 6 CHAPTER I Is that a death? And are there two? Is death that woman's mate? Her skin was white as leprosy, the nightmare life in death was she, who thicks man's blood with cold. CHAPTER I Our story moves forward now, thirty days from the night Ben Hur left Antioch to go out with Sheikh Yildirim into the desert. A great change has befallen, great at least as respects the fortunes of our hero. Valerius Gratis has been succeeded by Pontius Pilate. The removal, it may be remarked, cost Simonides exactly five talents Roman money in hand paid to Sogenus, who was then in height of power as imperial favourite, the object being to help Ben Hur by lessening his exposure while in and about Jerusalem attempting discovery of his people. To such pious use the faithful servant put the winnings from Drusus and his associates, all of whom, having paid their wagers, became at once and naturally the enemies of Masala, whose repudiation was yet an unsettled question in Rome. Brief as the time was, already the Jews knew the change of rulers was not for the better. The cohorts sent to relieve the garrison of Antonia made their entry into the city by night. Next morning the first sight that greeted the people resident in the neighbourhood was the walls of the old tower decorated with military ensigns, which unfortunately consisted of busts of the emperor mixed with eagles and globes. A multitude in passion marched to Caesarea, where Pilate was lingering and implored him to remove the detested images. Five days and nights they beset his palace gates. At last he appointed a meeting with them in the circus. When they were assembled he encircled them with soldiers. Instead of resisting, they offered him their lives and conquered. He recalled the images and ensigns to Caesarea, where Gratus, with more consideration, had kept such abominations housed during the eleven years of his reign. The worst of men do once in a while vary their wickednesses by good acts. So with Pilate. He ordered an inspection of all the prisons in Judea, and a return of the names of the persons in custody with a statement of the crimes for which they had been committed. Doubtless the motive was the one so common with officials just installed, dread of entailed responsibility. The people, however, in thought of the good which might come of the measure, gave him credit, and for a period were comforted. The revelations were astonishing. Hundreds of persons were released against whom there were no accusations. Many others came to light who had long been accounted dead. Yet more amazing there was opening of dungeons not merely unknown at the time by the people, but actually forgotten by the prison authorities. With one instance of the latter kind we have now to deal. And strange to say it occurred in Jerusalem. The Tower of Antonia, which will be remembered as occupying two-thirds of the sacred area on Mount Moriah, was originally a castle built by the Macedonians. Afterwards John Hercanus erected the castle into a fortress for the defense of the temple, and in his day it was considered impregnable to assault, but when Herod came with his bolder genius he strengthened its walls and extended them, leaving a vast pile which included every appurtenance necessary for the stronghold he intended it to be, for ever, such as offices, barracks, armories, magazines, cisterns, and last, though not least, prisons of all grades. He leveled the solid rock, and tapped it with deep excavations, and built over them. Using the whole great mass with the temple by a beautiful colonnade, from the roof of which one could look down over the courts of the sacred structure. In such condition the Tower fell at last out of his hands into those of the Romans, who were quick to see its strength in advantages, and convert it to uses becoming such masters. All through the administration of Gratis it had been a garrisoned citadel and underground prison terrible to revolutionists. Woe when the cohorts poured from its gates to suppress disorder. Woe not less when a Jew passed the same gates going in under arrest. With this explanation we hasten to our story. The order of the new procurator requiring a report of the person's incustity was received at the Tower of Antonia, and promptly executed, and two days have gone since the last unfortunate was brought up for examination. The tabulated statement, ready for forwarding, lies on the table of the Tribune in command. In five minutes more it will be on its way to Pilate, so journeying in the palace up on Mount Zion. The Tribune's office is spacious and cool, and furnished in a style suitable to the dignity of the commandant of a post in every respect so important. Looking in upon him about the seventh hour of the day, the officer appears weary and impatient. When the report is dispatched he will to the roof of the colonnade for air and exercise, and the amusement to be had watching the Jews over in the courts of the temple. His subordinates and clerks share his impatience. In the spell of waiting a man appeared in a doorway leading to an adjoining apartment. He rattled a bunch of keys, each heavy as a hammer, and had once attracted the chief's attention. Ah! Jesus! Come in! the Tribune said. As the newcomer approached the table behind which the chief sat in an easy chair, everybody present looked at him, and observing a certain expression of alarm and mortification on his face became silent so that they might hear what he had to say. Ho Tribune! he began, bending low. I fear to tell what now I bring you. Another mistake, ha, G.C.S. If I could persuade myself it is but a mistake, I would not be afraid. A crime, then, or worse, a breach of duty. Dummy as laugh at Caesar, or curse the gods and live, but if the offence be to the eagles—ah! they'll know us, G.C.S.—go on. It is now about eight years since Valerius Gratus selected me to be keeper of prisoners here in the tower. Said the man deliberately. I remember the morning I entered upon the duties of my office. There had been a riot the day before, and fighting in the streets. We slew many Jews, and suffered on our side. The affair came, it was said, of an attempt to assassinate Gratus, who had been knocked from his horse by a tile thrown from a roof. I found him sitting where you now sit, Ho Tribune, his head swathed in bandages. He told me of my selection and gave me these keys, numbered to correspond with the numbers of the cells. They were the badges of my office, he said, and not to be parted with. There was a roll of parchment on the table. Calling me to him, he opened the roll. Here are maps of the cells, said he. There were three of them. This one, he went on, shows the arrangement of the upper floor. The second one gives you the second floor, and this last is of the lower floor. I give them to you in trust. I took them from his hand, and he said further, Now you have the keys and the maps. Go immediately and acquaint yourself with the whole arrangement. Visit each cell, and see to its condition. When anything is needed for the security of a prisoner, order it, according to your judgment, for you are the master under me, and no other. I saluted him, and turned to go away. He called me back. Ah, I forgot, he said. Give me the map of the third floor. I gave it to him, and he spread it upon the table. Here, Gesius, he said, See this cell. He laid his finger on the one numbered five. There are three men confined in that cell, desperate characters, who by some means got hold of a state secret, and suffer for their curiosity, which, he looked at me severely, in such matters is worse than a crime. Accordingly they are blind and tongueless, and are placed there for life. They shall have nothing but food and drink, to be given them through a hole, which we'll find in the wall covered by a slide. Do you hear, Gesius? I made him answer. It is well, he continued. One thing more which you shall not forget, or, he looked at me threateningly, the door of their cell, cell number five, on the same floor, this one, Gesius. He put his finger on the particular cell to impress my memory. Shall never be open for any purpose, neither to let one in nor out, not even yourself. But if they die, I asked. If they die, he said, the cell shall be their tomb. They were put there to die and be lost. The cell is leprous. Do you understand? With that he let me go. Gesius stopped, and from the breast of his tunic drew three parchments, all much yellowed by time and use. Selecting one of them he spread it upon the table before the tribune, saying simply, This is the lower floor. The whole company looked at the map. There was a single passage along which were partitioned five cells along one wall. This is exactly, O Tribune, as I had it from Grottis. See, there is cell number five. Said Gesius. I see, the tribune replied. Go on now. The cell was leprous, he said. I would like to ask you a question. Remarked the keeper modestly. The tribune assented. Had I not a right, under the circumstances, to believe the map a true one? What else couldst thou? Well, it is not a true one. The chief looked up surprised. It is not a true one. The keeper repeated. It shows but five cells upon that floor, while there are six. Six, sayest thou. I will show you the floor as it is, or as I believe it to be. Upon a page of his tablets Gesius drew the following diagram and gave it to the tribune. In this diagram, from the back wall of cell number five, there was a door passing