Ben Hur (19 page)

In the old time, moreover, there was a gateway in the wall at a
certain point fronting the sea—an empty gateway forming the outlet
of a street which, after the exit, stretched itself, in the form of
a broad mole, out many stadia into the waves.

The watchman on the wall above the gateway was disturbed, one cool
September morning, by a party coming down the street in noisy
conversation. He gave one look, then settled into his drowse
again.

There were twenty or thirty persons in the party, of whom the
greater number were slaves with torches, which flamed little
and smoked much, leaving on the air the perfume of the Indian
nard. The masters walked in advance arm-in-arm. One of them,
apparently fifty years old, slightly bald, and wearing over his
scant locks a crown of laurel, seemed, from the attentions paid
him, the central object of some affectionate ceremony. They all
sported ample togas of white wool broadly bordered with purple.
A glance had sufficed the watchman. He knew, without question,
they were of high rank, and escorting a friend to ship after a
night of festivity. Further explanation will be found in the
conversation they carried on.

"No, my Quintus," said one, speaking to him with the crown, "it is
ill of Fortune to take thee from us so soon. Only yesterday thou
didst return from the seas beyond the Pillars. Why, thou hast not
even got back thy land legs."

"By Castor! if a man may swear a woman's oath," said another,
somewhat worse of wine, "let us not lament. Our Quintus is but
going to find what he lost last night. Dice on a rolling ship is
not dice on shore—eh, Quintus?"

"Abuse not Fortune!" exclaimed a third. "She is not blind or
fickle. At Antium, where our Arrius questions her, she answers
him with nods, and at sea she abides with him holding the rudder.
She takes him from us, but does she not always give him back with
a new victory?"

"The Greeks are taking him away," another broke in. "Let us abuse
them, not the gods. In learning to trade they forgot how to fight."

With these words, the party passed the gateway, and came upon the
mole, with the bay before them beautiful in the morning light.
To the veteran sailor the plash of the waves was like a greeting.
He drew a long breath, as if the perfume of the water were sweeter
than that of the nard, and held his hand aloft.

"My gifts were at Praeneste, not Antium—and see! Wind from
the west. Thanks, O Fortune, my mother!" he said, earnestly.

The friends all repeated the exclamation, and the slaves waved
their torches.

"She comes—yonder!" he continued, pointing to a galley outside
the mole. "What need has a sailor for other mistress? Is your
Lucrece more graceful, my Caius?"

He gazed at the coming ship, and justified his pride. A white
sail was bent to the low mast, and the oars dipped, arose,
poised a moment, then dipped again, with wing-like action,
and in perfect time.

"Yes, spare the gods," he said, soberly, his eyes fixed upon the
vessel. "They send us opportunities. Ours the fault if we fail.
And as for the Greeks, you forget, O my Lentulus, the pirates I
am going to punish are Greeks. One victory over them is of more
account than a hundred over the Africans."

"Then thy way is to the Aegean?"

The sailor's eyes were full of his ship.

"What grace, what freedom! A bird hath not less care for the
fretting of the waves. See!" he said, but almost immediately
added, "Thy pardon, my Lentulus. I am going to the Aegean;
and as my departure is so near, I will tell the occasion—only
keep it under the rose. I would not that you abuse the duumvir
when next you meet him. He is my friend. The trade between Greece
and Alexandria, as ye may have heard, is hardly inferior to that
between Alexandria and Rome. The people in that part of the world
forgot to celebrate the Cerealia, and Triptolemus paid them with
a harvest not worth the gathering. At all events, the trade is so
grown that it will not brook interruption a day. Ye may also have
heard of the Chersonesan pirates, nested up in the Euxine; none
bolder, by the Bacchae! Yesterday word came to Rome that, with a
fleet, they had rowed down the Bosphorus, sunk the galleys off
Byzantium and Chalcedon, swept the Propontis, and, still unsated,
burst through into the Aegean. The corn-merchants who have ships
in the East Mediterranean are frightened. They had audience with
the Emperor himself, and from Ravenna there go to-day a hundred
galleys, and from Misenum"—he paused as if to pique the curiosity
of his friends, and ended with an emphatic—"one."

