Ben Hur (24 page)

"If the thing be not forbidden, I will do it," Ben-Hur replied.

Arrius rested again.

"Art thou, indeed, a son of Hur, the Jew?" he next asked.

"It is as I have said."

"I knew thy father—"

Judah drew himself nearer, for the tribune's voice was weak—he
drew nearer, and listened eagerly—at last he thought to hear
of home.

"I knew him, and loved him," Arrius continued.

There was another pause, during which something diverted the
speaker's thought.

"It cannot be," he proceeded, "that thou, a son of his, hast not
heard of Cato and Brutus. They were very great men, and never as
great as in death. In their dying, they left this law—A Roman
may not survive his good-fortune. Art thou listening?"

"I hear."

"It is a custom of gentlemen in Rome to wear a ring. There is one
on my hand. Take it now."

He held the hand to Judah, who did as he asked.

"Now put it on thine own hand."

Ben-Hur did so.

"The trinket hath its uses," said Arrius next. "I have property
and money. I am accounted rich even in Rome. I have no family.
Show the ring to my freedman, who hath control in my absence;
you will find him in a villa near Misenum. Tell him how it came
to thee, and ask anything, or all he may have; he will not refuse
the demand. If I live, I will do better by thee. I will make thee
free, and restore thee to thy home and people; or thou mayst give
thyself to the pursuit that pleaseth thee most. Dost thou hear?"

"I could not choose but hear."

"Then pledge me. By the gods—"

"Nay, good tribune, I am a Jew."

"By thy God, then, or in the form most sacred to those of thy
faith—pledge me to do what I tell thee now, and as I tell thee;
I am waiting, let me have thy promise."

"Noble Arrius, I am warned by thy manner to expect something of
gravest concern. Tell me thy wish first."

"Wilt thou promise then?"

"That were to give the pledge, and— Blessed be the God of my
fathers! yonder cometh a ship!"

"In what direction?"

"From the north."

"Canst thou tell her nationality by outward signs?"

"No. My service hath been at the oars."

"Hath she a flag?"

"I cannot see one."

Arrius remained quiet some time, apparently in deep reflection.

"Does the ship hold this way yet?" he at length asked.

"Still this way."

"Look for the flag now."

"She hath none."

"Nor any other sign?"

"She hath a sail set, and is of three banks, and cometh swiftly—
that is all I can say of her."

"A Roman in triumph would have out many flags. She must be an enemy.
Hear now," said Arrius, becoming grave again, "hear, while yet I
may speak. If the galley be a pirate, thy life is safe; they may
not give thee freedom; they may put thee to the oar again; but they
will not kill thee. On the other hand, I—"

The tribune faltered.

"Perpol!" he continued, resolutely. "I am too old to submit to
dishonor. In Rome, let them tell how Quintus Arrius, as became a
Roman tribune, went down with his ship in the midst of the foe.
This is what I would have thee do. If the galley prove a pirate,
push me from the plank and drown me. Dost thou hear? Swear thou
wilt do it."

"I will not swear," said Ben-Hur, firmly; "neither will I do the
deed. The Law, which is to me most binding, O tribune, would make
me answerable for thy life. Take back the ring"—he took the seal
from his finger—"take it back, and all thy promises of favor in
the event of delivery from this peril. The judgment which sent me
to the oar for life made me a slave, yet I am not a slave; no more
am I thy freedman. I am a son of Israel, and this moment, at least,
my own master. Take back the ring."

Arrius remained passive.

"Thou wilt not?" Judah continued. "Not in anger, then, nor in any
despite, but to free myself from a hateful obligation, I will give
thy gift to the sea. See, O tribune!"

He tossed the ring away. Arrius heard the splash where it struck
and sank, though he did not look.

