Ben Hur (45 page)

"They are not dead," he said, after reflection; "they are not dead,
or he would have heard of it."

A second reading, more careful than the first, confirmed him in
the opinion. Then he sent for the sheik.

"In coming to your hospitable tent, O sheik," he said, calmly,
when the Arab was seated and they were alone, "it was not in my
mind to speak of myself further than to assure you I had sufficient
training to be intrusted with your horses. I declined to tell you
my history. But the chances which have sent this paper to my hand
and given it to me to be read are so strange that I feel bidden to
trust you with everything. And I am the more inclined to do so by
knowledge here conveyed that we are both of us threatened by the
same enemy, against whom it is needful that we make common cause.
I will read the letter and give you explanation; after which you
will not wonder I was so moved. If you thought me weak or childish,
you will then excuse me."

The sheik held his peace, listening closely, until Ben-Hur came to
the paragraph in which he was particularly mentioned: "'I saw the
Jew yesterday in the Grove of Daphne;'" so ran the part, "'and if
he be not there now, he is certainly in the neighborhood, making it
easy for me to keep him in eye. Indeed, wert thou to ask me where
he is now, I should say, with the most positive assurance, he is
to be found at the old Orchard of Palms.'"

"A—h!" exclaimed Ilderim, in such a tone one might hardly say
he was more surprised than angry; at the same time, he clutched
his beard.

"'At the old Orchard of Palms,'" Ben-Hur repeated, "'under the
tent of the traitor Shiek Ilderim.'"

"Traitor!—I?" the old man cried, in his shrillest tone, while lip
and beard curled with ire, and on his forehead and neck the veins
swelled and beat as they would burst.

"Yet a moment, sheik," said Ben-Hur, with a deprecatory gesture.
"Such is Messala's opinion of you. Hear his threat." And he read
on—"'under the tent of the traitor Sheik Ilderim, who cannot
long escape our strong hand. Be not surprised if Maxentius,
as his first measure, places the Arab on ship for forwarding
to Rome.'"

"To Rome! Me—Ilderim—sheik of ten thousand horsemen with spears—
me to Rome!"

He leaped rather than rose to his feet, his arms outstretched,
his fingers spread and curved like claws, his eyes glittering
like a serpent's.

"O God!—nay, by all the gods except of Rome!—when shall this
insolence end? A freeman am I; free are my people. Must we die
slaves? Or, worse, must I live a dog, crawling to a master's
feet? Must I lick his hand, lest he lash me? What is mine is not
mine; I am not my own; for breath of body I must be beholden to
a Roman. Oh, if I were young again! Oh, could I shake off twenty
years—or ten—or five!"

He ground his teeth and shook his hands overhead; then, under the
impulse of another idea, he walked away and back again to Ben-Hur
swiftly, and caught his shoulder with a strong grasp.

"If I were as thou, son of Arrius—as young, as strong, as practised
in arms; if I had a motive hissing me to revenge—a motive, like thine,
great enough to make hate holy— Away with disguise on thy part and on
mine! Son of Hur, son of Hur, I say—"

At that name all the currents of Ben-Hur's blood stopped; surprised,
bewildered, he gazed into the Arab's eyes, now close to his,
and fiercely bright.

"Son of Hur, I say, were I as thou, with half thy wrongs, bearing
about with me memories like thine, I would not, I could not, rest."
Never pausing, his words following each other torrent-like, the old
man swept on. "To all my grievances, I would add those of the world,
and devote myself to vengeance. From land to land I would go firing
all mankind. No war for freedom but should find me engaged; no battle
against Rome in which I would not bear a part. I would turn Parthian,
if I could not better. If men failed me, still I would not give over
the effort—ha, ha, ha! By the splendor of God! I would herd with
wolves, and make friends of lions and tigers, in hope of marshalling
them against the common enemy. I would use every weapon. So my victims
were Romans, I would rejoice in slaughter. Quarter I would not ask;
quarter I would not give. To the flames everything Roman; to the
sword every Roman born. Of nights I would pray the gods, the good
and the bad alike, to lend me their special terrors—tempests,
drought, heat, cold, and all the nameless poisons they let loose
in air, all the thousand things of which men die on sea and on
land. Oh, I could not sleep. I—I—"

The sheik stopped for want of breath, panting, wringing his hands.
And, sooth to say, of all the passionate burst Ben-Hur retained
but a vague impression wrought by fiery eyes, a piercing voice,
and a rage too intense for coherent expression.

