Ben Hur (35 page)

"It is not a place for a son of Israel, father."

"Rabbinical, rabbinical, Esther! Is that all?"

The tone of the inquiry was searching, and went to her heart,
which began to beat loudly—so loudly she could not answer.
A confusion new and strangely pleasant fell upon her.

"The young man is to have the fortune," he said, taking her hand,
and speaking more tenderly; "he is to have the ships and the
shekels—all, Esther, all. Yet I did not feel poor, for thou
wert left me, and thy love so like the dead Rachel's. Tell me,
is he to have that too?"

She bent over him, and laid her cheek against his head.

"Speak, Esther. I will be the stronger of the knowledge. In warning
there is strength."

She sat up then, and spoke as if she were Truth's holy self.

"Comfort thee, father. I will never leave thee; though he take
my love, I will be thy handmaid ever as now."

And, stooping, she kissed him.

"And more," she said, continuing: "he is comely in my sight,
and the pleading of his voice drew me to him, and I shudder to
think of him in danger. Yes, father, I would be more than glad
to see him again. Still, the love that is unrequited cannot be
perfect love, wherefore I will wait a time, remembering I am thy
daughter and my mother's."

"A very blessing of the Lord art thou, Esther! A blessing to
keep me rich, though all else be lost. And by his holy name
and everlasting life, I swear thou shalt not suffer."

At his request, a little later, the servant came and rolled the
chair into the room, where he sat for a time thinking of the coming
of the king, while she went off and slept the sleep of the innocent.

The palace across the river nearly opposite Simonides' place is said
to have been completed by the famous Epiphanes, and was all such a
habitation can be imagined; though he was a builder whose taste
ran to the immense rather than the classical, now so called—an
architectural imitator, in other words, of the Persians instead
of the Greeks.

The wall enclosing the whole island to the waters edge, and built
for the double purpose of bulwark against the river and defence
against the mob, was said to have rendered the palace unfit for
constant occupancy, insomuch that the legates abandoned it and
moved to another residence erected for them on the western ridge
of Mount Sulpius, under the Temple of Jupiter. Persons were not
wanting, however, who flatly denied the bill against the ancient
abode. They said, with shrewdness at least, that the real object
of the removal of the legates was not a more healthful locality,
but the assurance afforded them by the huge barracks, named,
according to the prevalent style, citadel, situated just over
the way on the eastern ridge of the mount. And the opinion had
plausible showing. Among other pertinent things, it was remarked
that the palace was kept in perpetual readiness for use; and when
a consul, general of the army, king, or visiting potentate of any
kind arrived at Antioch, quarters were at once assigned him on
the island.

As we have to do with but one apartment in the old pile, the residue
of it is left to the reader's fancy; and as pleases him, he may go
through its gardens, baths, halls, and labyrinth of rooms to the
pavilions on the roof, all furnished as became a house of fame
in a city which was more nearly Milton's "gorgeous East" than
any other in the world.

At this age the apartment alluded to would be termed a saloon. It was
quite spacious, floored with polished marble slabs, and lighted
in the day by skylights in which colored mica served as glass.
The walls were broken by Atlantes, no two of which were alike,
but all supporting a cornice wrought with arabesques exceedingly
intricate in form, and more elegant on account of superadditions
of color—blue, green, Tyrian purple, and gold. Around the room
ran a continuous divan of Indian silks and wool of Cashmere.
The furniture consisted of tables and stools of Egyptian patterns
grotesquely carved. We have left Simonides in his chair perfecting
his scheme in aid of the miraculous king, whose coming he has decided
is so close at hand. Esther is asleep; and now, having crossed
the river by the bridge, and made way through the lion-guarded
gate and a number of Babylonian halls and courts, let us enter
the gilded saloon.

There are five chandeliers hanging by sliding bronze chains from
the ceiling—one in each corner, and in the centre one—enormous
pyramids of lighted lamps, illuminating even the demoniac faces
of the Atlantes and the complex tracery of the cornice. About the
tables, seated or standing, or moving restlessly from one to another,
there are probably a hundred persons, whom we must study at least for
a moment.

They are all young, some of them little more than boys. That they
are Italians and mostly Romans is past doubt. They all speak
Latin in purity, while each one appears in the in-door dress
of the great capital on the Tiber; that is, in tunics short of
sleeve and skirt, a style of vesture well adapted to the climate
of Antioch, and especially comfortable in the too close atmosphere
of the saloon. On the divan here and there togas and lacernae lie
where they have been carelessly tossed, some of them significantly
bordered with purple. On the divan also lie sleepers stretched at
ease; whether they were overcome by the heat and fatigue of the
sultry day or by Bacchus we will not pause to inquire.

The hum of voices is loud and incessant. Sometimes there is an
explosion of laughter, sometimes a burst of rage or exultation;
but over all prevails a sharp, prolonged rattle, at first somewhat
confusing to the non-familiar. If we approach the tables, however,
the mystery solves itself. The company is at the favorite games,
draughts and dice, singly or together, and the rattle is merely
of the tesserae, or ivory cubes, loudly shaken, and the moving
of the hostes on the checkered boards.

Who are the company?