"Thou hast done a foolish thing," he said; "foolish for one placed
as thou art. I am not dependent upon thee for death. Life is
a thread I can break without thy help; and, if I do, what will
become of thee? Men determined on death prefer it at the hands
of others, for the reason that the soul which Plato giveth us is
rebellious at the thought of self-destruction; that is all. If the
ship be a pirate, I will escape from the world. My mind is fixed.
I am a Roman. Success and honor are all in all. Yet I would have
served thee; thou wouldst not. The ring was the only witness of
my will available in this situation. We are both lost. I will die
regretting the victory and glory wrested from me; thou wilt live
to die a little later, mourning the pious duties undone because
of this folly. I pity thee."

Ben-Hur saw the consequences of his act more distinctly than before,
yet he did not falter.

"In the three years of my servitude, O tribune, thou wert the first
to look upon me kindly. No, no! There was another." The voice dropped,
the eyes became humid, and he saw plainly as if it were then before
him the face of the boy who helped him to a drink by the old well
at Nazareth. "At least," he proceeded, "thou wert the first to ask
me who I was; and if, when I reached out and caught thee, blind and
sinking the last time, I, too, had thought of the many ways in which
thou couldst be useful to me in my wretchedness, still the act was
not all selfish; this I pray you to believe. Moreover, seeing as
God giveth me to know, the ends I dream of are to be wrought by
fair means alone. As a thing of conscience, I would rather die
with thee than be thy slayer. My mind is firmly set as thine;
though thou wert to offer me all Rome, O tribune, and it belonged
to thee to make the gift good, I would not kill thee. Thy Cato and
Brutus were as little children compared to the Hebrew whose law a
Jew must obey."

"But my request. Hast—"

"Thy command would be of more weight, and that would not move me.
I have said."

Both became silent, waiting.

Ben-Hur looked often at the coming ship. Arrius rested with closed
eyes, indifferent.

"Art thou sure she is an enemy?" Ben-Hur asked.

"I think so," was the reply.

"She stops, and puts a boat over the side."

"Dost thou see her flag?"

"Is there no other sign by which she may be known if Roman?"

"If Roman, she hath a helmet over the mast's top."

"Then be of cheer. I see the helmet."

Still Arrius was not assured.

"The men in the small boat are taking in the people afloat.
Pirates are not humane."

"They may need rowers," Arrius replied, recurring, possibly,
to times when he had made rescues for the purpose.

Ben-Hur was very watchful of the actions of the strangers.

"The ship moves off," he said.

"Whither?"

"Over on our right there is a galley which I take to be deserted.
The new-comer heads towards it. Now she is alongside. Now she is
sending men aboard."

Then Arrius opened his eyes and threw off his calm.

"Thank thou thy God," he said to Ben-Hur, after a look at the
galleys, "thank thou thy God, as I do my many gods. A pirate would
sink, not save, yon ship. By the act and the helmet on the mast I
know a Roman. The victory is mine. Fortune hath not deserted me.
We are saved. Wave thy hand—call to them—bring them quickly.
I shall be duumvir, and thou! I knew thy father, and loved him.
He was a prince indeed. He taught me a Jew was not a barbarian.
I will take thee with me. I will make thee my son. Give thy God
thanks, and call the sailors. Haste! The pursuit must be kept.
Not a robber shall escape. Hasten them!"

Judah raised himself upon the plank, and waved his hand, and called
with all his might; at last he drew the attention of the sailors in
the small boat, and they were speedily taken up.

Arrius was received on the galley with all the honors due a hero
so the favorite of Fortune. Upon a couch on the deck he heard the
particulars of the conclusion of the fight. When the survivors afloat
upon the water were all saved and the prize secured, he spread his
flag of commandant anew, and hurried northward to rejoin the fleet
and perfect the victory. In due time the fifty vessels coming down
the channel closed in upon the fugitive pirates, and crushed
them utterly; not one escaped. To swell the tribune's glory,
twenty galleys of the enemy were captured.

Upon his return from the cruise, Arrius had warm welcome on the
mole at Misenum. The young man attending him very early attracted
the attention of his friends there; and to their questions as to
who he was the tribune proceeded in the most affectionate manner
to tell the story of his rescue and introduce the stranger,
omitting carefully all that pertained to the latter's previous
history. At the end of the narrative, he called Ben-Hur to him,
and said, with a hand resting affectionately upon his shoulder,

"Good friends, this is my son and heir, who, as he is to take my
property—if it be the will of the gods that I leave any—shall
be known to you by my name. I pray you all to love him as you
love me."