into a cell number six which ran the whole length of the five other cells, with them between itself and the hall. Thou hast done well, said the tribune, examining the drawing, and thinking the narrative at an end. I will have the map corrected, or better, I will have a new one made, and given thee. Come for it in the morning. So saying he arose. But hear me further, O tribune. Tomorrow, Gesius, to-morrow. That which I have yet to tell will not wait. The tribune good-naturedly resumed his chair. I will hurry, said the keeper humbly. Only let me ask another question. Had I not a right to believe gratis, in what he further told me as to the prisoners in cell number five? Yes, it was thy duty to believe there were three prisoners in the cell, prisoners of state, blind and without tongues. Well, said the keeper, that was not true, either. No, said the tribune, with returning interest. Here, and judge for yourself, O tribune. As required, I visited all the cells, beginning with those on the first floor, and ending with those on the lower. The order that the door of number five should not be open had been respected. Through all the eight years food and drink for three men had been passed through a hole in the wall. I went to the door yesterday, curious to see the wretches who, against all expectation, had lived so long. The locks refused the key. We pulled a little, and the door fell down, rusted from its hinges. Going in I found but one man, old, blind, tongueless and naked. His hair dropped in stiffen of mats below his waist. His skin was like the parchment there. He held his hands out and the fingernails curled and twisted like the claws of a bird. I asked him where his companions were. He shook his head in denial. Thinking to find the others we searched the cell. The floor was dry, so were the walls. If three men had been shut in there and two of them had died, at least their bones would have endured. Wherefore thou thinkest? I think, O tribune, there has been but one prisoner there in the eight years. The chief regarded the keeper sharply and said, Have a care. Thou art more than saying valerious lied. Gesius bowed but said, He might have been mistaken. No, he was right, said the tribune warmly. By thine own statement he was right. Dits thou not say, but now, that for eight years food and drink have been furnished three men? The bystanders approved the shrewdness of their chief, yet Gesius did not seem discomfited. You have but half the story, O tribune. When you have it all you will agree with me. You know what I did with the man, that I sent him to the bath and had him shorn and clothed, and then took him to the gate of the tower and bade him go free. I washed my hands of him. Today he came back and was brought to me. By signs and tears he at last made me understand he wished to return to his cell, and I so ordered. As they were leading him off he broke away and kissed my feet, and by piteous dumb imploration insisted I should go with him, and I went. The mystery of the three men stayed in my mind. I was not satisfied about it. Now I am glad I yielded to his entreaty. The whole company at this point became very still. When we were in the cell again, and the prisoner knew it, he caught my hand eagerly and led me to a hole, like that through which we were accustomed to pass him his food. Though large enough to push your helmet through, it escaped me yesterday. Still holding my hand he put his face to the hole and gave a beast-like cry. A sound came faintly back. I was astonished and drew him away and called out, Oh, here! At first there was no answer. I called again and received back these words. Be thou praised, O Lord! Yet more astonishing O Tribune, the voice was a woman's. And I asked, Who are you? And had replied, A woman of Israel entombed here with her daughter, Help us quickly or we die. I told them to be of cheer and hurried here to know your will. The Tribune arose hastily. Thou art right, Jesus! He said, And I see now the map was a lie, and so was the tale of the three men. There have been better Romans than Valerius Gratus. Yes, said the Keeper. I gleaned from the prisoner that he had regularly given the women of the food and drink he had received. It is accounted for, replied the Tribune, and observing the countenances of his friends, and reflecting how well it would be to have witnesses, he added, Let us rescue the women, come all. Jesus was pleased. We will have to pierce the wall, he said. I found where a door had been, but it was filled solidly with stones and mortar. The Tribune stayed to say to a clerk, Send workmen after me with tools, make haste, but hold the report, for I see it will have to be corrected. In a short time they were gone. CHAPTER II A woman of Israel entombed here with her daughter. Help us quickly, or we die. Much was the reply Jesus the Keeper had from the cell which appears on his amended map as Six. The reader, when he observed the answer, knew who the unfortunates were, and doubtless said to himself, At last the mother of Ben-Hur and Terza his sister. And so it was. The morning of their seizure, eight years before they had been carried to the tower, were Gratus proposed to put them out of the way. He had chosen the tower for the purpose as more immediately in his own keeping, and sell Six because, first, it could be better lost than any other, and secondly, it was infected with leprosy, for these prisoners were not merely to be put in a safe place, but in a place to die. They were, accordingly, taken down by slaves in the night-time, when there were no witnesses of the deed. Then, in completion of the savage task, the same slaves walled up the door, after which they were themselves separated and sent away never to be heard of more. To save accusation, and in the event of discovery, to leave himself such justification as might be allowed in a distinction between the infliction of a punishment and the commission of a double murder, Gratus preferred sinking his victims where natural death was certain, so slow. That they might linger along, he selected a convict who had been made blind and tongueless, and sank him in the only connecting cell, there to serve them with food and drink. Under no circumstances could the poor wretch tell the tale, or identify either the prisoners or their doomsmen. So, with a cunning partly due to Masala, the Roman, under colour of punishing a brood of assassins, smoothed the path to confiscation of the estate of the hers, of which no portion ever reached the imperial coffers. As the last step in the scheme, Gratus summarily removed the old keeper of the prisons, not because he knew what had been done, for he did not, but because, knowing the underground floors as he did, it would be next to impossible to keep the transaction from him. Then, with masterly ingenuity, the procurator had new maps drawn for delivery to a new keeper, with the omission, as we have seen, of cell 6. The instructions given the latter, taken with the omission on the map, accomplished the design. The cell and its unhappy tenants were all alike lost. What may be thought of the life of the mother and daughter during the eight years must have relation to their culture and previous habits. Conditions are pleasant or grievous to us according to our sensibilities. It is not extreme to say if there was a sudden exit of all men from the world. Heaven, as prefigured in the Christian idea, would not be a heaven to the majority. On the other hand, neither would all suffer equally in the so-called Toffet. Cultivation has its balances. As the mind is made intelligent, the capacity of the soul for pure enjoyment is proportionally increased. Well, therefore, if it be saved, if lost, however, alas, that it ever had cultivation, its capacity for enjoyment in the one case is the measure of its capacity to suffer in the other. Wherefore, repentance must be something more than mere remorse for sins, it comprehends a change of nature befitting heaven. We repeat, to form an adequate idea of the suffering endured by the mother of Ben Hur, the reader must think of her spirit and its sensibilities as much as, if not more than, of the conditions of the emurement, the question being not what the conditions were, but how she was affected by them. And now we may be permitted to say it was in anticipation of this thought that the scene in the summer house on the roof of the family palace was given so fully in the beginning of the second book of our story. In 1902, to be helpful when the inquiry should come up, we ventured the elaborate description of the palace of the hers. In other words, let the serene, happy, luxurious life in the princely house be recalled, and contrasted with this existence in the lower dungeon of the Tower of Antonia. Then, if the reader, in his effort to realize the misery of the woman, persists in mere reference to conditions physical, he cannot go amiss. As he is a lover of his kind, tender of heart, he will be melted with much sympathy. But will he go further? Will he more than sympathize with her? Will he share her agony of mind and spirit? Will he at least try to measure it? Let him recall her as she discourses to her son of God and nations and heroes? One moment a philosopher, the next a teacher, and all the time a mother. Would you hurt a man keenest? Strike it is self-love. Would you hurt a woman worst? Aim at her affections. With quicken remembrance of these unfortunates, remembrance of them