For the first time in years, the desolate youth heard himself
addressed by his proper name. One man at least knew him,
and acknowledged it without demand of identity; and he an
Arab fresh from the desert!

How came the man by his knowledge? The letter? No. It told the
cruelties from which his family had suffered; it told the story
of his own misfortunes, but it did not say he was the very victim
whose escape from doom was the theme of the heartless narrative.
That was the point of explanation he had notified the sheik would
follow the reading of the letter. He was pleased, and thrilled with
hope restored, yet kept an air of calmness.

"Good sheik, tell me how you came by this letter."

"My people keep the roads between cities," Ilderim answered, bluntly.
"They took it from a courier."

"Are they known to be thy people?"

"No. To the world they are robbers, whom it is mine to catch and
slay."

"Again, sheik. You call me son of Hur—my father's name. I did
not think myself known to a person on earth. How came you by the
knowledge?"

Ilderim hesitated; but, rallying, he answered, "I know you, yet I
am not free to tell you more."

"Some one holds you in restraint?"

The sheik closed his mouth, and walked away; but, observing Ben-Hur's
disappointment, he came back, and said, "Let us say no more about the
matter now. I will go to town; when I return, I may talk to you fully.
Give me the letter."

Ilderim rolled the papyrus carefully, restored it to its envelopes,
and became once more all energy.

"What sayest thou?" he asked, while waiting for his horse and
retinue. "I told what I would do, were I thou, and thou hast
made no answer."

"I intended to answer, sheik, and I will." Ben-Hur's countenance
and voice changed with the feeling invoked. "All thou hast said,
I will do—all at least in the power of a man. I devoted myself
to vengeance long ago. Every hour of the five years passed, I have
lived with no other thought. I have taken no respite. I have had
no pleasures of youth. The blandishments of Rome were not for me.
I wanted her to educate me for revenge. I resorted to her most
famous masters and professors—not those of rhetoric or philosophy:
alas! I had no time for them. The arts essential to a fighting-man
were my desire. I associated with gladiators, and with winners of
prizes in the Circus; and they were my teachers. The drill-masters
in the great camp accepted me as a scholar, and were proud of my
attainments in their line. O sheik, I am a soldier; but the things
of which I dream require me to be a captain. With that thought,
I have taken part in the campaign against the Parthians; when it
is over, then, if the Lord spare my life and strength—then"—he
raised his clenched hands, and spoke vehemently—"then I will be an
enemy Roman-taught in all things; then Rome shall account to me in
Roman lives for her ills. You have my answer, sheik."

Ilderim put an arm over his shoulder, and kissed him, saying,
passionately, "If thy God favor thee not, son of Hur, it is
because he is dead. Take thou this from me—sworn to, if so thy
preference run: thou shalt have my hands, and their fulness—men,
horses, camels, and the desert for preparation. I swear it! For
the present, enough. Thou shalt see or hear from me before night."

Turning abruptly off, the sheik was speedily on the road to the
city.

The intercepted letter was conclusive upon a number of points of
great interest to Ben-Hur. It had all the effect of a confession
that the writer was a party to the putting-away of the family
with murderous intent; that he had sanctioned the plan adopted for
the purpose; that he had received a portion of the proceeds of the
confiscation, and was yet in enjoyment of his part; that he dreaded
the unexpected appearance of what he was pleased to call the chief
malefactor, and accepted it as a menace; that he contemplated such
further action as would secure him in the future, and was ready to
do whatever his accomplice in Caesarea might advise.