"Happy Quintus! We congratulate thee!"

"The preferment forerunneth promotion. We salute thee duumvir;
nothing less."

"Quintus Arrius, the duumvir, hath a better sound than Quintus
Arrius, the tribune."

In such manner they showered him with congratulations.

"I am glad with the rest," said the bibulous friend, "very glad;
but I must be practical, O my duumvir; and not until I know if
promotion will help thee to knowledge of the tesserae will I have
an opinion as to whether the gods mean thee ill or good in this—
this business."

"Thanks, many thanks!" Arrius replied, speaking to them collectively.
"Had ye but lanterns, I would say ye were augurs. Perpol! I will
go further, and show what master diviners ye are! See—and read."

From the folds of his toga he drew a roll of paper, and passed it
to them, saying, "Received while at table last night from—Sejanus."

The name was already a great one in the Roman world; great, and not
so infamous as it afterwards became.

"Sejanus!" they exclaimed, with one voice, closing in to read what
the minister had written.

"Sejanus to C. Coecilius Rufus, Duumvir.

"ROME, XIX. Kal. Sept.

"Caesar hath good report of Quintus Arrius, the tribune. In particular
he bath heard of his valor, manifested in the western seas, insomuch that
it is his will that the said Quintus be transferred instantly to the East.

"It is our Caesar's will, further, that you cause a hundred triremes,
of the first class, and full appointment, to be despatched without
delay against the pirates who have appeared in the Aegean, and that
Quintus be sent to command the fleet so despatched.

"Details are thine, my Caecilius.

"The necessity is urgent, as thou will be advised by the reports
enclosed for thy perusal and the information of the said Quintus.

"SEJANUS."

Arrius gave little heed to the reading. As the ship drew more plainly
out of the perspective, she became more and more an attraction to him.
The look with which he watched her was that of an enthusiast. At length
he tossed the loosened folds of his toga in the air; in reply to
the signal, over the aplustre, or fan-like fixture at the stern
of the vessel, a scarlet flag was displayed; while several sailors
appeared upon the bulwarks, and swung themselves hand over hand up
the ropes to the antenna, or yard, and furled the sail. The bow was
put round, and the time of the oars increased one half; so that at
racing speed she bore down directly towards him and his friends.
He observed the manoeuvring with a perceptible brightening of the
eyes. Her instant answer to the rudder, and the steadiness with
which she kept her course, were especially noticeable as virtues
to be relied upon in action.

"By the Nymphae!" said one of the friends, giving back the roll,
"we may not longer say our friend will be great; he is already great.
Our love will now have famous things to feed upon. What more hast thou
for us?"

"Nothing more," Arrius replied. "What ye have of the affair is
by this time old news in Rome, especially between the palace and
the Forum. The duumvir is discreet; what I am to do, where go to
find my fleet, he will tell on the ship, where a sealed package
is waiting me. If, however, ye have offerings for any of the
altars to-day, pray the gods for a friend plying oar and sail
somewhere in the direction of Sicily. But she is here, and will
come to," he said, reverting to the vessel. "I have interest in
her masters; they will sail and fight with me. It is not an easy
thing to lay ship side on a shore like this; so let us judge their
training and skill."

"What, is she new to thee?"

"I never saw her before; and, as yet, I know not if she will bring
me one acquaintance."

"Is that well?"

"It matters but little. We of the sea come to know each other
quickly; our loves, like our hates, are born of sudden dangers."

The vessel was of the class called naves liburnicae—long, narrow,
low in the water, and modelled for speed and quick manoeuvre. The bow
was beautiful. A jet of water spun from its foot as she came on,
sprinkling all the prow, which rose in graceful curvature twice
a man's stature above the plane of the deck. Upon the bending of
the sides were figures of Triton blowing shells. Below the bow,
fixed to the keel, and projecting forward under the water-line,
was the rostrum, or beak, a device of solid wood, reinforced and
armed with iron, in action used as a ram. A stout molding extended
from the bow the full length of the ship's sides, defining the
bulwarks, which were tastefully crenelated; below the molding,
in three rows, each covered with a cap or shield of bull-hide,
were the holes in which the oars were worked—sixty on the right,
sixty on the left. In further ornamentation, caducei leaned against
the lofty prow. Two immense ropes passing across the bow marked the
number of anchors stowed on the foredeck.