as they were, let us go down and see them as they are. The cell six was in form as Gesius drew it on his map. Of its dimensions but little idea can be had, enough that it was a roomy, roughened interior, with ledged and broken walls and floor. In the beginning the site of the Macedonian castle was separated from the site of the temple by a narrow but deep cliff somewhat in shape of a wedge. The workmen, wishing to hew out a series of chambers, made their entry in the north face of the cleft and worked in, leaving a ceiling of the natural stone. Delving further they executed the cells five, four, three, two, one, with no connection with number six except through number five. In like manner they constructed the passage and stairs to the floor above. The process of the work was precisely that resorted to in carving out the tombs of the kings, yet to be seen a short distance north of Jerusalem. Only when the cutting was done cell six was enclosed on its outer side by a wall of prodigious stones, in which, for ventilation, narrow apertures were left beveled like modern portholes. Herod, when he took hold of the temple and tower, put a facing yet more massive upon this outer wall, and shut up all the apertures but one, which yet admitted a little vitalizing air, an array of light not nearly strong enough to redeem the room from darkness. Such was cell six. Startle not now. The description of the blind and tongueless wretch just liberated from cell five may be accepted to break the horror of what is coming. The two women are grouped close by the aperture. One is seated, the other is half reclining against her. There is nothing between them and the bare rock. The light slanting upwards strikes them with ghastly effect, and we cannot avoid seeing that they are without vesture or covering. At the same time we are helped to the knowledge that love is there yet, for the two are in each other's arms. Riches take wings, comforts vanish, hope withers away, but love stays with us. Love is God. Where the two are thus grouped, the stony floor is polished shining smooth. Who shall say how much of the eight years they have spent in that space there in front of the aperture, nursing their hope of rescue by that timid yet friendly ray of light. When the brightness came creeping in they knew it was dawn. When it began to fade they knew the world was hushing for the night, which could not be anywhere so long and utterly dark as with them. The world. Through that crevice, as if it were broad and high as a king's gate, they went to the world in thought, and past the weary time going up and down as spirits go, looking and asking, the one for her son, the other for her brother. On the seas they sought him, and on the islands of the seas. Today he was in this city, tomorrow in that other, and everywhere, and at all times he was a flitting sojourner. For as they lived waiting for him, he lived looking for them. How often their thoughts passed each other in the endless search, his coming theirs going. It was such sweet flattery for them to say to each other, While he lives we shall not be forgotten, as long as he remembers us there is hope. The strength one can eke from little, who knows till he has been subjected to the trial. Our recollections of them in former days enjoin us to be respectful. Their sorrows clothe them with sanctity. Without going too near, across the dungeon, we see they have undergone a change of appearance not to be accounted for by time or long confinement. The mother was beautiful as a woman, the daughter beautiful as a child. Not even love could say so much now. Their hair is long, unkempt, and strangely white. They make us shrink and shudder with an indefinable repulsion, though the effect may be from an illusory glazing of the light glimmering dismally through the unhealthy murk. Or they may be enduring the tortures of hunger and thirst, not having had to eat or drink since their servant, the convict, was taken away. That is, since yesterday. Terza reclining against her mother in half-embrace moans piteously. Be quiet, Terza. They will come. God is good. We have been mindful of him, and forgotten not to pray at every sounding of the trumpets over in the temple. The light, you see, is still bright. The sun is standing in the south sky yet, and it is hardly more than the seventh hour. Somebody will come to us. Let us have faith. God is good. Thus the mother. The words were simple and effective, although eight years being now to be added to the thirteen she had attained when last we saw her, Terza was no longer a child. I will try and be strong, mother, she said. Your suffering must be as great as mine, and I do so want to live for you and my mother. But my tongue burns, my lips scorch. I wonder where he is, and if he will ever, ever find us. There is something in the voices that strikes us singularly. An unexpected tone. Sharp, dry, metallic, unnatural. The mother draws the daughter closer to her breast and says, I dreamed about him last night, and saw him as plainly Terza as I see you. We must believe in dreams, you know, because our fathers did. The Lord spoke to them so often in that way. I thought we were in the woman's court just before the gate beautiful. There were many women with us, and he came and stood in the shade of the gate and looked here and there, at this one and that. My heart beats strong. I knew he was looking for us, and stretched my arms to him, and ran, calling him. He heard me and saw me, but he did not know me. In a moment he was gone. Would it not be so, mother, if we were to meet him in fact? We are so changed. It might be so, but the mother's head droops and her face knits as with a wrench of pain, recovering, however, she goes on. But we could make ourselves known to him. Terza tossed her arms and moaned again. Water, mother, water, though but a drop. The mother stares around in blank helplessness. She has named God so often and so often promised in his name the repetition is beginning to have a mocking effect upon herself. A shadow passes before her, dimming the dim light, and she is brought down to think of death as very near, waiting to come in as her faith goes out. Hardly knowing what she does, speaking aimlessly, because speak she must, she says again, Patience, Terza, they are coming. They are almost here. She thought she heard a sound over by the little trap in the partition wall, through which they held all their actual communication with the world. And she was not mistaken. A little moment and the cry of the convict rang through the cell. Terza heard it also, and they both arose, still keeping hold of each other. Praise be the Lord for ever! exclaimed the mother, with the fervor of restored faith and hope. Ho, there! they heard next. And then, who are you? The voice was strange. What matter? Except from Terza they were the first and only words the mother had heard in eight years. The revulsion was mighty, from death to life, and so instantly. A woman of Israel, entombed here with her daughter, help us quickly or we die. Be of cheer, I will return. The women sobbed aloud. They were found. Help was coming. From wish to wish hope flew as the twittering swallows fly. They were found. They would be released. And restoration would follow. Restoration to all they had lost. Home, society, property, son and brother. The scanty light glazed them with the glory of day, and forgetful of pain and thirst and hunger, and of the menace of death they sank upon the flooring, cried, keeping fast hold of each other the while. And this time they had not long to wait. Gesius the Keeper, tell his tale methodically, but finished it at last. The tribune was prompt. Within there! he shouted through the trap. Here! said the mother, rising. Directly she heard another sound in another place, as it blows on the wall, blows quick, ringing, and delivered with iron tools. She did not speak, nor did Terza, but they listened well knowing the meeting of it all, that a way to liberty was being made for them. So men a long time buried in deep minds hear the coming of rescuers, heralded by thrust of bar and beat of pick, and answer gratefully with heart-throbs, their eyes fixed upon the spot whence the sounds proceed, and they cannot look away lest the work should cease and they be returned to despair. The arms outside were strong, the hands skillful, the will good. Each instant the blows sounded more plainly. Now and then a peace fell with a crash, and liberty came nearer and nearer. Presently the workmen could be heard speaking. Then, O happiness, through a crevice flashed a red ray of torches. Into the darkness it cut incisive as diamond brilliance, beautiful as if from a spear of the morning. It is he, mother, it is he, he has found us at last! cried Terza with the quick and fancy of youth. But the mother answered meekly, God is good. A block fell inside, and another, then a great mass, and the door was open. A man, grime'd with mortar and stone dust, stepped in, and stopped holding a torch over his head. Two or three others followed with torches and stood aside for the Tribune to enter. Respect for women is not all a conventionality, for it is the best proof of their proper nature. The Tribune stopped because they fled from him. Not with fear, be it said, but shame. Nor yet a reader from shame alone. From the obscurity of their partial hiding he heard these words, the saddest, most dreadful, most utterly despairing of the human