Ben-Hur

by Wallace, Lew

  The feelings with which Amrah listened to the recital were such as became the devoted creature she was. She made her purchases, and returned home in a dream. What a happiness she had in store for her boy! She had found his mother!

  She put the basket away, now laughing, now crying. Suddenly she stopped and thought. It would kill him to be told that his mother and Tirzah were lepers. He would go through the awful city over on the Hill of Evil Counsel—into each infected tomb he would go without rest, asking for them, and the disease would catch him, and their fate would be his. She wrung her hands. What should she do?

  Like many a one before her, and many a one since, she derived inspiration, if not wisdom, from her affection, and came to a singular conclusion.

  The lepers, she knew, were accustomed of mornings to come down from their sepulchral abodes in the hill, and take a supply of water for the day from the well En-Rogel. Bringing their jars, they would set them on the ground and wait, standing afar until they were filled. To that the mistress and Tirzah must come; for the law was inexorable, and admitted no distinction. A rich leper was no better than a poor one.

  So Amrah decided not to speak to Ben-Hur of the story she had heard, but go alone to the well and wait. Hunger and thirst would drive the unfortunates thither, and she believed she could recognize them at sight; if not, they might recognize her.

  Meantime Ben-Hur came, and they talked much. To-morrow Malluch would arrive; then the search should be immediately begun. He was impatient to be about it. To amuse himself he would visit the sacred places in the vicinity. The secret, we may be sure, weighed heavily on the woman, but she held her peace.

  When he was gone she busied herself in the preparation of things good to eat, applying her utmost skill to the work. At the approach of day, as signalled by the stars, she filled the basket, selected a jar, and took the road to En-Rogel, going out by the Fish Gate which was earliest open, and arriving as we have seen.

  Shortly after sunrise, when business at the well was most pressing, and the drawer of water most hurried; when, in fact, half a dozen buckets were in use at the same time, everybody making haste to get away before the cool of the morning melted into the heat of the day, the tenantry of the hill began to appear and move about the doors of their tombs. Somewhat later they were discernible in groups, of which not a few were children so young that they suggested the holiest relation. Numbers came momentarily around the turn of the bluff—women with jars upon their shoulders, old and very feeble men hobbling along on staffs and crutches. Some leaned upon the shoulders of others; a few—the utterly helpless—lay, like heaps of rags, upon litters. Even that community of superlative sorrow had its love-light to make life endurable and attractive. Distance softened without entirely veiling the misery of the outcasts.

  From her seat by the wall Amrah kept watch upon the spectral groups. She scarcely moved. More than once she imagined she saw those she sought. That they were there upon the hill she had no doubt; that they must come down and near she knew; when the people at the well were all served they would come.

  Now, quite at the base of the bluff there was a tomb which had more than once attracted Amrah by its wide gaping. A stone of large dimensions stood near its mouth. The sun looked into it through the hottest hours of the day, and altogether it seemed uninhabitable by anything living, unless, perchance, by some wild dogs returning from scavenger duty down in Gehenna. Thence, however, and greatly to her surprise, the patient Egyptian beheld two women come, one half supporting, half leading, the other. They were both white-haired; both looked old; but their garments were not rent, and they gazed about them as if the locality were new. The witness below thought she even saw them shrink terrified at the spectacle offered by the hideous assemblage of which they found themselves part. Slight reasons, certainly, to make her heart beat faster, and draw her attention to them exclusively; but so they did.

  The two remained by the stone awhile; then they moved slowly, painfully, and with much fear towards the well, whereat several voices were raised to stop them; yet they kept on. The drawer of water picked up some pebbles, and made ready to drive them back. The company cursed them. The greater company on the hill shouted shrilly, “Unclean, unclean!”

  “Surely,” thought Amrah of the two, as they kept coming—“surely, they are strangers to the usage of lepers.”

  She arose, and went to meet them, taking the basket and jar. The alarm at the well immediately subsided.

