Ben-Hur

by Wallace, Lew

  “It happened the subject of his speech that moment was such as none else than they could think of; and he arose, and said, majestically, ‘Get thee home. I will do the work myself. To make a perfectly happy being I do not need thy help. Get thee gone.’

  “Now Isis had eyes large as those of the white cow which in the temple eats sweet grasses from the hands of the faithful even while they say their prayers; and her eyes were the color of the cow’s, and quite as tender. And she too arose and said, smiling as she spoke, so her look was little more than the glow of the moon in the hazy harvest-month, ‘Farewell, good my lord. You will call me presently, I know; for without me you cannot make the perfectly happy creature of which you were thinking, any more’—and she stopped to laugh, knowing well the truth of the saying—‘any more, my lord, than you yourself can be perfectly happy without me.’

  “ ‘We will see,’ he said.

  “And she went her way, and took her needles and her chair, and on the roof of the silver palace sat watching and knitting.

  “And the will of Osiris, at labor in his mighty breast, was as the sound of the mills of all the other gods grinding at once, so loud that the near stars rattled like seeds in a parched pod; and some dropped out and were lost. And while the sound kept on she waited and knit; nor lost she ever a stitch the while.

  “Soon a spot appeared in the space over towards the sun; and it grew until it was great as the moon, and then she knew a world was intended; but when, growing and growing, at last it cast her planet in the shade, all save the little point lighted by her presence, she knew how very angry he was; yet she knit away, assured that the end would be as she had said.

  “And so came the earth, at first but a cold gray mass hanging listless in the hollow void. Later she saw it separate into divisions; here a plain, there a mountain, yonder a sea, all as yet without a sparkle. And then, by a river-bank, something moved; and she stopped her knitting for wonder. The something arose, and lifted its hands to the sun in sign of knowledge whence it had its being. And this First Man was beautiful to see. And about him were the creations we call nature—the grass, the trees, birds, beasts, even the insects and reptiles.

  “And for a time the man went about happy in his life: it was easy to see how happy he was. And in the lull of the sound of the laboring will Isis heard a scornful laugh, and presently the words, blown across from the sun,

  “ ‘Thy help, indeed! Behold a creature perfectly happy!’

  “And Isis fell to knitting again, for she was patient as Osiris was strong; and if he could work, she could wait; and wait she did, knowing that mere life is not enough to keep anything content.

  “And sure enough. Not long until the Divine Wife could see a change in the man. He grew listless, and kept to one place prone by the river, and looked up but seldom, and then always with a moody face. Interest was dying in him. And when she made sure of it, even while she was saying to herself, ‘The creature is sick of his being,’ there was a roar of the creative will at work again, and in a twinkling the earth, theretofore all a thing of coldest gray, flamed with colors; the mountains swam in purple, the plains bearing grass and trees turned green, the sea blue, and the clouds varied infinitely. And the man sprang up and clapped his hands, for he was cured and happy again.

  “And Isis smiled, and knit away, saying to herself, ‘It was well thought, and will do a little while; but mere beauty in a world is not enough for such a being. My lord must try again.’

  “With the last word, the thunder of the will at work shook the moon, and, looking, Isis dropped her knitting and clapped her hands; for theretofore everything on the earth but the man had been fixed to a given place; now all living, and much that was not living, received the gift of Motion. The birds took to wing joyously; beasts great and small went about, each in its way; the trees shook their verdurous branches, nodding to the enamoured winds; the rivers ran to the seas, and the seas tossed in their beds and rolled in crested waves; and with surging and ebbing painted the shores with glistening foam; and over all the clouds floated like sailed ships unanchored.

  “And the man rose up happy as a child; whereat Osiris was pleased, so that he shouted, ‘Ha, ha! See how well I am doing without thee!’

  “The good wife took up her work, and answered ever so quietly, ‘It was well thought, my lord—ever so well thought—and will serve awhile.’

  “And as before, so again. The sight of things in motion became to the man as of course. The birds in flight, the rivers running, the seas in tumult of action, ceased to amuse him, and he pined again even worse.

  “And Isis waited, saying to herself, ‘Poor creature! He is more wretched than ever.’

  “And, as if he heard the thought, Osiris stirred, and the noise of his will shook the universe; the sun in its central seat alone stood firm. And Isis looked, but saw no change; then, while she was smiling, assured that her lord’s last invention was sped, suddenly the creature arose, and seemed to listen; and his face brightened, and he clapped his hands for joy, for Sounds were heard the first time on earth—sounds dissonant, sounds harmonious. The winds murmured in the trees; the birds sang, each kind a song of its own, or chattered in speech; the rivulets running to the rivers became so many harpers with harps of silver strings all tinkling together; and the rivers running to the seas surged on in solemn accord, while the seas beat the land to a tune of thunder. There was music, music everywhere, and all the time; so the man could not but be happy.

  “Then Isis mused, thinking how well, how wondrous well, her lord was doing; but presently she shook her head: Color, Motion, Sound—and she repeated them slowly—there was no element else of beauty except Form and Light, and to them the earth had been born. Now, indeed, Osiris was done; and if the creature should again fall off into wretchedness, her help must be asked; and her fingers flew—two, three, five, even ten stitches she took at once.

