and be talked to as children; and as children kiss the thanks they have not speech to express. And now, O son of Israel, thou mayst believe my declaration—if I am a lord of the Desert, behold my ministers! Take them from me, and I become as a sick man left by the caravan to die. Thanks to them, age hath not diminished the terror of me on the highways between cities; and it will not while I have strength to go with them. Ha, ha, ha! I could tell thee marvels done by their ancestors. In a favoring time I may do so; for the present, enough that they were never overtaken in retreat; nor, by the sword of Solomon, did they ever fail in pursuit! That, mark you, on the sands and under saddle; but now—I do not know—I am afraid, for they are under yoke the first time, and the conditions of success are so many. They have the pride and the speed and the endurance. If I find them a master, they will win. Son of Israel! so thou art the man, I swear it shall be a happy day that brought thee thither. Of thyself now speak.”

  “I know now,” said Ben-Hur, “why it is that in the love of an Arab his horse is next to his children; and I know, also, why the Arab horses are the best in the world; but, good sheik, I would not have you judge me by words alone; for, as you know, all promises of men sometimes fail. Give me the trial first on some plain hereabout, and put the four in my hand to-morrow.”

  Ilderim’s face beamed again, and he would have spoken.

  “A moment, good sheik, a moment!” said Ben-Hur. “Let me say further. From the masters in Rome I learned many lessons, little thinking they would serve me in a time like this. I tell thee these thy sons of the Desert, though they have separately the speed of eagles and the endurance of lions, will fail if they are not trained to run together under the yoke. For bethink thee, sheik, in every four there is one the slowest and one the swiftest; and while the race is always to the slowest, the trouble is always with the swiftest. It was so to-day; the driver could not reduce the best to harmonious action with the poorest. My trial may have no better result; but if so, I will tell thee of it: that I swear. Wherefore, in the same spirit I say, can I get them to run together, moved by my will, the four as one, thou shalt have the sestertii and the crown, and I my revenge. What sayest thou?”

  Ilderim listened, combing his beard the while. At the end he said, with a laugh, “I think better of thee, son of Israel. We have a saying in the Desert, ‘If you will cook the meal with words, I will promise an ocean of butter.’ Thou shalt have the horses in the morning.”

  At that moment there was a stir at the rear entrance to the tent.

  “The supper—it is here! And yonder my friend Balthasar, whom thou shalt know. He hath a story to tell which an Israelite should never tire of hearing.”

  And to the servants he added,

  “Take the records away, and return my jewels to their apartment.”

  And they did as he ordered.

  CHAPTER XIV

  IF the reader will return now to the repast of the wise men at their meeting in the desert, he will understand the preparations for the supper in Ilderim’s tent. The differences were chiefly such as were incident to ampler means and better service.

  Three rugs were spread on the carpet within the space so nearly enclosed by the divan; a table not more than a foot in height was brought and set within the same place, and covered with a cloth. Off to one side a portable earthenware oven was established under the presidency of a woman whose duty it was to keep the company in bread, or, more precisely, in hot cakes of flour from the hand-mills grinding with constant sound in a neighboring tent.

  Meanwhile Balthasar was conducted to the divan, where Ilderim and Ben-Hur received him standing. A loose black gown covered his person; his step was feeble, and his whole movement slow and cautious, apparently dependent upon a long staff and the arm of a servant.

  “Peace to you, my friend,” said Ilderim, respectfully. “Peace and welcome.”

  The Egyptian raised his head and replied, “And to thee, good sheik—to thee and thine, peace and the blessing of the One God—God the true and loving.”

  The manner was gentle and devout, and impressed Ben-Hur with a feeling of awe; besides which the blessing included in the answering salutation had been partly addressed to him, and while that part was being spoken, the eyes of the aged guest, hollow yet luminous, rested upon his face long enough to stir an emotion new and mysterious, and so strong that he again and again during the repast scanned the much-wrinkled and bloodless face for its meaning; but always there was the expression bland, placid, and trustful as a child’s. A little later he found that expression habitual.

  “This is he, O Balthasar,” said the sheik, laying his hand on Ben-Hur’s arm, “who will break bread with us this evening.”

  The Egyptian glanced at the young man, and looked again surprised and doubting; seeing which the sheik continued, “I have promised him my horses for trial to-morrow; and if all goes well, he will drive them in the Circus.”

  Balthasar continued his gaze.

  “He came well recommended,” Ilderim pursued, much puzzled. “You may know him as the son of Arrius, who was a noble Roman sailor, though”—the sheik hesitated, then resumed, with a laugh—“though he declares himself an Israelite of the tribe of Judah; and, by the splendor of God, I believe that he tells me!”

  Balthasar could no longer withhold explanation.

  “To-day, O most generous sheik, my life was in peril, and would have been lost had not a youth, the counterpart of this one—if, indeed, he be not the very same—intervened when all others fled, and saved me.” Then he addressed Ben-Hur directly, “Art thou not he?”

  “I cannot answer so far,” Ben-Hur replied, with modest deference. “I am he who stopped the horses of the insolent Roman when they were rushing upon thy camel at the Fountain of Castalia. Thy daughter left a cup with me.”

  From the bosom of his tunic he produced the cup, and gave it to Balthasar.

  A glow lighted the faded countenance of the Egyptian.

  “The Lord sent thee to me at the Fountain to-day,” he said, in a tremulous voice, stretching his hand towards Ben-Hur; “and he sends thee to me now. I give him thanks; and praise him thou, for of his favor I have wherewith to give thee great reward, and I will. The cup is thine; keep it.”

  Ben-Hur took back the gift, and Balthasar, seeing the inquiry upon Ilderim’s face
, related the occurrence at the Fountain.

  “What!” said the sheik to Ben-Hur. “Thou saidst nothing of this to me, when better recommendation thou couldst not have brought. Am I not an Arab, and sheik of my tribe of tens of thousands? And is not he my guest? And is it not in my guest-bond that the good or evil thou dost him is good or evil done to me? Whither shouldst thou go for reward but here? And whose the hand to give it but mine?”

  His voice at the end of the speech rose to cutting shrillness.

  “Good sheik, spare me, I pray. I came not for reward, great or small; and that I may be acquitted of the thought, I say the help I gave this excellent man would have been given as well to thy humblest servant.”

  “But he is my friend, my guest—not my servant; and seest thou not in the difference the favor of Fortune?” Then to Balthasar the sheik subjoined, “Ah, by the splendor of God! I tell thee again he is not a Roman.”

  With that he turned away, and gave attention to the servants, whose preparations for the supper were about complete.

  The reader who recollects the history of Balthasar as given by himself at the meeting in the desert will understand the effect of Ben-Hur’s assertion of disinterestedness upon that worthy. In his devotion to men there had been, it will be remembered, no distinctions; while the redemption which had been promised him in the way of reward—the redemption for which he was waiting—was universal. To him, therefore, the assertion sounded somewhat like an echo of himself. He took a step nearer Ben-Hur, and spoke to him in the childlike way.

  “How did the sheik say I should call you? It was a Roman name, I think.”

  “Arrius, the son of Arrius.”

  “Yet thou art not a Roman?”

  “All my people were Jews.”

  “Were, saidst thou? Are they not living?”

  The question was subtle as well as simple; but Ilderim saved Ben-Hur from reply.

  “Come,” he said to them, “the meal is ready.” Ben-Hur gave his arm to Balthasar, and conducted him to the table, where shortly they were all seated on their rugs Eastern fashion. The lavers were brought them, and they washed and dried their hands; then the sheik made a sign, the servants stopped, and the voice of the Egyptian arose tremulous with holy feeling.