  “What a fool,” said one, laughing, “what a fool to give good bread to the dead in that way!”

  “And to think of her coming so far!” said another. “I would at least make them meet me at the gate.”

  Amrah, with better impulse, proceeded. If she should be mistaken! Her heart arose into her throat. And the farther she went the more doubtful and confused she became. Four or five yards from where they stood waiting for her she stopped.

  That the mistress she loved! whose hand she had so often kissed in gratitude! whose image of matronly loveliness she had treasured in memory so faithfully! And that the Tirzah she had nursed through babyhood! whose pains she had soothed, whose sports she had shared! that the smiling, sweet-faced, songful Tirzah, the light of the great house, the promised blessing of her old age! Her mistress, her darling—they? The soul of the woman sickened at the sight.

  “These are old women,” she said to herself. “I never saw them before. I will go back.”

  She turned away.

  “Amrah,” said one of the lepers.

  The Egyptian dropped the jar, and looked back, trembling.

  “Who called me?” she asked.

  “Amrah.”

  The servant’s wondering eyes settled upon the speaker’s face.

  “Who are you?” she cried.

  “We are they you are seeking.”

  Amrah fell upon her knees.

  “O my mistress, my mistress! As I have made your God my God, be he praised that he has led me to you!”

  And upon her knees the poor overwhelmed creature began moving forward.

  “Stay, Amrah! Come not nearer. Unclean, unclean!”

  The words sufficed. Amrah fell upon her face, sobbing so loud the people at the well heard her. Suddenly she arose upon her knees again.

  “O my mistress, where is Tirzah?”

  “Here I am, Amrah, here! Will you not bring me a little water?”

  The habit of the servant renewed itself. Putting back the coarse hair fallen over her face, Amrah arose and went to the basket and uncovered it.

  “See,” she said, “here are bread and meat.”

  She would have spread the napkin upon the ground, but the mistress spoke again,

  “Do not so, Amrah. Those yonder may stone you, and refuse us drink. Leave the basket with me. Take up the jar and fill it, and bring it here. We will carry them to the tomb with us. For this day you will then have rendered all the service that is lawful. Haste, Amrah.”

  The people under whose eyes all this had passed made way for the servant, and even helped her fill the jar, so piteous was the grief her countenance showed.

  “Who are they?” a woman asked.

  Amrah meekly answered, “They used to be good to me.”

  Raising the jar upon her shoulder, she hurried back. In forgetfulness, she would have gone to them, but the cry “Unclean, unclean! Beware!” arrested her. Placing the water by the basket, she stepped back, and stood off a little way.

  “Thank you, Amrah,” said the mistress, taking the articles into possession. “This is very good of you.”

  “Is there nothing more I can do?” asked Amrah.

  The mother’s hand was upon the jar, and she was fevered with thirst; yet she paused, and, rising, said firmly, “Yes, I know that Judah has come home. I saw him at the gate night before last asleep on the step. I saw you wake him.”

  Amrah clasped her hands.

  “O my mistress! You saw it, and did not come!”

  “That would have been to kill hi
m. I can never take him in my arms again. I can never kiss him more. O Amrah, Amrah, you love him, I know!”

  “Yes,” said the true heart, bursting into tears again, and kneeling. “I would die for him.”

  “Prove to me what you say, Amrah.”

  “I am ready.”

  “Then you shall not tell him where we are or that you have seen us—only that, Amrah.”

  “But he is looking for you. He has come from afar to find you.”

  “He must not find us. He shall not become what we are. Hear, Amrah. You shall serve us as you have this day. You shall bring us the little we need—not long now—not long. You shall come every morning and evening thus, and—and”—the voice trembled, the strong will almost broke down—“and you shall tell us of him, Amrah; but to him you shall say nothing of us. Hear you?”

  “Oh, it will be so hard to hear him speak of you, and see him going about looking for you—to see all his love, and not tell him so much as that you are alive!”