tongue. Come not near us! Unclean, unclean! The men flared their torches while they stared at each other. Unclean, unclean! came from the corner again, a slow, tremulous wail exceedingly sorrowful. With such a cry we can imagine a spirit vanishing from the gates of Paradise, looking back the while. So the widow and mother performed her duty, and in the moment realized that the freedom she had prayed for and dreamed of, fruit of scarlet and gold seen afar, was but an apple of Sodom in the hand. She and Terza were lepers. Possibly the reader does not know all the word means. Let him be told it with reference to the law of that time, only a little modified in this. These four are accounted as dead, the blind, the leper, the poor, and the childless. Thus the Talmud. That is, to be a leper was to be treated as dead, to be excluded from the city as a corpse, to be spoken to by the best beloved and most loving only at a distance, to dwell with none but lepers, to be utterly unprivileged, to be denied the rites of the temple and the synagogue, to go about in rent garments and with covered mouth except when crying, unclean, unclean, to find home in the wilderness or in abandoned tombs, to become a materialized specter of Hinnom and Gehenna, to be at all times less a living offence to others than a breathing torment to self, afraid to die yet without hope except in death. Once she might not tell the day or the year, for down in the haunted hell even time was lost, once the mother felt a dry scurf in the palm of her right hand, a trifle which she tried to wash away. It clung to the member pertinaciously, yet she thought but little of the sign till Terza complained that she, too, was attacked in the same way. The supply of water was scant, and they denied themselves drink that they might use it as a curative. At length the whole hand was attacked. The skin cracked open, the fingernails loosened from the flesh. There was not much pain with all, chiefly a steadily increasing discomfort. Later their lips began to partch and seem. One day the mother, who was cleanly to godliness and struggled against the impurities of the dungeon with all ingenuity, thinking the enemy was taking hold on Terza's face, led her to the light and, looking with the inspiration of a terrible dread, low the young girl's eyebrows were white as snow. Oh, the anguish of that assurance! The mother sat a while speechless, motionless, paralyzed of soul incapable of but one thought, leprosy, leprosy. When she began to think, motherlike, it was not of herself but her child. And, motherlike, her natural tenderness turned to courage, and she made ready for the last sacrifice of perfect heroism. She buried her knowledge in her heart. Hopeless herself she redoubled her devotion to Terza, and with wonderful ingenuity, wonderful chiefly in its very inexhaustibility, continued to keep the daughter ignorant of what they were beset with, and even hopeful that it was nothing. She repeated her little games, and retold her stories, and invented new ones, and listened with ever so much pleasure to the songs she would have from Terza, while on her own wasting lips the psalms of the singing king and their race served to bring soothing of forgetfulness, and keep alive in them both the recollection of the god who would seem to have abandoned them, the world not more lightly or utterly. Slowly, steadily, with horrible certainty, the disease spread, after a while bleaching their heads white, eating holes in their lips and eyelids, and covering their bodies with scales. Then it fell to their throats, shrilling their voices, and to their joints, hardening the tissues and cartilages. Slowly, and as the mother well knew, passed remedy, it was affecting their lungs and arteries and bones, at each advance, making the sufferers more and more loathsome, and so it would continue till death, which might be years before them. Another day of dread at length came, the day the mother, under impulsion of duty, at last told Terza the name of their ailment, and the two, in agony of despair, prayed that the end might come quickly. Still, as is the force of habit, these so afflicted grew in time not merely to speak composedly of their disease, they beheld the hideous transformation of their persons as, of course, and in despite, clung to existence. One tie to earth remained to them, unmindful of their own loneliness, they kept up a certain spirit by talking and dreaming of Ben-Hur. The mother promised reunion with him to the sister, and she to the mother, not doubting either of them that he was equally faithful to them and would be equally happy of the meeting, and with the spinning and re-spinning of this slender thread they found pleasure and excused their not dying. In such manner as we have seen, they were solacing themselves the moment Giseous called them, at the end of twelve hours fasting and thirst. The torches flashed redly through the dungeon, and liberty was come. "'God is good!' the widow cried. Not for what had been, O reader, but for what was. In thankfulness for present mercy nothing so becomes us as losing sight of past ills.' The tribune came directly, then in the corner to which she had fled suddenly a sense of duty smote the elder of the women, and straightway the awful warning, "'Unclean, unclean!' Ah!' the pang, the effort to acquit herself of that duty, cost the mother. Not all the selfishness of joy over the prospect could keep her blind to the consequences of release now that it was at hand. The old happy life could never be again. If she went near the house called home it would be to stop at the gate and cry, "'Unclean, unclean!' She must go about with the yearnings of love alive in her breast strong as ever, and more sensitive even, because returning kind could not be. The boy of whom she had so constantly thought and with all sweet promises such as mothers find their purest delight in, must at meeting her, stand afar off. If he held out his hands to her and called, "'Mother, mother!' For very love of him she must answer, "'Unclean, unclean!' And this other child before whom, in want of other covering, she was spreading her long-tangled locks, bleached unnaturally white. Ah! that she was, she must continue! sole partner of her blasted remainder of life. Yet, O reader, the brave woman accepted the lot, and took up the cry which had been at sign immemorially, and which thenceforward was to be her salutation without change. "'Unclean, unclean!' The tribune heard it with a tremor, but kept his place. "'Who are you?' he asked. "'Two women, dying of hunger and thirst. Yet,' the mother did not falter, "'come not near us, nor touch the wall or the floor. "'Unclean, unclean!' Give me thy story, woman, thy name, and when thou wert put here, and by whom and for what?' There was once in this city of Jerusalem a Prince Ben Hur. The friend of all generous Romans, and who had Caesar for his friend. I am his widow, and this one with me is his child. How may I tell you for what we were sunk here, when I do not know, unless it was because we were rich? Valerius Gratis can tell you who our enemy was, and when our imprisonment began. I cannot. See to what we have been reduced. Oh, see! and have pity!' The air was heavy with the pest and the smoke of the torches, yet the Roman called one of the torch-bearers to his side and wrote the answer nearly word for word. It was terse and comprehensive, containing at once a history, an accusation, and a prayer. No common person could have made it, and he could not but pity and believe. "'Thou shalt have relief, woman,' he said, closing the tablets. "'I will send thee food and drink.' "'And, Raymond, I am purifying water. We pray you, O generous Roman.' "'As thou wilt,' he replied. "'God is good,' said the widow sobbing. "'May his peace abide with you!' "'And further,' he added, "'I cannot see thee again. Make preparation, and to-night I will have thee taken to the gate of the tower and set free. Thou knowest the law. Farewell!' He spoke to the men and went out the door. Very shortly some slaves came to the cell with a large gurglet of water, a basin and neckons, a platter with bread and meat, and some garments of women's wear, and setting them down within reach of the prisoners they ran away. About the middle of the first watch the two were conducted to the gate and turned into the street. So the Roman quit himself of them, and in the city of their fathers they were once more free. Up to the stars, twinkling merrily as of old they looked, then they asked themselves, "'What next?' And where to?" About the hour Jesus, the keeper, made his appearance before the tribune in the tower of Antonia, a footman was climbing the eastern face of Mount Alavet. The road was rough and dusty, and vegetation on that side burned brown, for it was the dry season in Judea. Well for the traveller that he had youth and strength, not to speak of the cool flowing garments with which he was clothed. He proceeded slowly, looking often to his right and left, not with a vexed anxious expression which marks a man going forward uncertain of the way, but rather the air with which one approaches, an old acquaintance after a long separation, half of pleasure, half of inquiry, as if he were saying, "'I'm glad to be with you again. Let me see in what you are changed.'" As he rose higher he sometimes paused to look behind him over the gradually widening view terminating in the mountains of Moab. But when