  “And the man was happy a long time—longer than ever before; it seemed, indeed, he would never tire again. But Isis knew better; and she waited and waited, nor minded the many laughs flung at her from the sun; she waited and waited, and at last saw signs of the end. Sounds became familiar to him, and in their range, from the chirruping of the cricket under the roses to the roar of the seas and the bellow of the clouds in storm, there was not anything unusual. And he pined and sickened, and sought his place of moping by the river, and at last fell down motionless.

  “Then Isis in pity spoke.

  “ ‘My lord,’ she said, ‘the creature is dying.’

  “But Osiris, though seeing it all, held his peace; he could do no more.

  “ ‘Shall I help him?’ she asked.

  “Osiris was too proud to speak.

  “Then Isis took the last stitch in her knitting, and gathering her work in a roll of brilliance flung it off—flung it so it fell close to the man. And he, hearing the sound of the fall so near by, looked up, and lo! a Woman—the First Woman—was stooping to help him! She reached a hand to him; he caught it and arose; and nevermore was miserable, but evermore happy.”

  “Such, O son of Hur! is the genesis of the beautiful, as they tell it on the Nile.”

  She paused.

  “A pretty invention, and cunning,” he said, directly; “but it is imperfect. What did Osiris afterwards?”

  “Oh yes,” she replied. “He called the Divine Wife back to the sun, and they went on all pleasantly together, each helping the other.”

  “And shall I not do as the first man?”

  He carried the hand resting upon his neck to his lips. “In love—in love!” he said.

  His head dropped softly into her lap.

  “You will find the King,” she said, placing her other hand caressingly upon his head. “You will go on and find the King and serve him. With your sword you will earn his richest gifts; and his best soldier will be my hero.”

  He turned his face, and saw hers close above. In all the sky there was that moment nothing so bright to him as her eyes, enshado
wed though they were. Presently he sat up, and put his arms about her, and kissed her passionately, saying, “O Egypt, Egypt! If the King has crowns in gift, one shall be mine; and I will bring it and put it here over the place my lips have marked. You shall be a queen—my queen—no one more beautiful! And we will be ever, ever so happy!”

  “And you will tell me everything, and let me help you in all?” she said, kissing him in return.

  The question chilled his fervor.

  “Is it not enough that I love you?” he asked.

  “Perfect love means perfect faith,” she replied. “But never mind—you will know me better.”

  She took her hand from him and arose.

  “You are cruel,” he said.

  Moving away, she stopped by the camel, and touched its front face with her lips.

  “O thou noblest of thy kind!—that, because there is no suspicion in thy love.”

  An instant, and she was gone.

  CHAPTER V

  THE third day of the journey the party nooned by the river Jabbok, where there were a hundred or more men, mostly of Peraea, resting themselves and their beasts. Hardly had they dismounted, before a man came to them with a pitcher of water and a bowl, and offered them drink; as they received the attention with much courtesy, he said, looking at the camel, “I am returning from the Jordan, where just now there are many people from distant parts, travelling as you are, illustrious friend; but they had none of them the equal of your servant here. A very noble animal. May I ask of what breed he is sprung?”

  Balthasar answered, and sought his rest; but Ben-Hur, more curious, took up the remark.

  “At what place on the river are the people?” he asked.

  “At Bethabara.”

  “It used to be a lonesome ford,” said Ben-Hur. “I cannot understand how it can have become of such interest.”

  “I see,” the stranger replied; “you, too, are from abroad, and have not heard the good tidings.”

  “What tidings?”

  “Well, a man has appeared out of the wilderness—a very holy man—with his mouth full of strange words, which take hold of all who hear them. He calls himself John the Nazarite, son of Zacharias, and says he is the messenger sent before the Messiah.”

  Even Iras listened closely while the man continued:

  “They say of this John that he has spent his life from childhood in a cave down by En-Gedi, praying and living more strictly than the Essenes. Crowds go to hear him preach. I went to hear him with the rest.”

  “Have all these, your friends, been there?”

  “Most of them are going; a few are coming away.”

  “What does he preach?”

  “A new doctrine—one never before taught in Israel, as all say. He calls it repentance and baptism. The rabbis do not know what to make of him; nor do we. Some have asked him if he is the Christ, others if he is Elias; but to them all he has the answer, ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord!’ ”

  At this point the man was called away by his friends; as he was going, Balthasar spoke.

  “Good stranger!” he said, tremulously, “tell us if we shall find the preacher at the place you left him.”

  “Yes, at Bethabara.”

  “Who should this Nazarite be?” said Ben-Hur to Iras, “if not the herald of our King?”

  In so short a time he had come to regard the daughter as more interested in the mysterious personage he was looking for than the aged father! Nevertheless, the latter with a positive glow in his sunken eyes half arose, and said,

  “Let us make haste. I am not tired.”

  They turned away to help the slave.

  There was little conversation between the three at the stopping-place for the night west of Ramoth-Gilead.

  “Let us arise early, son of Hur,” said the old man. “The Saviour may come, and we not there.”

