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Updated: June 29, 2025
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."
A leper came to the Nazarene while I was with him down in Galilee, and said, 'Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. He heard the cry, and touched the outcast with his hand, saying, 'Be thou clean; and forthwith the man was himself again, healthful as any of us who beheld the cure, and we were a multitude." Here Amrah arose, and with her gaunt fingers held the wiry locks from her eyes.
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.
"Come again this evening," she repeated, taking up the water, and starting for the tomb. Amrah waited 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.
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 well Amrah kept watch upon the spectral groups. She scarcely moved. More than once she imagined she saw those she sought.
Awakened by the action, Ben-Hur instinctively withdrew the hand; as he did so, his eyes met the woman's. "Amrah! O Amrah, is it thou?" he said. The good heart made no answer in words, but fell upon his neck, crying for joy. Gently he put her arms away, and lifting the dark face wet with tears, kissed it, his joy only a little less than hers. Then those across the way heard him say,
In the half-clad apparition, patched with scales, lividly seamed, nearly blind, its limbs and extremities swollen to grotesque largeness, familiar eyes however sharpened by love could not have recognized the creature of childish grace and purity we first beheld her. "Is it Amrah, mother?" The servant tried to crawl to her also. "Stay, Amrah!" the widow cried, imperiously.
So saying, Ben-Hur took his leave, intending to return to Bethany. The first person to go out of the city upon the opening of the Sheep's Gate next morning was Amrah, basket on arm. No questions were asked her by the keepers, since the morning itself had not been more regular in coming than she; they knew her somebody's faithful servant, and that was enough for them.
"I knew something had happened," she said, deeply interested. "I never liked the Messala. Tell me all." But he fell into musing, and to her repeated inquiries only said, "He is much changed, and I shall have nothing more to do with him." When Amrah took the platter away, he also went out, and up from the terrace to the roof.
"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.
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