Ben Hur (47 page)

"Name it," said Ben-Hur, eagerly.

"As steward the care of the property will be mine."

"Count thyself steward now; or wilt thou have it in writing?"

"Thy word simply is enough; it was so with the father, and I
will not more from the son. And now, if the understanding be
perfect"—Simonides paused.

"It is with me," said Ben-Hur.

"And thou, daughter of Rachel, speak!" said Simonides, lifting her
arm from his shoulder.

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."

Simonides replaced her arm upon his neck, and there was silence
for a time in the room.

Simonides looked up, none the less a master.

"Esther," he said, quietly, "the night is going fast; and, lest we
become too weary for that which is before us, let the refreshments
be brought."

She rang a bell. A servant answered with wine and bread, which she
bore round.

"The understanding, good my master," continued Simonides, when all
were served, "is not perfect in my sight. Henceforth our lives will
run on together like rivers which have met and joined their waters.
I think their flowing will be better if every cloud is blown from
the sky above them. You left my door the other day with what
seemed a denial of the claims which I have just allowed in the
broadest terms; but it was not so, indeed it was not. Esther is
witness that I recognized you; and that I did not abandon you,
let Malluch say."

"Malluch!" exclaimed Ben-Hur.

"One bound to a chair, like me, must have many hands far-reaching,
if he would move the world from which he is so cruelly barred.
I have many such, and Malluch is one of the best of them. And,
sometimes"— he cast a grateful glance at the sheik—"sometimes I
borrow from others good of heart, like Ilderim the Generous—good and
brave. Let him say if I either denied or forgot you."

Ben-Hur looked at the Arab.

"This is he, good Ilderim, this is he who told you of me?"

Ilderim's eyes twinkled as he nodded his answer.

"How, O my master," said Simonides, "may we without trial tell what
a man is? I knew you; I saw your father in you; but the kind of
man you were I did not know. There are people to whom fortune is
a curse in disguise. Were you of them? I sent Malluch to find out
for me, and in the service he was my eyes and ears. Do not blame
him. He brought me report of you which was all good."

"I do not," said Ben-Hur, heartily. "There was wisdom in your
goodness."

"The words are very pleasant to me," said the merchant, with feeling,
"very pleasant. My fear of misunderstanding is laid. Let the rivers
run on now as God may give them direction."

After an interval he continued:

"I am compelled now by truth. The weaver sits weaving, and, as the
shuttle flies, the cloth increases, and the figures grow, and he
dreams dreams meanwhile; so to my hands the fortune grew, and I
wondered at the increase, and asked myself about it many times.
I could see a care not my own went with the enterprises I set going.
The simooms which smote others on the desert jumped over the things
which were mine. The storms which heaped the seashore with wrecks
did but blow my ships the sooner into port. Strangest of all, I,
so dependent upon others, fixed to a place like a dead thing, had
never a loss by an agent—never. The elements stooped to serve me,
and all my servants, in fact, were faithful."

"It is very strange," said Ben-Hur.

"So I said, and kept saying. Finally, O my master, finally I came to
be of your opinion—God was in it—and, like you, I asked, What can
his purpose be? Intelligence is never wasted; intelligence like
God's never stirs except with design. I have held the question
in heart, lo! these many years, watching for an answer. I felt
sure, if God were in it, some day, in his own good time, in his
own way, he would show me his purpose, making it clear as a whited
house upon a hill. And I believe he has done so."

Ben-Hur listened with every faculty intent.

"Many years ago, with my people—thy mother was with me, Esther,
beautiful as morning over old Olivet—I sat by the wayside out
north of Jerusalem, near the Tombs of the Kings, when three men
passed by riding great white camels, such as had never been seen
in the Holy City. The men were strangers, and from far countries.
The first one stopped and asked me a question. 'Where is he that
is born King of the Jews?' As if to allay my wonder, he went on to
say, 'We have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship
him.' I could not understand, but followed them to the Damascus
Gate; and of every person they met on the way—of the guard at the
Gate, even—they asked the question. All who heard it were amazed
like me. In time I forgot the circumstance, though there was much
talk of it as a presage of the Messiah. Alas, alas! What children
we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are
often centuries apart. You have seen Balthasar?"