"Good Flavius," said a player, holding his piece in suspended
movement, "thou seest yon lacerna; that one in front of us on
the divan. It is fresh from the shop, and hath a shoulder-buckle
of gold broad as a palm."

"Well," said Flavius, intent upon his game, "I have seen such
before; wherefore thine may not be old, yet, by the girdle of
Venus, it is not new! What of it?"

"Nothing. Only I would give it to find a man who knows everything."

"Ha, ha! For something cheaper, I will find thee here several with
purple who will take thy offer. But play."

"There—check!"

"So, by all the Jupiters! Now, what sayest thou? Again?"

"Be it so."

"And the wager?"

"A sestertium."

Then each drew his tablets and stilus and made a memorandum; and,
while they were resetting the pieces, Flavius returned to his
friend's remark.

"A man who knows everything! Hercle! the oracles would die.
What wouldst thou with such a monster?"

"Answer to one question, my Flavius; then, perpol! I would cut
his throat."

"And the question?"

"I would have him tell me the hour— Hour, said I?—nay, the minute
—Maxentius will arrive to-morrow."

"Good play, good play! I have you! And why the minute?"

"Hast thou ever stood uncovered in the Syrian sun on the quay at
which he will land? The fires of the Vesta are not so hot; and,
by the Stator of our father Romulus, I would die, if die I must,
in Rome. Avernus is here; there, in the square before the Forum,
I could stand, and, with my hand raised thus, touch the floor of
the gods. Ha, by Venus, my Flavius, thou didst beguile me! I have
lost. O Fortune!"

"Again?"

"I must have back my sestertium."

"Be it so."

And they played again and again; and when day, stealing through
the skylights, began to dim the lamps, it found the two in the
same places at the same table, still at the game. Like most of
the company, they were military attaches of the consul, awaiting his
arrival and amusing themselves meantime.

During this conversation a party entered the room, and, unnoticed
at first, proceeded to the central table. The signs were that they
had come from a revel just dismissed. Some of them kept their
feet with difficulty. Around the leader's brow was a chaplet
which marked him master of the feast, if not the giver. The wine
had made no impression upon him unless to heighten his beauty,
which was of the most manly Roman style; he carried his head
high raised; the blood flushed his lips and cheeks brightly;
his eyes glittered; though the manner in which, shrouded in a
toga spotless white and of ample folds, he walked was too nearly
imperial for one sober and not a Caesar. In going to the table,
he made room for himself and his followers with little ceremony
and no apologies; and when at length he stopped, and looked over
it and at the players, they all turned to him, with a shout like
a cheer.

"Messala! Messala!" they cried.

Those in distant quarters, hearing the cry, re-echoed it where they
were. Instantly there were dissolution of groups, and breaking-up
of games, and a general rush towards the centre.

Messala took the demonstration indifferently, and proceeded
presently to show the ground of his popularity.

"A health to thee, Drusus, my friend," he said to the player next
at his right; "a health—and thy tablets a moment."

He raised the waxen boards, glanced at the memoranda of wagers,
and tossed them down.

"Denarii, only denarii—coin of cartmen and butchers!" he said,
with a scornful laugh. "By the drunken Semele, to what is Rome
coming, when a Caesar sits o' nights waiting a turn of fortune
to bring him but a beggarly denarius!"

The scion of the Drusi reddened to his brows, but the bystanders
broke in upon his reply by surging closer around the table,
and shouting, "The Messala! the Messala!"

"Men of the Tiber," Messala continued, wresting a box with the dice
in it from a hand near-by, "who is he most favored of the gods?
A Roman. Who is he lawgiver of the nations? A Roman. Who is he,
by sword right, the universal master?"

The company were of the easily inspired, and the thought was one
to which they were born; in a twinkling they snatched the answer
from him.

"A Roman, a Roman!" they shouted.

"Yet—yet"—he lingered to catch their ears—"yet there is a better
than the best of Rome."

He tossed his patrician head and paused, as if to sting them with
his sneer.

"Hear ye?" he asked. "There is a better than the best of Rome."

"Ay—Hercules!" cried one.

"Bacchus!" yelled a satirist.

"Jove—Jove!" thundered the crowd.

"No," Messala answered, "among men."

"Name him, name him!" they demanded.

"I will," he said, the next lull. "He who to the perfection of
Rome hath added the perfection of the East; who to the arm of
conquest, which is Western, hath also the art needful to the
enjoyment of dominion, which is Eastern."

"Perpol! His best is a Roman, after all," some one shouted;
and there was a great laugh, and long clapping of hands—an
admission that Messala had the advantage.

"In the East" he continued, "we have no gods, only Wine, Women,
and Fortune, and the greatest of them is Fortune; wherefore our
motto, 'Who dareth what I dare?'—fit for the senate, fit for
battle, fittest for him who, seeking the best, challenges the
worst."

His voice dropped into an easy, familiar tone, but without relaxing
the ascendancy he had gained.

"In the great chest up in the citadel I have five talents coin
current in the markets, and here are the receipts for them."

From his tunic he drew a roll of paper, and, flinging it on the
table, continued, amidst breathless silence, every eye having him
in view fixed on his, every ear listening:

"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.