  “Can you tell him we are well, Amrah?”

  The servant bowed her head in her arms.

  “No,” the mistress continued; “wherefore be silent altogether. Go now, and come this evening. We will look for you. Till then, farewell.”

  “The burden will be heavy, O my mistress, and hard to bear,” said Amrah, falling upon her face.

  “How much harder would it be to see him as we are,” the mother answered as she gave the basket to Tirzah. “Come again this evening,” she repeated, taking up the water, and starting for the tomb.

  Amrah waiting kneeling until they had disappeared; then she took the road sorrowfully home.

  In the evening she returned; and thereafter it became her custom to serve them in the morning and evening, so that they wanted for nothing needful. The tomb, though ever so stony and desolate, was less cheerless than the cell in the Tower had been. Daylight gilded its door, and it was in the beautiful world. Then, one can wait death with so much more faith out under the open sky.

  CHAPTER VI

  THE morning of the first day of the seventh month—Tishri in the Hebrew, October in English—Ben-Hur arose from his couch in the khan ill satisfied with the whole world.

  Little time had been lost in consultation upon the arrival of Malluch. The latter began the search at the Tower of Antonia, and began it boldly, by a direct inquiry of the tribune commanding. He gave the officer a history of the Hurs, and all the particulars of the accident to Gratus, describing the affair as wholly without criminality. The object of the quest now, he said, was if any of the unhappy family were discovered alive to carry a petition to the feet of Caesar, praying restitution of the estate and return to their civil rights. Such a petition, he had no doubt, would result in an investigation by the imperial order, a proceeding of which the friends of the family had no fear.

  In reply the tribune stated circumstantially the discovery of the women in the Tower, and permitted a reading of the memorandum he had taken of their account of themselves; when leave to copy it was prayed, he even permitted that.

  Malluch thereupon hurried to Ben-Hur.

  It were useless to attempt description of the effect the terrible story had upon the young man. The pain was not relieved by tears or passionate outcries; it was too deep for any expression. He sat still a long time, with pallid face and laboring heart. Now and then, as if to show the thoughts which were most poignant, he muttered,

  “Lepers, lepers! They—my mother and Tirzah—they lepers! How long, how long, O Lord!”

  One moment he was torn by a virtuous rage of sorrow, next by a longing for vengeance which, it must be admitted, was scarcely less virtuous.

  At length he arose.

  “I must look for them. They may be dying.”

  “Where will you look?” asked Malluch.

  “There is but one place for them to go.”

  Malluch interposed, and finally prevailed so far as to have the management of the further attempt intrusted to him. Together they went to the gate over on the side opposite the Hill of Evil Counsel, immemorially the lepers’ begging-ground. There they stayed all day, giving alms, asking for the two women, and offering rich rewards for their discovery. So they did in repetition day after day through the remainder of the fifth month, and all the sixth. There was diligent scouring of the dread city on the hill by lepers to whom the rewards offered were mighty incentives, for they were only dead in law. Over and over again the gaping tomb down by the well was invaded, and its tenants subjected to inquiry; but they kept their secret fast. The result was failure. And now, the morning of the first day of the seventh month, the extent of the additional information gained was that not long before two leprous women had been stoned from the Fish Gate by the authorities. A little pressing of the clew, together with some shrewd comparison of dates, led to the sad assurance that the sufferers were the Hurs, and left the old question darker than ever. Where were they? And what had become of them?

  “It was not enough that my people should be made lepers,” said the son, over and over again, with what intensity of bitterness the reader may imagine; “that was not enough. Oh, no! They must be stoned from their native city! My mother is dead! she has wandered to the wilderness! she is dead! Tirzah is dead! I alone am left. And for what? How long, O God, thou Lord God of my fathers, how long shall this Rome endure?”