at length he drew near the summit he quickened his step, unmindful of fatigue, and hurried on without pause or turning of the face. On the summit, to reach which he bent his steps somewhat right of the beaten path, he came to a dead stop, arrested as if by a strong hand. Then one might have seen his eyes dilate, his cheeks flush, his breath quicken, effects all of one bright sweeping glance at what lay before him. The traveller, good reader, was no other than Ben Hur, the spectacle Jerusalem. Not the holy city of today, but the holy city as left by Herod, the holy city of the Christ, beautiful yet, as seen from old Olivet, what must it have been then? Ben Hur betook him to a stone and sat down and stripping his head of the close white handkerchief which served it for covering, made the survey at leisure. The same has been done often since by a great variety of persons under circumstances surpassingly singular. By the son of Vespasian, by the Islamite, by the Crusader, conquerors all of them. By many a pilgrim from the great New World, which waited discovery nearly fifteen hundred years after the time of our story, but of the multitude probably not one has taken that view with sensations more keenly poignant, more sadly sweet, more proudly bitter than Ben Hur. He was stirred by recollections of his countrymen, their triumphs and vicissitudes, their history, the history of God. The city was of their building, at once a lasting testimony of their crimes and devotion, their weakness and genius, their religion and their irreligion. Though he had seen Rome to familiarity, he was gratified. The sight filled a measure of pride which would have made him drunk with vain glory, but for the thought, princely as the property was, it did not any longer belong to his countrymen. The worship in the temple was by permission of strangers. The hill where David dwelt was a marbled cheat, an office in which the chosen of the Lord were rung and rung for taxes, and scourged for very deathlessness of faith. These, however, were pleasures and griefs of patriotism common to every Jew of the period. In addition Ben Hur brought with him a personal history which would not out of mind for other consideration whatever, which the spectacle served only to freshen and vivify. A country of hills changes but little. Where the hills are of rock it changes not at all. The scene Ben Hur beheld is the same now, except as respects the city. The failure is in the handiwork of man alone. The sun dealt more kindly by the west side of Olivet than by the east, and men were certainly more loving towards it. The vines with which it was partially clad, and the sprinkling of trees, chiefly figs and old wild olives, were comparatively green. Down to the dry bed of the Cedron the verdure extended, a refreshment to the vision. There Olivet ceased and Moriah began. A wall of bluff boldness, white as snow, founded by Solomon, completed by Herod. Up, up the wall the eye climbed, course by course, of the ponderous rocks composing it, up to Solomon's porch, which was as the pedestal of the monument, the hill being the plinth. Lingering there a moment, the eye resumed its climbing, going next to the Gentile's court, then to the Israelite's court, then to the women's court, then to the court of the priests, each a pillared tear of white marble, one above the other in terraced retrosession. Over them all a crown of crowns, infinitely sacred, infinitely beautiful, majestic in proportions, effulgent with beaten gold, low the tent, the tabernacle, the holy of holies. The ark was not there, but Jehovah was. In the faith of every child of Israel he was there a personal presence. As a temple, as a monument, there was nowhere anything of man's building to approach that superlative apparition. Now, not a stone of it remains above another. Who shall rebuild that building? When shall the rebuilding be begun? So asks every pilgrim who has stood where Ben-Hur was. He asks, knowing the answer is in the bosom of God, whose secrets are not least marvellous in their well-keeping. And then the third question. What of him who foretold the ruin which has so certainly befallen? God? Or man of God? Or—enough that the question is for us to answer. And still Ben-Hur's eyes climbed on and up, up over the roof of the temple, to the hill Zion, consecrated to sacred memories, inseparable from the anointed kings. He knew the cheese-mongers valley dipped deep down between Mariah and Zion, that it was spanned by the Zistis, that there were gardens and palaces in its depths. But over them all his thoughts soared with his vision to the great grouping on the royal hill, the house of Caiaphas, the central synagogue, the Roman praetorium, Hippicus, the eternal, and the sad but mighty cenotaphs, Facilus and Maryamne, all relieved against garab, purpling in the distance. And when midst them he singled out the palace of Herod, what could he but think of the king who was coming, to whom he was, himself devoted, whose path he had undertaken to smooth, whose empty hands he dreamed of filling. And forward ran his fancy to the day the new king should come to claim his own and take possession of it, of Mariah and its temple, of Zion and its towers and palaces, of Antonia frowning darkly there just to the right of the temple, of the new unwalled city of Bezethah, of the millions of Israel to assemble with palm branches and banners, to sing rejoicing because the Lord had conquered and given them the world. Men speak of dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep. They should know better. All results achieved by us are self-promised, and all self-promises are made in dreams awake. Dreaming is the relief of labour, the wine that sustains us in act. We learn to love labour, not for itself, but for the opportunity it furnishes for dreaming, which is the great under-monitone of real life, unheard, unnoticed, because of its constancy. Living is dreaming. Only in the grave are there no dreams. Let no one smile at Ben Hur for doing that which he himself would have done at that time and place under the same circumstances. The sun stooped low in its course. A while the flaring disc seemed to perch itself on the far summit of the mountains in the west, brazening all the sky above the city, and rimming the walls and towers with a brightness of gold. Then it disappeared as with a plunge. The quiet turned Ben Hur's thought homeward. There was a point in the sky a little north of the peerless front of the Holy of Holies upon which he fixed his gaze. Under it, straight as a lead-line would have dropped, lay his father's house, if yet the house endured. The mellowing influences of the evening mellowed his feelings, and putting his ambitions aside he thought of the duty that was bringing him to Jerusalem. Out in the desert while with ill-dram, looking for strong places and acquainting himself with it, generally, as a soldier studies a country in which he has projected a campaign, a messenger came one evening with the news that Gratis was removed and Pontius Pilate sent to take his place. Masala was disabled and believed him dead. Gratis was powerless and gone. Why should Ben Hur longer defer the search for his mother and sister? There was nothing to fear now, if he could not himself see into the prisons of Judea he could examine them with the eyes of others. If the lost were found Pilate could have no motive in holding them in custody, none at least which could not be overcome by purchase. If found he would carry them to a place of safety and then, in calmer mind, his conscience set rest, this one first duty done, he could give himself more entirely to the king who was coming. He resolved it once. That night he counseled with ill-dram and obtained his assent. Three Arabs came with him to Jericho, where he left them and the horses, and proceeded alone and on foot. Malik was to meet him in Jerusalem. Ben Hur's scheme, be it observed, was as yet a generality. In view of the future it was advisable to keep himself in hiding from the authorities, particularly the Romans. Malik was shrewd in trusty, the very man to charge with the conduct of the investigation. Where to begin was the first point. He had no clear idea about it. His wish was to commence with the Tower of Antonia. Tradition not of long standing planted the gloomy pile over a labyrinth of prison cells, which, more even than the strong garrison, kept it a terror to the Jewish fancy. A burial, such as his people had been subjected to, might be possible there. Besides, in such a strait, the natural inclination is to start search at the place where the loss occurred, and he could not forget that his last sight of the loved ones was as the guard pushed them along the street in the direction to the Tower. If they were not there now, but had been, some record of the fact must remain, a clue which had only to be followed faithfully to the end. Under this inclination, moreover, there was a hope which he could not forego. From Simonides he knew Amra, the Egyptian nurse, was living. It will be remembered doubtless that the faithful creature, the morning the calamity overtook the hers, broke from the guard and ran back into the palace, where, along with other chattals, she had been sealed up. During the years following, Simonides kept her supplied, so she was there now, sole occupant of the great house, which, with all his offers, Grottis had not been able to sell. The story of its rightful owners