  “The King cannot be far behind his herald,” Iras whispered, as she prepared to take her place on the camel.

  “To-morrow we will see!” Ben-Hur replied, kissing her hand.

  Next day about the third hour, out of the pass through which, skirting the base of Mount Gilead, they had journeyed since leaving Ramoth, the party came upon the barren steppe east of the sacred river. Opposite them they saw the upper limit of the old palm lands of Jericho, stretching off to the hill-country of Judea. Ben-Hur’s blood ran quickly, for he knew the ford was close at hand.

  “Content you, good Balthasar,” he said; “we are almost there.”

  The driver quickened the camel’s pace. Soon they caught sight of booths and tents and tethered animals; and then of the river, and a multitude collected down close by the bank, and yet another multitude on the western shore. Knowing that the preacher was preaching, they made greater haste; yet, as they were drawing near, suddenly there was a commotion in the mass, and it began to break up and disperse.

  They were too late!

  “Let us stay here,” said Ben-Hur to Balthasar, who was wringing his hands. “The Nazarite may come this way.”

  The people were too intent upon what they had heard, and too busy in discussion, to notice the new-comers. When some hundreds were gone by, and it seemed the opportunity to so much as see the Nazarite was lost to the latter, up the river not far away they beheld a person coming towards them of such singular appearance they forgot all else.

  Outwardly the man was rude and uncouth, even savage. Over a thin, gaunt visage of the hue of brown parchment, over his shoulders and down his back below the middle, in witch-like locks, fell a covering of sun-scorched hair. His eyes were burning-bright. All his right side was naked, and of the color of his face, and quite as meagre; a shirt of the coarsest camel’s hair—coarse as Bedouin tent-cloth—clothed the rest of his person to the knees, being gathered at the waist by a broad girdle of untanned leather. His feet were bare. A scrip, also of untanned leather, was fastened to the girdle. He used a knotted staff to help him forward. His movement was quick, decided, and strangely watchful. Every little while he tossed the unruly hair from his eyes, and peered round as if searching for somebody.

  The fair Egyptian surveyed the son of the Desert with surprise, not to say disgust. Presently, raising the curtain of the houdah, she spoke to Ben-Hur, who sat his horse near by.

  “Is that the herald of thy King?”

  “It is the Nazarite,” he replied, without looking up.

  In truth, he was himself more than disappointed. Despite his familiarity with the ascetic colonists in En-Gedi—their dress, their indifference to all worldly opinion, their constancy to vows which gave them over to every imaginable suffering of body, and separated them from others of their kind as absolutely as if they had not been born like them—and notwithstanding he had been notified on the way to look for a Nazarite whose simple description of himself was a Voice from the Wilderness—still Ben-Hur’s dream of the King who was to be so great and do so much had colored all his thought of him, so that he never doubted to find in the forerunner some sign or token of the goodliness and royalty he was announcing. Gazing at the savage figure before him, the long trains of courtiers whom he had been used to see in the thermae and imperial corridors at Rome arose before him, forcing a comparison. Shocked, shamed, bewildered, he could only answer,

  “It is the Nazarite.”

  With Balthasar it was very different. The ways of God, he knew, were not as men would have them. He had seen the Saviour a child in a manger, and was prepared by his faith for the rude and simple in connection with the Divine reappearance. So he kept his seat, his hands crossed upon his breast, his lips moving in prayer. He was not expecting a king.

  In this time of such interest to the new-comers, and in which they were so differently moved, another man had been sitting by himself on a stone at the edge of the river, thinking yet, probably, of the sermon he had been hearing. Now, however, he arose, and walked slowly up from the shore, in a course to take him across the line the Nazarite was pursuing
and bring him near the camel.

  And the two—the preacher and the stranger—kept on until they came, the former within twenty yards of the animal, the latter within ten feet. Then the preacher stopped, and flung the hair from his eyes, looked at the stranger, threw his hands up as a signal to all the people in sight; and they also stopped, each in the pose of a listener; and when the hush was perfect, slowly the staff in the Nazarite’s right hand came down and pointed to the stranger.

  All those who before were but listeners became watchers also.

  At the same instant, under the same impulse, Balthasar and Ben-Hur fixed their gaze upon the man pointed out, and both took the same impression, only in different degree. He was moving slowly towards them in a clear space a little to their front, a form slightly above the average in stature, and slender, even delicate. His action was calm and deliberate, like that habitual to men much given to serious thought upon grave subjects; and it well became his costume, which was an under-garment full-sleeved and reaching to the ankles, and an outer robe called the talith; on his left arm he carried the usual handkerchief for the head, the red fillet swinging loose down his side. Except the fillet and a narrow border of blue at the lower edge of the talith, his attire was of linen yellowed with dust and road-stains. Possibly the exception should be extended to the tassels, which were blue and white, as prescribed by law for rabbis. His sandals were of the simplest kind. He was without scrip or girdle or staff.

  These points of appearance, however, the three beholders observed briefly, and rather as accessories to the head and face of the man, which—especially the latter—were the real sources of the spell they caught in common with all who stood looking at him.