  Angry, hopeless, vengeful, he entered the court of the khan, and found it crowded with people come in during the night. While he ate his breakfast, he listened to some of them. To one party he was specially attracted. They were mostly young, stout, active, hardy men, in manner and speech provincial. In their look, the certain indefinable air, the pose of the head, glance of the eye, there was a spirit which did not, as a rule, belong to the outward seeming of the lower orders of Jerusalem; the spirit thought by some to be a peculiarity of life in mountainous districts, but which may be more surely traced to a life of healthful freedom. In a short time he ascertained they were Galileans, in the city for various purposes, but chiefly to take part in the Feast of Trumpets, set for that day. They became to him at once objects of interest, as hailing from the region in which he hoped to find readi est support in the work he was shortly to set about.

  While observing them, his mind running ahead in thought of achievements possible to a legion of such spirits disciplined after the severe Roman style, a man came into the court, his face much flushed, his eyes bright with excitement.

  “Why are you here?” he said to the Galileans. “The rabbis and elders are going from the Temple to see Pilate. Come, make haste, and let us go with them.”

  They surrounded him in a moment.

  “To see Pilate! For what?”

  “They have discovered a conspiracy. Pilate’s new aqueduct is to be paid for with money of the Temple.”

  “What, with the sacred treasure?”

  They repeated the question to each other with flashing eyes.

  “It is Corban—money of God. Let him touch a shekel of it if he dare!”

  “Come,” cried the messenger. “The procession is by this time across the bridge. The whole city is pouring after. We may be needed. Make haste!”

  As if the thought and the act were one, there was quick putting-away of useless garments, and the party stood forth bareheaded, and in the short sleeveless under-tunics they were used to wearing as reapers in the field and boatmen on the lake—the garb in which they climbed the hills following the herds, and plucked the ripened vintage, careless of the sun. Lingering only to tighten their girdles, they said, “We are ready.”

  Then Ben-Hur spoke to them.

  “Men of Galilee,” he said, “I am a son of Judah. Will you take me in your company?”

  “We may have to fight,” they replied.

  “Oh, then, I will not be first to run away!”

  They took the retort in good-humor, and the messenger said, “You seem stout enough. Come along.”

  Ben-Hur put off his outer garments.

  “Yo
u think there may be fighting?” he asked, quietly, as he tightened his girdle.

  “Yes.”

  “With whom?”

  “The guard.”

  “Legionaries?”

  “Whom else can a Roman trust?”

  “What have you to fight with?”

  They looked at him silently.

  “Well,” he continued, “we will have to do the best we can; but had we not better choose a leader? The legionaries always have one, and so are able to act with one mind.”

  The Galileans stared more curiously, as if the idea were new to them.

  “Let us at least agree to stay together,” he said. “Now I am ready, if you are.”

  “Yes, let us go.”

  The khan, it should not be forgotten, was in Bezetha, the new town; and to get to the Praetorium, as the Romans resonantly styled the palace of Herod on Mount Zion, the party had to cross the lowlands north and west of the Temple. By streets—if they may be so called—trending north and south, with intersections hardly up to the dignity of alleys, they passed rapidly round the Akra district to the Tower of Mariamne, from which the way was short to the grand gate of the walled heights. In going, they overtook, or were overtaken by, people like themselves stirred to wrath by news of the proposed desecration. When, at length, they reached the gate of the Praetorium, the procession of elders and rabbis had passed in with a great following, leaving a greater crowd clamoring outside.

  A centurion kept the entrance with a guard drawn up full armed under the beautiful marble battlements. The sun struck the soldiers fervidly on helm and shield; but they kept their ranks indifferent alike to its dazzle and to the mouthings of the rabble. Through the open bronze gates a current of citizens poured in, while a much lesser one poured out.

  “What is going on?” one of the Galileans asked an outcomer.

  “Nothing,” was the reply. “The rabbis are before the door of the palace asking to see Pilate. He has refused to come out. They have sent one to tell him they will not go away till he has heard them. They are waiting.”