sufficed to secure the property from strangers, whether purchasers or mere occupants. People going to and fro passed it with whispers. Its reputation was that of a haunted house, derived probably from the infrequent glimpses of poor old Amra, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in a lattice window. Certainly no more constant spirit ever abided than she, nor was there ever a tenement so shunned and fitted for ghostly habitation. Now, if he could get to her, then her fancied she could help him to knowledge which, though faint, might yet be serviceable. Anyhow, sight of her in that place, so endeared by recollection, would be to him a pleasure next to finding the objects of his solicitude. So first of all things he would go to the old house and look for Amra. Thus resolved he arose shortly after the going down of the sun, and began descent of the mount by the road which, from the summit, bends a little north of east. Down nearly at the foot, close by the bed of the Cedron, he came to the intersection with the road leading south to the village of Siloam and the pool of that name. There he fell in with a herdsman driving some sheep to market. He spoke to the man and joined him, and in his company passed by Gethsemane on into the city through the Fish Gate. CHAPTER IV It was dark when, parting with the drover inside the gate, Ben Hurd turned into a narrow lane leading to the south. A few of the people whom he met saluted him. The bouldering of the pavement was rough. The houses on both sides were low, dark, and cheerless. The doors all closed. From the roofs occasionally he heard women crooning to children. The loneliness of his situation, the night, the uncertainty cloaking the object of his coming, all affected him cheerlessly. With feelings sinking lower and lower he came directly to the deep reservoir, now known as the Pool of Bethesda, in which the water reflected the overpending sky. Looking up he beheld the northern wall of the tower of Antonia, a black frowning heap reared into the dim steel gray sky. He hauled it as if challenged by a threatening sentinel. The tower stood up so high and seemed so vast, resting apparently upon foundations so sure, that he was constrained to acknowledge its strength. If his mother were there in living burial, what could he do for her? By the strong hand? Nothing. An army might beat the stony face with ballista and ram and be laughed at. Against him alone the gigantic southeast turret looked down in the self-containment of a hill. And he thought, cunning is so easily baffled, and God, always the last resort of the helpless, God is sometimes so slow to act. Endowed in misgiving he turned into the street in front of the tower, and followed it slowly on to the west. Over in Bethesda he knew there was a con, where it was his intention to seek lodging while in the city, but just now he could not resist the impulse to go home. His heart drew him that way. The old formal salutation which he received from the few people who passed him had never sounded so pleasantly. Presently all the eastern sky began to silver and shine, and objects before invisible in the west, chiefly the tall towers on Mount Zion, emerged as from a shadowy depth, and put on spectral distinctness, floating as it were, above the yawning blackness of the valley below, very castles in the air. He came at length to his father's house. Of those who read this page some there will be to divine his feelings without prompting. They are such as had happy homes in their youth, no matter how far that may have been back in time. Homes which are now the starting points of all recollection, paradises from which they went forth in tears, and which they would now return to, if they could, as little children, places of laughter in singing, and associations dearer than any or all the triumphs of afterlife. At the gate on the north side of the old house, Benhur stopped. In the corners the wax used in the ceiling up was still plainly seen, and across the valves was the board with the inscription, This is the property of the Emperor. Somebody had gone in or out the gate since the dreadful day of the separation. Should he knock as of old? It was useless, he knew, yet he could not resist the temptation. Amrah might hear and look out of one of the windows on that side. Taking a stone he mounted the broad stone step and tapped three times. A dull echo replied. He tried again, louder than before, and again, pausing each time to listen. The silence was mocking. Retiring into the street he watched the windows, but they too were lifeless. The parapet on the roof was defined sharply against the brightening sky. Nothing could have stirred upon it unseen by him, and nothing did stir. From the north side he passed to the west, where there were four windows which he watched long and anxiously, but with as little effect. At times his heart swelled with impotent wishes, at others he trembled at the deceptions of his own fancy. Amrah made no sign, not even a ghost stirred. Silently then he stole round to the south. There too the gate was sealed and inscribed. The mellow splendor of the August moon pouring over the crest of Olivet, since termed the Mount of Offense, brought the lettering boldly out, and he read and was filled with rage. All he could do was to wrench the board from its nailing and hurl it into the ditch. Then he sat upon the step, and prayed for the new king, and that his coming might be hastened. As his blood cooled insensibly he yielded to the fatigue of long travel in the summer heat, and sank down lower, and at last slept. About that time two women came down the street from the direction of the Tower of Antonia, approaching the Palace of the Hers. They advanced stealthily, with timid steps, pausing often to listen. At the corner of the rugged pile one said to the other, in a low voice, This is it, Terza! And Terza, after a look, caught her mother's hand and leaned upon her heavily, sobbing, but silent. Let us go on, my child, because the mother hesitated and trembled. Then with an effort to be calm continued. Because when morning comes they will put us out of the gate of the city to return no more. Terza sank almost to the stones. Ah, yes, she said between sobs. I forgot. I had the feeling of going home. But we are lepers and have no homes. We belong to the dead. The mother stooped and raised her tenderly, saying, We have nothing to fear. Let us go on. Indeed lifting their empty hands they could have run upon a legion and put it to flight. And creeping in close to the rough wall they glided on, like two ghosts, till they came to the gate before which they also paused. Seeing the board they stepped upon the stone and the scarce cold tracks of bent hur, and read the inscription, This is the property of the emperor. Then the mother clasped her hands and with upraised eyes moaned in unutterable anguish. What now, mother? You scare me! And the answer was presently, Oh, Terza, the poor are dead. He is dead. Who, mother? Your brother. They took everything from him. Everything. Even this house. Poor, said Terza, vacantly. He will never be able to help us. And then, mother, tomorrow, tomorrow, my child, we must find a seat by the wayside and beg alms as the lepers do, beg, or... Terza leaned upon her again and said, whispering, Let us, let us die. No, the mother said firmly, The Lord has appointed our times, and we are believers in the Lord. We will wait on him even in this. Come away. She caught Terza's hand as she spoke and hastened to the west corner of the house, keeping close to the wall. No one being in sight there they kept on to the next corner and shrank from the moonlight, which lay exceedingly bright over the whole south front and along a part of the street. The mother's will was strong. Casting one look back and up to the windows on the west side, she stepped out into the light, drawing Terza after her. And the extent of their emiction was then to be seen on their lips and cheeks, in their bleared eyes, in their cracked hands, especially in the long, snaky locks, stiff with loathsome icor, and, like their eyebrows, ghastly white. Nor was it possible to have told which was mother, which daughter. Both alike seemed which like old. Hissed, said the mother. There is someone lying upon the step, a man. Let us go round him. They crossed to the opposite side of the street quickly, and in the shade there moved on till before the gate, where they stopped. He is asleep, Terza. The man was very still. Stay here, and I will try the gate. So saying, the mother stole noiselessly across, and ventured to touch the wicket. She never knew if it yielded, for that moment the man sighed, and, turning restlessly, shifted the handkerchief on his head in such a manner that the face was left upturned in fare in the broad moonlight. She looked down at it and started, then looked again, stooping a little, and arose and clasped her hands and raised her eyes to heaven in mute appeal. An instant so, and she ran back to Terza. As the Lord liveth, the man is my son, thy brother. She said, in an awe-inspiring whisper. My brother, Judah? The mother caught her hand eagerly. Come, come, she said, in the same enforced whisper. Let us look at him together once more, only once, then help thou, thy servants, Lord. They crossed the street hand in hand, ghostly quick, ghostly still. When their shadows fell upon him, they stopped. One of his hands was lying out upon the