Ben Hur (50 page)

But let us from the streets to the palace on the island.

The five great chandeliers in the saloon are freshly lighted. The
assemblage is much the same as that already noticed in connection
with the place. The divan has its corps of sleepers and burden of
garments, and the tables yet resound with the rattle and clash of
dice. Yet the greater part of the company are not doing anything.
They walk about, or yawn tremendously, or pause as they pass
each other to exchange idle nothings. Will the weather be fair
to-morrow? Are the preparations for the games complete? Do the
laws of the Circus in Antioch differ from the laws of the Circus
in Rome? Truth is, the young fellows are suffering from ennui.
Their heavy work is done; that is, we would find their tablets,
could we look at them, covered with memoranda of wagers—wagers
on every contest; on the running, the wrestling, the boxing;
on everything but the chariot-race.

And why not on that?

Good reader, they cannot find anybody who will hazard so much as
a denarius with them against Messala.

There are no colors in the saloon but his.

No one thinks of his defeat.

Why, they say, is he not perfect in his training? Did he not
graduate from an imperial lanista? Were not his horses winners
at the Circensian in the Circus Maximus? And then—ah, yes! he
is a Roman!

In a corner, at ease on the divan, Messala himself may be seen.
Around him, sitting or standing, are his courtierly admirers,
plying him with questions. There is, of course, but one topic.

Enter Drusus and Cecilius.

"Ah!" cries the young prince, throwing himself on the divan at
Messala's feet, "Ah, by Bacchus, I am tired!"

"Whither away?" asks Messala.

"Up the street; up to the Omphalus, and beyond—who shall say how
far? Rivers of people; never so many in the city before. They say
we will see the whole world at the Circus to-morrow."

Messala laughed scornfully.

"The idiots! Perpol! They never beheld a Circensian with Caesar
for editor. But, my Drusus, what found you?"

"Nothing."

"O—ah! You forget," said Cecilius.

"What?" asked Drusus.

"The procession of whites."

"Mirabile!" cried Drusus, half rising. "We met a faction of whites,
and they had a banner. But—ha, ha, ha!"

He fell back indolently.

"Cruel Drusus—not to go on," said Messala.

"Scum of the desert were they, my Messala, and garbage-eaters
from the Jacob's Temple in Jerusalem. What had I to do with
them!"

"Nay," said Cecilius, "Drusus is afraid of a laugh, but I am not,
my Messala."

"Speak thou, then."

"Well, we stopped the faction, and—"

"Offered them a wager," said Drusus, relenting, and taking the word
from the shadow's mouth. "And—ha, ha, ha!—one fellow with not
enough skin on his face to make a worm for a carp stepped forth,
and—ha, ha, ha!—said yes. I drew my tablets. 'Who is your man?'
I asked. 'Ben-Hur, the Jew,' said he. Then I: 'What shall it be?
How much?' He answered, 'A—a—' Excuse me, Messala. By Jove's
thunder, I cannot go on for laughter! Ha, ha, ha!"

The listeners leaned forward.

Messala looked to Cecilius.

"A shekel," said the latter.

"A shekel! A shekel!"

A burst of scornful laughter ran fast upon the repetition.

"And what did Drusus?" asked Messala.

An outcry over about the door just then occasioned a rush to that
quarter; and, as the noise there continued, and grew louder, even
Cecilius betook himself off, pausing only to say, "The noble Drusus,
my Messala, put up his tablets and—lost the shekel."

"A white! A white!"

"Let him come!"

"This way, this way!"

These and like exclamations filled the saloon, to the stoppage
of other speech. The dice-players quit their games; the sleepers
awoke, rubbed their eyes, drew their tablets, and hurried to the
common centre.

"I offer you—"

"And I—"

"I—"

The person so warmly received was the respectable Jew, Ben-Hur's
fellow-voyager from Cyprus. He entered grave, quiet, observant.
His robe was spotlessly white; so was the cloth of his turban.
Bowing and smiling at the welcome, he moved slowly towards the
central table. Arrived there, he drew his robe about him in a
stately manner, took seat, and waved his hand. The gleam of a
jewel on a finger helped him not a little to the silence which
ensued.