"And heard him tell his story," said Ben-Hur.

"A miracle!—a very miracle!" cried Simonides. "As he told it
to me, good my master, I seemed to hear the answer I had so long
waited; God's purpose burst upon me. Poor will the King be when
he comes—poor and friendless; without following, without armies,
without cities or castles; a kingdom to be set up, and Rome reduced
and blotted out. See, see, O my master! thou flushed with strength,
thou trained to arms, thou burdened with riches; behold the opportunity
the Lord hath sent thee! Shall not his purpose be thine? Could a man be
born to a more perfect glory?"

Simonides put his whole force in the appeal.

"But the kingdom, the kingdom!" Ben-Hur answered, eagerly.
"Balthasar says it is to be of souls."

The pride of the Jew was strong in Simonides, and therefore the
slightly contemptuous curl of the lip with which he began his reply:

"Balthasar has been a witness of wonderful things—of miracles,
O my master; and when he speaks of them, I bow with belief,
for they are of sight and sound personal to him. But he is a son
of Mizraim, and not even a proselyte. Hardly may he be supposed
to have special knowledge by virtue of which we must bow to him
in a matter of God's dealing with our Israel. The prophets had
their light from Heaven directly, even as he had his—many to one,
and Jehovah the same forever. I must believe the prophets.—Bring
me the Torah, Esther."

He proceeded without waiting for her.

"May the testimony of a whole people be slighted, my master? Though
you travel from Tyre, which is by the sea in the north, to the
capital of Edom, which is in the desert south, you will not find
a lisper of the Shema, an alms-giver in the Temple, or any one who
has ever eaten of the lamb of the Passover, to tell you the kingdom
the King is coming to build for us, the children of the covenant,
is other than of this world, like our father David's. Now where
got they the faith, ask you! We will see presently."

Esther here returned, bringing a number of rolls carefully enveloped
in dark-brown linen lettered quaintly in gold.

"Keep them, daughter, to give to me as I call for them," the father
said, in the tender voice he always used in speaking to her,
and continued his argument:

"It were long, good my master—too long, indeed—for me to repeat
to you the names of the holy men who, in the providence of God,
succeeded the prophets, only a little less favored than they—the
seers who have written and the preachers who have taught since the
Captivity; the very wise who borrowed their lights from the lamp
of Malachi, the last of his line, and whose great names Hillel
and Shammai never tired of repeating in the colleges. Will you
ask them of the kingdom? Thus, the Lord of the sheep in the Book
of Enoch—who is he? Who but the King of whom we are speaking? A
throne is set up for him; he smites the earth, and the other kings
are shaken from their thrones, and the scourges of Israel flung
into a cavern of fire flaming with pillars of fire. So also the
singer of the Psalms of Solomon—'Behold, O Lord, and raise up
to Israel their king, the son of David, at the time thou knowest,
O God, to rule Israel, thy children. . . . And he will bring the
peoples of the heathen under his yoke to serve him. . . . And he
shall be a righteous king taught of God, . . . for he shall
rule all the earth by the word of his mouth forever.' And last,
though not least, hear Ezra, the second Moses, in his visions of
the night, and ask him who is the lion with human voice that says
to the eagle—which is Rome—'Thou hast loved liars, and overthrown
the cities of the industrious, and razed their walls, though they did
thee no harm. Therefore, begone, that the earth may be refreshed,
and recover itself, and hope in the justice and piety of him who
made her.' Whereat the eagle was seen no more. Surely, O my master,
the testimony of these should be enough! But the way to the fountain's
head is open. Let us go up to it at once.—Some wine, Esther, and then
the Torah."

"Dost thou believe the prophets, master?" he asked, after drinking.
"I know thou dost, for of such was the faith of all thy kindred.—Give
me, Esther, the book which bath in it the visions of Isaiah."

He took one of the rolls which she had unwrapped for him, and read,
"'The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:
they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them
hath the light shined. . . . For unto us a child is born, unto us
a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder. .
. . Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no
end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it,
and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth
even forever.'—Believest thou the prophets, O my master?—Now,
Esther, the word of the Lord that came to Micah."