step, palm up. Terza fell upon her knees and would have kissed it, but the mother drew her back. Not for thy life! Not for thy life! Unclean! Unclean! She whispered. Terza shrank from him, as if he were the leprous one. Bent her was handsome as the manly are. His cheeks and forehead were swarthy from exposure to the desert sun and air. Yet under the light mustache the lips were red, and the teeth shone white, and the soft beard did not hide the full roundness of chin and throat. How beautiful he appeared to the mother's eyes! How mightily she yearned to put his arms about him and take his head upon her bosom and kiss him, as had been her want in his happy childhood. Where got she the strength to resist the impulse? From her love, O reader, her mother love, which, if thou wilt observe well, hath this unlikeness to any other love. Tender to the object it can be infinitely tyrannical to itself, and thence all its power of self-sacrifice. Not for restoration to health and fortune, not for any blessing of life, not for life itself would she have left her leprous kiss upon his cheek. Yet touch him, she must. In that instant of finding him she must renounce him for ever. How bitter, bitter hard it was, let some other mother say. She knelt down, and, crawling to his feet, touched the soul of one of his sandals with her lips, yellow though it was with the dust of the street, and touched it again and again, and her very soul was in the kisses. He stirred and tossed his hand. They moved back, but heard him mutter in his dream. Mother! Amra! Where is—? He fell off into the deep sleep. Terza stared wistfully. The mother put her face in the dust, struggling to suppress a sob so deep and strong it seemed her heart was bursting. Almost she wished he might waken. He had asked for her. She was not forgotten. In his sleep he was thinking of her. Was it not enough? Presently mother beckoned to Terza, and they arose, and taking one more look, as if to print his image past fading, hand in hand they recrossed the street. Back in the shade of the wall there they retired and knelt, looking at him, waiting for him to wake, waiting some revelation they knew not what. Nobody has yet given us a measure for the patience of a love like theirs. By and by, the sleep being yet upon him, another woman appeared at the corner of the palace. The two in the shade saw her plainly in the light. A small figure, much bent, dark-skinned, gray-haired, dressed neatly in servant-scarb, and carrying a basket full of vegetables. At sight of the man upon the step the newcomer stopped. Then, as if decided, she walked on, very lightly as she drew near the sleeper. Passing around him she went to the gate, slid the wicket latch easily to one side, and put her hand in the opening. One of the broad boards in the left valve swung a jar without noise. She put the basket through, and was about to follow when, yielding to curiosity, she lingered to have one look at the stranger whose face was below her in open view. The spectators across the street heard a low exclamation, and saw the woman rub her eyes as if to renew their power. Bend closer down, clasper hands, gaze wildly around, look at the sleeper, stoop and raise the outlying hand, and kiss it fondly, that which they wished so mightily to do, but dared not. Awaken by the action bent her instinctively withdrew the hand, as he did so his eyes met the woman's. Amra! Oh, Amra, 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, Mother, Terza! Oh, Amra, tell me of them. Speak, speak, I pray thee. Amra only a cry to fresh. Thou hast seen them, Amra, thou knowest where they are. Tell me, they are at home. Terza moved, but her mother, divining her purpose, caught her and whispered, Do not go, not for life! Unclean, unclean! Her love was in tyrannical mood. Though both their hearts broke, he should not become what they were, and she conquered. Meantime, Amra, so entreated, only wept the more. Weren't thou going in, he asked presently, seeing the board swung back? Come, then, I will go with thee. He arose as he spoke. The Romans, be the curse of the Lord upon them. The Romans lied. The house is mine. Rise, Amra, and let us go in. A moment, and they were gone. Leaving the two in the shade to behold the gates staring blankly at them. The gate which they might not ever enter more. They nestled together in the dust. They had done their duty. Their love was proven. Next morning they were found and driven out of the city with the stones. Be gone, ye are of the dead. Go to the dead. With the doom ringing in their ears, they went forth. End of chapter. Book 6 Chapter 5 of Ben Hur. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Ben Hur. A Tale of the Christ. By Lou Wallace. Book 6 Chapter 5 Nowadays travelers in the Holy Land looking for the famous place with the beautiful name, the King's Garden, descend the bed of the Cedron or the curve of Gihon and Hinnom as far as the old well in Rogel. Take a drink of the sweet living water and stop having reached the limit of the interesting in that direction. They look at the great stones with which the well is curbed, ask its depth, smile at the primitive mode of drawing the purling treasure, and weast some pity on the ragged wretch who presides over it. Then, facing about, they are enraptured with the mounts Moriah and Zion, both of which slope towards them from the north, one terminating in Ophel, the other in what used to be the site of the city of David. In the background, up far in the sky, the garniture of the sacred places is visible. Here the harem, with its graceful dome, yonder the stalwart remains of Hippicus, defiant even in ruins. When that view has been enjoyed and is sufficiently impressed upon the memory, the travellers glance at them out of offence, standing in rugged stateliness at their right hand, and then at the hill of evil counsel over on the left, in which, if they be well up in scriptural history and in the traditions rabbinical and monkish, they will find a certain interest not to be overcome by superstitious horror. It were long to tell all the points of interest grouped around that hill, for the present purpose enough that its feet are planted in the veritable Orthodox hell of the moderns, the hell of brimstone and fire, in the old nomenclature Gehenna, and that now, as in the days of Christ, its bluff face opposite the city on the south and southeast is seamed and pitted with tombs, which have been immemorially the dwelling-places of lepers, not singly but collectively. There they set up their government and established their society. There they founded a city and dwelt by themselves, avoided as the accursed of God. The second morning, after the incidents of the preceding chapter, Amra drew near the well in Rogel, and seated herself upon a stone. One familiar with Jerusalem, looking at her, would have said she was the favourite servant of some well-to-do family. She brought with her a water jar and a basket, the contents of the latter covered with a snow-white napkin. Placing them on the ground at her side, she loosened the shawl which fell from her head, knit her fingers together in her lap, and gazed amurely up to where the hill dropped steeply down into Asaldama and the potter's field. It was very early, and she was the first to arrive at the well. Soon, however, a man came bringing a rope and a leathern bucket. Saluting the little dark-faced woman, he undid the rope, fixed it to the bucket, and weighted customers. Others who chose to do so might draw water for themselves. He was a professional in the business, and would fill the largest jar the stoutest woman could carry for a jeera. Amra sat still and had nothing to say. Seeing the jar, the man asked after a while if she wished it filled. She answered him civilly, Not now!—whereupon he gave her no more attention. When the dawn was fairly defined over Olivet, his patrons began to arrive, and he had all he could do to attend to them. All the time she kept her seat, looking intently up at the hill. The sun made its appearance, yet she sat watching and waiting, and while she thus waits, let us see what her purpose is. Her custom had been to go to market after nightfall. Stealing out unobserved, she would seek the shops in the Tyropoan, or those over by the fish-gate in the east, make her purchases of meat and vegetables, and return and shut herself up again. The pleasure she derived from the presence of Ben Hur and the old house once more may be imagined. She had nothing to tell him of her mistress, or Terza. Nothing. He would have had her moved to a place not so lonesome. She refused. She would have had him take his own room again, which was just as he had left it. But the danger of discovery was too great, and he wished above all things to avoid inquiry. He would come and see her often as possible. Coming in the night he would also go away in the night. She was compelled to be satisfied, and at once occupied herself contriving ways to make him happy. That he was a man now did not occur to her, nor did it enter her mind that he might have put by or lost his boyish tastes. To please him she thought to go on her old round of services. He used to be fond of confections. She remembered the things in that line which delighted him most, and resolved to make them and have a supply always ready when he came. Could anything be happier? So next night, earlier than usual, she stole out with her basket and went over to the fish-gate