The simplicity of the upper works declared the oars the chief
dependence of the crew. A mast, set a little forward of midship,
was held by fore and back stays and shrouds fixed to rings on the
inner side of the bulwarks. The tackle was that required for the
management of one great square sail and the yard to which it was
hung. Above the bulwarks the deck was visible.

Save the sailors who had reefed the sail, and yet lingered on the
yard, but one man was to be seen by the party on the mole, and he
stood by the prow helmeted and with a shield.

The hundred and twenty oaken blades, kept white and shining by
pumice and the constant wash of the waves, rose and fell as if
operated by the same hand, and drove the galley forward with a
speed rivalling that of a modern steamer.

So rapidly, and apparently, so rashly, did she come that the landsmen
of the tribune's party were alarmed. Suddenly the man by the prow
raised his hand with a peculiar gesture; whereupon all the oars
flew up, poised a moment in air, then fell straight down. The water
boiled and bubbled about them; the galley shook in every timber,
and stopped as if scared. Another gesture of the hand, and again
the oars arose, feathered, and fell; but this time those on the
right, dropping towards the stern, pushed forward; while those on
the left, dropping towards the bow, pulled backwards. Three times
the oars thus pushed and pulled against each other. Round to the
right the ship swung as upon a pivot; then, caught by the wind,
she settled gently broadside to the mole.

The movement brought the stern to view, with all its garniture—
Tritons like those at the bow; name in large raised letters;
the rudder at the side; the elevated platform upon which the
helmsman sat, a stately figure in full armor, his hand upon the
rudder-rope; and the aplustre, high, gilt, carved, and bent over
the helmsman like a great runcinate leaf.

In the midst of the rounding-to, a trumpet was blown brief and
shrill, and from the hatchways out poured the marines, all in
superb equipment, brazen helms, burnished shields and javelins.
While the fighting-men thus went to quarters as for action, the
sailors proper climbed the shrouds and perched themselves along
the yard. The officers and musicians took their posts. There was
no shouting or needless noise. When the oars touched the mole,
a bridge was sent out from the helmsman's deck. Then the tribune
turned to his party and said, with a gravity he had not before
shown:

"Duty now, O my friends."

He took the chaplet from his head and gave it to the dice-player.

"Take thou the myrtle, O favorite of the tesserae!" he said. "If I
return, I will seek my sestertii again; if I am not victor, I will
not return. Hang the crown in thy atrium."

To the company he opened his arms, and they came one by one and
received his parting embrace.

"The gods go with thee, O Quintus!" they said.

"Farewell," he replied.

To the slaves waving their torches he waved his hand; then he
turned to the waiting ship, beautiful with ordered ranks and
crested helms, and shields and javelins. As he stepped upon
the bridge, the trumpets sounded, and over the aplustre rose
the vexillum purpureum, or pennant of a commander of a fleet.

The tribune, standing upon the helmsman's deck with the order of
the duumvir open in his hand, spoke to the chief of the rowers.
^[2]

"What force hast thou?"

"Of oarsmen, two hundred and fifty-two; ten supernumeraries.

"Making reliefs of—"

"Eighty-four."

"And thy habit?"

"It has been to take off and put on every two hours."

The tribune mused a moment.

"The division is hard, and I will reform it, but not now. The oars
may not rest day or night."

Then to the sailing-master he said,

"The wind is fair. Let the sail help the oars."

When the two thus addressed were gone, he turned to the chief pilot.
^[3]

"What service hast thou had?"

"Two-and-thirty years."

"In what seas chiefly?"

"Between our Rome and the East."

"Thou art the man I would have chosen."