Speedily as opportunity permitted, the adoption was formally perfected.
And in such manner the brave Roman kept his faith with Ben-Hur,
giving him happy introduction into the imperial world. The month
succeeding Arrius's return, the armilustrium was celebrated with
the utmost magnificence in the theater of Scaurus. One side of
the structure was taken up with military trophies; among which
by far the most conspicuous and most admired were twenty prows,
complemented by their corresponding aplustra, cut bodily from as
many galleys; and over them, so as to be legible to the eighty thousand
spectators in the seats, was this inscription:

TAKEN FROM THE PIRATES IN THE GULF OF EURIPUS,
BY
QUINTUS ARRIUS,
DUUMVIR.

"Alva. Should the monarch prove unjust—
And, at this time—

Queen. Then I must wait for justice
Until it come; and they are happiest far
Whose consciences may calmly wait their right."

Schiller, Don Carlos (act iv., sc. xv.)

The month to which we now come is July, the year that of our Lord
29, and the place Antioch, then Queen of the East, and next to
Rome the strongest, if not the most populous, city in the world.

There is an opinion that the extravagance and dissoluteness of
the age had their origin in Rome, and spread thence throughout
the empire; that the great cities but reflected the manners of
their mistress on the Tiber. This may be doubted. The reaction
of the conquest would seem to have been upon the morals of the
conqueror. In Greece she found a spring of corruption; so also
in Egypt; and the student, having exhausted the subject, will close
the books assured that the flow of the demoralizing river was from
the East westwardly, and that this very city of Antioch, one of the
oldest seats of Assyrian power and splendor, was a principal source
of the deadly stream.

A transport galley entered the mouth of the river Orontes from the
blue waters of the sea. It was in the forenoon. The heat was great,
yet all on board who could avail themselves of the privilege were
on deck—Ben-Hur among others.

The five years had brought the young Jew to perfect manhood. Though the
robe of white linen in which he was attired somewhat masked his form,
his appearance was unusually attractive. For an hour and more he had
occupied a seat in the shade of the sail, and in that time several
fellow-passengers of his own nationality had tried to engage him
in conversation, but without avail. His replies to their questions
had been brief, though gravely courteous, and in the Latin tongue.
The purity of his speech, his cultivated manners, his reticence,
served to stimulate their curiosity the more. Such as observed
him closely were struck by an incongruity between his demeanor,
which had the ease and grace of a patrician, and certain points
of his person. Thus his arms were disproportionately long; and
when, to steady himself against the motion of the vessel, he took
hold of anything near by, the size of his hands and their evident
power compelled remark; so the wonder who and what he was mixed
continually with a wish to know the particulars of his life.
In other words, his air cannot be better described than as a
notice—This man has a story to tell.

The galley, in coming, had stopped at one of the ports of Cyprus,
and picked up a Hebrew of most respectable appearance, quiet,
reserved, paternal. Ben-Hur ventured to ask him some questions;
the replies won his confidence, and resulted finally in an
extended conversation.

It chanced also that as the galley from Cyprus entered the receiving
bay of the Orontes, two other vessels which had been sighted out in
the sea met it and passed into the river at the same time; and as
they did so both the strangers threw out small flags of brightest
yellow. There was much conjecture as to the meaning of the signals.
At length a passenger addressed himself to the respectable Hebrew
for information upon the subject.

"Yes, I know the meaning of the flags," he replied; "they do
not signify nationality—they are merely marks of ownership."

"Has the owner many ships?"

"He has."

"You know him?"

"I have dealt with him."

The passengers looked at the speaker as if requesting him to go
on. Ben-Hur listened with interest.

"He lives in Antioch," the Hebrew continued, in his quiet way.
"That he is vastly rich has brought him into notice, and the
talk about him is not always kind. There used to be in Jerusalem
a prince of very ancient family named Hur."