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Updated: May 5, 2025
"I will not wait to begin it. Time forbids waiting. The ship that brought the news of the suffering of our brethren shall take me to Rome. I will sail to-morrow." He turned to Malluch. "Get the ship ready, Malluch, and be thou ready to go with me. "It is well," said Simonides. "And thou, Esther, what sayest thou?" asked Ben-Hur. Esther came to his side, and put her hand on his arm, and answered,
"No, it is not enough," Ben-Hur said, unmoved by the play "it is not enough. To-morrow you will determine what to do with me. I may die." "True," she rejoined quickly and with emphasis, "I had something from Sheik Ilderim as he lay with my father in a grove out in the Desert.
The lad arose, and, with silent salute, departed. At midnight Ilderim took the road, having arranged to leave a horse and a guide for Ben-Hur, who was to follow him. Going next day to fill his appointment with Iras, Ben-Hur turned from the Omphalus, which was in the heart of the city, into the Colonnade of Herod, and came shortly to the palace of Idernee.
The face of the merchant knit convulsively as he spoke, and his head sank upon his breast. He had borne his part in Ben-Hur's labors well, and he had been inspired by the same hopes, now blown out never to be rekindled. Two other men succeeded the Nazarene bearing cross-beams. "Who are these?" Ben-Hur asked of the Galileans. "Thieves appointed to die with the Nazarene," they replied.
Esther, left thus alone, stood a moment abashed, her color coming and going; then she went to Ben-Hur, and said, with a womanliness singularly sweet, "I am not better than my mother was; and, as she is gone, I pray you, O my master, let me care for my father." Ben-Hur took her hand, and led her back to the chair, saying, "Thou art a good child. Have thy will."
The mystery surrounding his own presence in the palace tended, as we have seen, to make Ben-Hur nervous; so now, when in the tall stout stranger he recognized the Northman whom he had known in Rome, and seen crowned only the day before in the Circus as the winning pugilist; when he saw the man's face, scarred with the wounds of many battles, and imbruted by ferocious passions; when he surveyed the fellow's naked limbs, very marvels of exercise and training, and his shoulders of Herculean breadth, a thought of personal danger started a chill along every vein.
It closed tightly; otherwise there was not the slightest expression of feeling of any kind on his part; nothing to warrant an inference of surprise or interest; nothing but this calm answer, "The princes of Jerusalem, of the pure blood, are always welcome in my house; you are welcome. Give the young man a seat, Esther." The girl took an ottoman near by, and carried it to Ben-Hur.
And so arrayed, she plied Ben-Hur with countless coquetries of speech and manner; showering him with smiles; laughing in flute-like tremolo and all the while following him with glances, now melting-tender, now sparkling-bright. By such play Antony was weaned from his glory; yet she who wrought his ruin was really not half so beautiful as this her countrywoman.
"It is enough," he said aloud. "Go back to thy place." Ben-Hur bowed; looked once more into the master's face, but saw nothing for hope. He turned away slowly, looked back, and said, "If thou dost think of me again, O tribune, let it not be lost in thy mind that I prayed thee only for word of my people mother, sister." He moved on. Arrius followed him with admiring eyes. "Perpol!" he thought.
Ben-Hur tarried across the river with Ilderim; for at midnight, as previously determined, they would take the road which the caravan, then thirty hours out, had pursued. The sheik was happy; his offers of gifts had been royal; but Ben-Hur had refused everything, insisting that he was satisfied with the humiliation of his enemy. The generous dispute was long continued.
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