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"I I am a Jew" Ben-Hur seemed shrinking within himself as he spoke "and, though I wear a Roman name, I dared not do professionally a thing to sully my father's name in the cloisters and courts of the Temple.
They asked Ben-Hur his authority for the sayings, and he quoted the prophets, and told them of Balthasar in waiting over in Antioch; and they were satisfied, for it was the old much-loved legend of the Messiah, familiar to them almost as the name of the Lord; the long-cherished dream with a time fixed for its realization. The King was not merely coming now; he was at hand.
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.
Above the bridge, across the river, a wall rose from the water's edge, over which towered the fanciful cornices and turrets of an imperial palace, covering every foot of the island spoken of in the Hebrew's description. But, with all its suggestions, Ben-Hur scarcely noticed it. Now, at last, he thought to hear of his people this, certainly, if Simonides had indeed been his father's slave.
Off to one side a portable earthenware oven was established under the presidency of a woman whose duty it was to keep the company in bread, or, more precisely, in hot cakes of flour from the handmills grinding with constant sound in a neighboring tent. Meanwhile Balthasar was conducted to the divan, where Ilderim and Ben-Hur received him standing.
I know he loves me." The good man stopped and drank, and the hand carrying the cup to his lips trembled; and both Iras and Ben-Hur shared his emotion and remained silent. Upon the latter a light was breaking.
The servant left the two alone. In the excitement occasioned by the events of the few days past Ben-Hur had scarcely given a thought to the fair Egyptian. If she came to his mind at all, it was merely as a briefest pleasure, a suggestion of a delight which could wait for him, and was waiting. But now the influence of the woman revived with all its force the instant Ben-Hur beheld her.
"With teaching, what a man for the arena! What a runner! Ye gods! what an arm for the sword or the cestus! Stay!" he said aloud. Ben-Hur stopped, and the tribune went to him. "If thou wert free, what wouldst thou do?" "The noble Arrius mocks me!" Judah said, with trembling lips. "No; by the gods, no!" "Then I will answer gladly. I would give myself to duty the first of life. I would know no other.
At sight of them Ben-Hur felt the blood redden his forehead; bowing, as much to recover himself as in respect, he lost the lifting of the hands, and the shiver and shrink with which the sitter caught sight of him an emotion as swift to go as it had been to come.
"The thoughts stirred by such things done under my eyes I leave you to imagine," said Ben-Hur, continuing; "but my doubts, my misgivings, my amazement, were not yet at the full. The people of Galilee are, as you know, impetuous and rash; after years of waiting their swords burned their hands; nothing would do them but action. 'He is slow to declare himself; let us force him, they cried to me.
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