market. Wandering about, seeking the best honey, she chanced to hear a man telling a story. What the story was the reader can arrive at with sufficient certainty when told that the narrator was one of the men who had held torches for the commandant of the Tower of Antonia when, down in cell six, the hers were found. The particulars of the finding were all told, and she heard them with the names of the prisoners and the widow's account of herself. The feelings with which Amra listened to the recital, where such as became the devoted creature she was, she made her purchases and returned home in a dream. What a happiness she had in store for her boy! She had found his mother. She put the basket away, now laughing, now crying. Suddenly she stopped and thought. It would kill him to be told that his mother and Terza were lepers. He would go through the awful city over on the hill of evil council, into each infected tomb he would go without rest, asking for them, and the disease would catch him, and their fate would be his. She wrung her hands. What should she do? Like many a one before her, and many a one since, she derived inspiration, if not wisdom, from her affection, and came to a singular conclusion. The lepers, she knew, were accustomed of mourning to come down from their sepulchral abodes in the hill and take a supply of water for the day from the well in Rogel. Bringing their jars, they would set them on the ground in weight, standing afar until they were filled. To that the mistress and Terza must come, for the law was inexorable and admitted no distinction. A rich leper was no better than a poor one. So Amra decided not to speak to Benher of the story she had heard, but go alone to the well and wait. Hunger and thirst would drive the unfortunate's thither, and she believed she could recognize them at sight. If not, they might recognize her. Meantime Benher came, and they talked much. Tomorrow Malik would arrive. Then the search should be immediately begun. He was impatient to be about it. To amuse himself he would visit the sacred places in the vicinity. The secret, we may be sure, weighed heavily on the woman, but she held her peace. When he was gone she busied herself in the preparation of things good to eat, applying her utmost skill to the work. At the approach of day, as signaled by the stars, she filled the basket, selected a jar, and took the road to Enrogale, going out by the fish-gate which was earliest open, and arriving as we have seen. Shortly after sunrise, when business at the well was most pressing, and the drawer of water most hurried, when, in fact, half a dozen buckets were in use at the same time, everybody making haste to get away before the cool of the morning melted into the heat of the day, the tenantry of the hill began to appear and move about the doors of their tombs. Somewhat later they were discernible in groups, of which not a few were children so young that they suggested the holiest relation. Numbers came momentarily around the turn of the bluff, women with jars upon their shoulders, old and very feeble men hobbling along on staffs and crutches. Some leaned upon the shoulders of others, a few, the utterly helpless, lay like heaps of rags upon litters. 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, Amra kept watch upon the spectral groups. She scarcely moved. More than once she imagined she saw those she thought. That they were there upon the hill she had no doubt, that they must come down and near, she knew. When the people at the well were all served, they would come. Now quite at the base of the bluff there was a tomb which had more than once attracted Amra by its wide gaping. A stone of large dimension stood near its mouth. The sun looked into it through the hottest hours of the day, and altogether it seemed uninhabitable by anything living, unless perchance, by some wild dogs returning from scavenger duty down in Cajena. Then, however, and greatly to her surprise, the patient Egyptian beheld two women come, one half supporting, half leading the other. They were both white-haired, both looked old, but the garments were not rent, and they gazed about them as if the locality were new. The witness below thought she even saw them shrink terrified at the spectacle offered by the hideous assemblage of which they found themselves part. Slight reasons, certainly, to make her heart beat faster, and draw her attention to them exclusively, but so they did. The two remained by the stone a while, then they moved slowly, painfully, and with much fear towards the well, where at several voices were raised to stop them, yet they kept on. The drawer of water picked up some pebbles and made ready to drive them back. The company cursed them. The greater company on the hill shouted trilly, Unclean! Unclean! Surely, thought Amra of the two as they kept coming, surely they are strangers to the usage of lepers. She arose and went to meet them, taking the basket and jar. The alarm at the well immediately subsided. What a fool, said one laughing. What a fool to give good bread to the jet in that way. And to think of her coming so far, said another, I would at least make them meet me at the gate. Amra, 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. That the Mr. she loved, whose hand she had so often kissed in gratitude, whose image of matronly loveliness she had treasured in memory so faithfully, and that the Terza she had nursed through babyhood, whose pains she had soothed, whose sports she had chaired. That the smiling, sweet-faced, songful Terza, the light of the great house, the promised blessing of her old age, her mistress, her darling, they, the soul of the women sickened at the sight. These are old women, she said to herself. I never saw them before. I will go back. She turned away. Amra! said one of the lepers. The Egyptian dropped the jar and looked back, trembling. Who called me? she asked. Amra! The servants' wondering eyes settled upon the speaker's face. Who are you? she cried. We are they you are seeking. Amra fell upon her knees. Oh, my mistress, my mistress, as I have made your God my God, be he praise that he has led me to you? And upon her knees the poor overwhelmed creature began moving forward. Stay, Amra, come not nearer. Unclean, unclean! The words sufficed. Amra fell upon her face, sobbing so loudly the people at the well heard her. Suddenly she arose upon her knees again. Oh, my mistress, where is Terza? Here I am, Amra, here. Will you not bring me a little water? The habit of the servant renewed itself. Putting back the coarse hair fallen over her face, Amra arose and went to the basket and uncovered it. See, she said, here are bread and meat. She would have spread the napkin upon the ground, but the mistress spoke again. Do not so, Amra. 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, Amra! The people under whose eyes all this had passed, made way for the servant, and even helped her fill the jar so piteous was the grief her countenance showed. Who are they? a woman asked. Amra meekly answered, They used to be good to me. Raising the jar upon her shoulder she hurried back. In forgetfulness she would have gone to them, but the cry, Unclean, unclean, beware! arrested her. Placing the water by the basket she stepped back and stood off a little way. Thank you, Amra, said the mistress, taking the articles into possession. This is very good of you. Is there nothing more I can do? asked Amra. The mother's hand was upon the jar, and she was fevered with thirst, yet she paused and, rising, said firmly, Yes, I know that Judah has come home. I saw him at the gate night before last asleep on the step. I saw you wake him. Amra clasped her hands. Oh, my mistress, you saw I did not come. That would have been to kill him. I can never take him in my arms again. I can never kiss him more. Oh, Amra! Amra! You love him, I know. Yes, said the true heart, bursting into tears again and kneeling, I would die for him. Prove to me what you say, Amra. I am ready. Then you shall not tell him where we are or that you have seen us. Only that, Amra. But he is looking for you. He has come from afar to find you. He must not find us. He shall not become what we are. Here, Amra, you shall serve us as you have this day. You shall bring us the little we need. Not long now. Not long. You shall come every morning and evening thus. And—and— The voice trembled. The strong will almost broke down. And you shall tell us of him, Amra. But to him you shall say nothing of us. Hear you? Oh, it will be so hard to hear him speak of you, and see him going about looking for you, to see all his love, and not tell him so much as that you are alive. Can you tell him we are well, Amra? The servant bowed her head in her arms. No, the mistress continued, wherefore to be silent altogether. Go now and come this evening. We will look for you. Till then, farewell. The burden will be heavy, O my mistress, and hard to bear, said Amra, falling upon her face. How much harder would it be to see him as we are? The mother answered, as she gave the basket to Terza. Come again this evening. She repeated, taking up the water and starting for the tomb. Amra 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. The tomb, though ever so stony and desolate, was less cheerless than the cell in the tower had been. Daylight gilded its door, and it was in the beautiful world. Then one can wait death with so much more faith out under the open sky.