"Romans—most noble Romans—I salute you!" he said.

"Easy, by Jupiter! Who is he?" asked Drusus.

"A dog of Israel—Sanballat by name—purveyor for the army; residence,
Rome; vastly rich; grown so as a contractor of furnishments which
he never furnishes. He spins mischiefs, nevertheless, finer than
spiders spin their webs. Come—by the girdle of Venus! let us
catch him!"

Messala arose as he spoke, and, with Drusus, joined the mass
crowded about the purveyor.

"It came to me on the street," said that person, producing his
tablets, and opening them on the table with an impressive air of
business, "that there was great discomfort in the palace because
offers on Messala were going without takers. The gods, you know,
must have sacrifices; and here am I. You see my color; let us to
the matter. Odds first, amounts next. What will you give me?"

The audacity seemed to stun his hearers.

"Haste!" he said. "I have an engagement with the consul."

The spur was effective.

"Two to one," cried half a dozen in a voice.

"What!" exclaimed the purveyor, astonished. "Only two to one,
and yours a Roman!"

"Take three, then."

"Three say you—only three—and mine but a dog of a Jew! Give me
four."

"Four it is," said a boy, stung by the taunt.

"Five—give me five," cried the purveyor, instantly.

A profound stillness fell upon the assemblage.

"The consul—your master and mine—is waiting for me."

The inaction became awkward to the many.

"Give me five—for the honor of Rome, five."

"Five let it be," said one in answer.

There was a sharp cheer—a commotion—and Messala himself appeared.

"Five let it be," he said.

And Sanballat smiled, and made ready to write.

"If Caesar die to-morrow," he said, "Rome will not be all bereft.
There is at least one other with spirit to take his place. Give me
six."

"Six be it," answered Messala.

There was another shout louder than the first.

"Six be it," repeated Messala. "Six to one—the difference between
a Roman and a Jew. And, having found it, now, O redemptor of the
flesh of swine, let us on. The amount—and quickly. The consul
may send for thee, and I will then be bereft."

Sanballat took the laugh against him coolly, and wrote, and offered
the writing to Messala.

"Read, read!" everybody demanded.

And Messala read:

"Mem.—Chariot-race. Messala of Rome, in wager with Sanballat,
also of Rome, says he will beat Ben-Hur, the Jew. Amount of wager,
twenty talents. Odds to Sanballat, six to one.

"Witnesses: SANBALLAT."

There was no noise, no motion. Each person seemed held in the pose
the reading found him. Messala stared at the memorandum, while the
eyes which had him in view opened wide, and stared at him. He felt
the gaze, and thought rapidly. So lately he stood in the same
place, and in the same way hectored the countrymen around him.
They would remember it. If he refused to sign, his hero-ship was
lost. And sign he could not; he was not worth one hundred talents,
nor the fifth part of the sum. Suddenly his mind became a blank;
he stood speechless; the color fled his face. An idea at last came
to his relief.

"Thou Jew!" he said, "where hast thou twenty talents? Show me."

Sanballat's provoking smile deepened.

"There," he replied, offering Messala a paper.

"Read, read!" arose all around.

Again Messala read:

"AT ANTIOCH, Tammuz 16th day.

"The bearer, Sanballat of Rome, hath now to his order with me
fifty talents, coin of Caesar.

SIMONIDES."

"Fifty talents, fifty talents!" echoed the throng, in amazement.

Then Drusus came to the rescue.

"By Hercules!" he shouted, "the paper lies, and the Jew is a liar.
Who but Caesar hath fifty talents at order? Down with the insolent
white!"

The cry was angry, and it was angrily repeated; yet Sanballat
kept his seat, and his smile grew more exasperating the longer
he waited. At length Messala spoke.

"Hush! One to one, my countrymen—one to one, for love of our
ancient Roman name."

The timely action recovered him his ascendancy.

"O thou circumcised dog!" he continued, to Sanballat, "I gave thee
six to one, did I not?"

"Yes," said the Jew, quietly.