And, now that the letter had reached the hand of him really its
subject, it was notice of danger to come, as well as a confession
of guilt. So when Ilderim left the tent, Ben-Hur had much to think
about, requiring immediate action. His enemies were as adroit and
powerful as any in the East. If they were afraid of him, he had greater
reason to be afraid of them. He strove earnestly to reflect upon
the situation, but could not; his feelings constantly overwhelmed
him. There was a certain qualified pleasure in the assurance that
his mother and sister were alive; and it mattered little that the
foundation of the assurance was a mere inference. That there was
one person who could tell him where they were seemed to his hope
so long deferred as if discovery were now close at hand. These were
mere causes of feeling; underlying them, it must be confessed he
had a superstitious fancy that God was about to make ordination
in his behalf, in which event faith whispered him to stand still.

Occasionally, referring to the words of Ilderim, he wondered whence
the Arab derived his information about him; not from Malluch certainly;
nor from Simonides, whose interests, all adverse, would hold him dumb.
Could Messala have been the informant? No, no: disclosure might be
dangerous in that quarter. Conjecture was vain; at the same time,
often as Ben-Hur was beaten back from the solution, he was consoled
with the thought that whoever the person with the knowledge might
be, he was a friend, and, being such, would reveal himself in good
time. A little more waiting—a little more patience. Possibly the
errand of the sheik was to see the worthy; possibly the letter
might precipitate a full disclosure.

And patient he would have been if only he could have believed
Tirzah and his mother were waiting for him under circumstances
permitting hope on their part strong as his; if, in other words,
conscience had not stung him with accusations respecting them.

To escape such accusations, he wandered far through the Orchard,
pausing now where the date-gatherers were busy, yet not too busy
to offer him of their fruit and talk with him; then, under the
great trees, to watch the nesting birds, or hear the bees swarming
about the berries bursting with honeyed sweetness, and filling all
the green and golden spaces with the music of their beating wings.

By the lake, however, he lingered longest. He might not look upon
the water and its sparkling ripples, so like sensuous life,
without thinking of the Egyptian and her marvellous beauty,
and of floating with her here and there through the night,
made brilliant by her songs and stories; he might not forget the
charm of her manner, the lightness of her laugh, the flattery of
her attention, the warmth of her little hand under his upon
the tiller of the boat. From her it was for his thought but
a short way to Balthasar, and the strange things of which he
had been witness, unaccountable by any law of nature; and from
him, again, to the King of the Jews, whom the good man, with such
pathos of patience, was holding in holy promise, the distance was
even nearer. And there his mind stayed, finding in the mysteries
of that personage a satisfaction answering well for the rest he
was seeking. Because, it may have been, nothing is so easy as
denial of an idea not agreeable to our wishes, he rejected the
definition given by Balthasar of the kingdom the king was coming to
establish. A kingdom of souls, if not intolerable to his Sadducean
faith, seemed to him but an abstraction drawn from the depths of
a devotion too fond and dreamy. A kingdom of Judea, on the other
hand, was more than comprehensible: such had been, and, if only
for that reason, might be again. And it suited his pride to think
of a new kingdom broader of domain, richer in power, and of a more
unapproachable splendor than the old one; of a new king wiser and
mightier than Solomon—a new king under whom, especially, he could
find both service and revenge. In that mood he resumed to the dowar.

The mid-day meal disposed of, still further to occupy himself,
Ben-Hur had the chariot rolled out into the sunlight for inspection.
The word but poorly conveys the careful study the vehicle underwent.
No point or part of it escaped him. With a pleasure which will be
better understood hereafter, he saw the pattern was Greek, in his
judgment preferable to the Roman in many respects; it was wider
between the wheels, and lower and stronger, and the disadvantage
of greater weight would be more than compensated by the greater
endurance of his Arabs. Speaking generally, the carriage-makers
of Rome built for the games almost solely, sacrificing safety to
beauty, and durability to grace; while the chariots of Achilles
and "the king of men," designed for war and all its extreme tests,
still ruled the tastes of those who met and struggled for the crowns
Isthmian and Olympic.

Next he brought the horses, and, hitching them to the chariot,
drove to the field of exercise, where, hour after hour, he practised
them in movement under the yoke. When he came away in the evening,
it was with restored spirit, and a fixed purpose to defer action
in the matter of Messala until the race was won or lost. He could
not forego the pleasure of meeting his adversary under the eyes of
the East; that there might be other competitors seemed not to enter
his thought. His confidence in the result was absolute; no doubt of
his own skill; and as to the four, they were his full partners in
the glorious game.