She gave him the roll he asked.

"'But thou,'" he began reading—"'but thou, Bethlehem Ephrath,
though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee
shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel.'—This
was he, the very child Balthasar saw and worshipped in the cave.
Believest thou the prophets, O my master?—Give me, Esther,
the words of Jeremiah."

Receiving that roll, he read as before, "'Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch,
and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and
justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel
shall dwell safely.' As a king he shall reign—as a king, O my
master! Believest thou the prophets?—Now, daughter, the roll of
the sayings of that son of Judah in whom there was no blemish."

She gave him the Book of Daniel.

"Hear, my master," he said: "'I saw in the night visions, and behold,
one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven. . . . And
there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all
people, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is
an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom
that which shall not be destroyed.'—Believest thou the prophets,
O my master?"

"It is enough. I believe," cried Ben-Hur.

"What then?" asked Simonides. "If the King come poor, will not
my master, of his abundance, give him help?"

"Help him? To the last shekel and the last breath. But why speak
of his coming poor?"

"Give me, Esther, the word of the Lord as it came to Zechariah,"
said Simonides.

She gave him one of the rolls.

"Hear how the King will enter Jerusalem." Then he read, "'Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion. . . . Behold, thy King cometh unto
thee with justice and salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass,
and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.'"

Ben-Hur looked away.

"What see you, O my master?"

"Rome!" he answered, gloomily—"Rome, and her legions. I have
dwelt with them in their camps. I know them."

"Ah!" said Simonides. "Thou shalt be a master of legions for the
King, with millions to choose from."

"Millions!" cried Ben-Hur.

Simonides sat a moment thinking.

"The question of power should not trouble you," he next said.

Ben-Hur looked at him inquiringly.

"You were seeing the lowly King in the act of coming to his own,"
Simonides answered—"seeing him on the right hand, as it were,
and on the left the brassy legions of Caesar, and you were asking,
What can he do?"

"It was my very thought."

"O my master!" Simonides continued. "You do not know how strong
our Israel is. You think of him as a sorrowful old man weeping
by the rivers of Babylon. But go up to Jerusalem next Passover,
and stand on the Xystus or in the Street of Barter, and see him
as he is. The promise of the Lord to father Jacob coming out
of Padan-Aram was a law under which our people have not ceased
multiplying—not even in captivity; they grew under foot of the
Egyptian; the clench of the Roman has been but wholesome nurture
to them; now they are indeed 'a nation and a company of nations.'
Nor that only, my master; in fact, to measure the strength of
Israel—which is, in fact, measuring what the King can do—you
shall not bide solely by the rule of natural increase, but add
thereto the other—I mean the spread of the faith, which will carry
you to the far and near of the whole known earth. Further, the habit
is, I know, to think and speak of Jerusalem as Israel, which may
be likened to our finding an embroidered shred, and holding it
up as a magisterial robe of Caesar's. Jerusalem is but a stone
of the Temple, or the heart in the body. Turn from beholding
the legions, strong though they be, and count the hosts of the
faithful waiting the old alarm, 'To your tents, O Israel!'—count
the many in Persia, children of those who chose not to return with
the returning; count the brethren who swarm the marts of Egypt
and Farther Africa; count the Hebrew colonists eking profit in
the West—in Lodinum and the trade-courts of Spain; count the
pure of blood and the proselytes in Greece and in the isles of
the sea, and over in Pontus, and here in Antioch, and, for that
matter, those of that city lying accursed in the shadow of the
unclean walls of Rome herself; count the worshippers of the Lord
dwelling in tents along the deserts next us, as well as in the
deserts beyond the Nile: and in the regions across the Caspian,
and up in the old lands of Gog and Magog even, separate those
who annually send gifts to the Holy Temple in acknowledgment of
God—separate them, that they may be counted also. And when you
have done counting, lo! my master, a census of the sword hands
that await you; lo! a kingdom ready fashioned for him who is to
do 'judgment and justice in the whole earth'—in Rome not less
than in Zion. Have then the answer, What Israel can do, that can
the King."