"Well, give me now the fixing of the amount."

"With reserve, if the amount be trifling, have thy will,"
answered Sanballat.

"Write, then, five in place of twenty."

"Hast thou so much?"

"By the mother of the gods, I will show you receipts."

"Nay, the word of so brave a Roman must pass. Only make the sum
even—six make it, and I will write."

"Write it so."

And forthwith they exchanged writings.

Sanballat immediately arose and looked around him, a sneer in
place of his smile. No man better than he knew those with whom
he was dealing.

"Romans," he said, "another wager, if you dare! Five talents against
five talents that the white will win. I challenge you collectively."

They were again surprised.

"What!" he cried, louder. "Shall it be said in the Circus to-morrow
that a dog of Israel went into the saloon of the palace full of
Roman nobles—among them the scion of a Caesar—and laid five
talents before them in challenge, and they had not the courage
to take it up?"

The sting was unendurable.

"Have done, O insolent!" said Drusus, "write the challenge,
and leave it on the table; and to-morrow, if we find thou hast
indeed so much money to put at such hopeless hazard, I, Drusus,
promise it shall be taken."

Sanballat wrote again, and, rising, said, unmoved as ever, "See,
Drusus, I leave the offer with you. When it is signed, send it
to me any time before the race begins. I will be found with the
consul in a seat over the Porta Pompae. Peace to you; peace to
all."

He bowed, and departed, careless of the shout of derision with
which they pursued him out of the door.

In the night the story of the prodigious wager flew along the
streets and over the city; and Ben-Hur, lying with his four,
was told of it, and also that Messala's whole fortune was on
the hazard.

And he slept never so soundly.

The Circus at Antioch stood on the south bank of the river,
nearly opposite the island, differing in no respect from the
plan of such buildings in general.

In the purest sense, the games were a gift to the public; consequently,
everybody was free to attend; and, vast as the holding capacity of
the structure was, so fearful were the people, on this occasion,
lest there should not be room for them, that, early the day before
the opening of the exhibition, they took up all the vacant spaces
in the vicinity, where their temporary shelter suggested an army
in waiting.

At midnight the entrances were thrown wide, and the rabble,
surging in, occupied the quarters assigned to them, from which
nothing less than an earthquake or an army with spears could
have dislodged them. They dozed the night away on the benches,
and breakfasted there; and there the close of the exercises found
them, patient and sight-hungry as in the beginning.

The better people, their seats secured, began moving towards the
Circus about the first hour of the morning, the noble and very
rich among them distinguished by litters and retinues of liveried
servants.

By the second hour, the efflux from the city was a stream unbroken
and innumerable.

Exactly as the gnomon of the official dial up in the citadel pointed
the second hour half gone, the legion, in full panoply, and with all
its standards on exhibit, descended from Mount Sulpius; and when the
rear of the last cohort disappeared in the bridge, Antioch was literally
abandoned—not that the Circus could hold the multitude, but that the
multitude was gone out to it, nevertheless.

A great concourse on the river shore witnessed the consul come
over from the island in a barge of state. As the great man landed,
and was received by the legion, the martial show for one brief
moment transcended the attraction of the Circus.

At the third hour, the audience, if such it may be termed, was assembled;
at last, a flourish of trumpets called for silence, and instantly
the gaze of over a hundred thousand persons was directed towards
a pile forming the eastern section of the building.

There was a basement first, broken in the middle by a broad arched
passage, called the Porta Pompae, over which, on an elevated tribunal
magnificently decorated with insignia and legionary standards, the
consul sat in the place of honor. On both sides of the passage the
basement was divided into stalls termed carceres, each protected
in front by massive gates swung to statuesque pilasters. Over the
stalls next was a cornice crowned by a low balustrade; back of
which the seats arose in theatre arrangement, all occupied by a
throng of dignitaries superbly attired. The pile extended the
width of the Circus, and was flanked on both sides by towers
which, besides helping the architects give grace to their work,
served the velaria, or purple awnings, stretched between them so
as to throw the whole quarter in a shade that became exceedingly
grateful as the day advanced.