Ben Hur (28 page)

He lifted his head proudly; their eyes met; each read the other's
thought. "What shall I with the treasure, Esther?" he asked,
without lowering his gaze.

"My father," she answered, in a low voice, "did not the rightful
owner call for it but now?"

Still his look did not fail.

"And thou, my child; shall I leave thee a beggar?"

"Nay, father, am not I, because I am thy child, his bond-servant?
And of whom was it written, 'Strength and honor are her clothing,
and she shall rejoice in time to come?'"

A gleam of ineffable love lighted his face as he said, "The Lord
hath been good to me in many ways; but thou, Esther, art the
sovereign excellence of his favor."

He drew her to his breast and kissed her many times.

"Hear now," he said, with clearer voice—"hear now why I laughed
this morning. The young man faced me the apparition of his father
in comely youth. My spirit arose to salute him. I felt my trial-days
were over and my labors ended. Hardly could I keep from crying out.
I longed to take him by the hand and show the balance I had earned,
and say, 'Lo, 'tis all thine! and I am thy servant, ready now to
be called away.' And so I would have done, Esther, so I would have
done, but that moment three thoughts rushed to restrain me. I will
be sure he is my master's son—such was the first thought; if he
is my master's son, I will learn somewhat of his nature. Of those
born to riches, bethink you, Esther, how many there are in whose
hands riches are but breeding curses"—he paused, while his hands
clutched, and his voice shrilled with passion—"Esther, consider
the pains I endured at the Roman's hands; nay, not Gratus's alone:
the merciless wretches who did his bidding the first time and the
last were Romans, and they all alike laughed to hear me scream.
Consider my broken body, and the years I have gone shorn of my
stature; consider thy mother yonder in her lonely tomb, crushed of
soul as I of body; consider the sorrows of my master's family if
they are living, and the cruelty of their taking-off if they are
dead; consider all, and, with Heaven's love about thee, tell me,
daughter, shall not a hair fall or a red drop run in expiation?
Tell me not, as the preachers sometimes do—tell me not that
vengeance is the Lord's. Does he not work his will harmfully
as well as in love by agencies? Has he not his men of war more
numerous than his prophets? Is not his the law, Eye for eye,
hand for hand, foot for foot? Oh, in all these years I have dreamed
of vengeance, and prayed and provided for it, and gathered patience
from the growing of my store, thinking and promising, as the Lord
liveth, it will one day buy me punishment of the wrong-doers?
And when, speaking of his practise with arms, the young man
said it was for a nameless purpose, I named the purpose even
as he spoke—vengeance! and that, Esther, that it was—the third
thought which held me still and hard while his pleading lasted,
and made me laugh when he was gone."

Esther caressed the faded hands, and said, as if her spirit with
his were running forward to results, "He is gone. Will he come
again?"

"Ay, Malluch the faithful goes with him, and will bring him back
when I am ready."

"And when will that be, father?"

"Not long, not long. He thinks all his witnesses dead. There is
one living who will not fail to know him, if he be indeed my
master's son."

"His mother?"

"Nay, daughter, I will set the witness before him; till then let
us rest the business with the Lord. I am tired. Call Abimelech."

Esther called the servant, and they returned into the house.

When Ben-Hur sallied from the great warehouse, it was with the
thought that another failure was to be added to the many he had
already met in the quest for his people; and the idea was depressing
exactly in proportion as the objects of his quest were dear to him;
it curtained him round about with a sense of utter loneliness on
earth, which, more than anything else, serves to eke from a soul
cast down its remaining interest in life.

Through the people, and the piles of goods, he made way to the edge
of the landing, and was tempted by the cool shadows darkening the
river's depth. The lazy current seemed to stop and wait for him.
In counteraction of the spell, the saying of the voyager flashed
into memory—"Better be a worm, and feed upon the mulberries of
Daphne, than a king's guest." He turned, and walked rapidly down
the landing and back to the khan.

"The road to Daphne!" the steward said, surprised at the question
Ben-Hur put to him. "You have not been here before? Well, count this
the happiest day of your life. You cannot mistake the road. The next
street to the left, going south, leads straight to Mount Sulpius,
crowned by the altar of Jupiter and the Amphitheater; keep it to
the third cross street, known as Herod's Colonnade; turn to your
right there, and hold the way through the old city of Seleucus to
the bronze gates of Epiphanes. There the road to Daphne begins—and
may the gods keep you!"

A few directions respecting his baggage, and Ben-Hur set out.

The Colonnade of Herod was easily found; thence to the brazen gates,
under a continuous marble portico, he passed with a multitude mixed
of people from all the trading nations of the earth.

It was about the fourth hour of the day when he passed out the
gate, and found himself one of a procession apparently interminable,
moving to the famous Grove. The road was divided into separate ways
for footmen, for men on horses, and men in chariots; and those again
into separate ways for outgoers and incomers. The lines of division
were guarded by low balustrading, broken by massive pedestals, many of
which were surmounted with statuary. Right and left of the road
extended margins of sward perfectly kept, relieved at intervals
by groups of oak and sycamore trees, and vine-clad summer-houses
for the accommodation of the weary, of whom, on the return side,
there were always multitudes. The ways of the footmen were paved
with red stone, and those of the riders strewn with white sand
compactly rolled, but not so solid as to give back an echo to hoof
or wheel. The number and variety of fountains at play were amazing,
all gifts of visiting kings, and called after them. Out southwest
to the gates of the Grove, the magnificent thoroughfare stretched
a little over four miles from the city.

In his wretchedness of feeling, Ben-Hur barely observed the royal
liberality which marked the construction of the road. Nor more
did he at first notice the crowd going with him. He treated
the processional displays with like indifference. To say truth,
besides his self-absorption, he had not a little of the complacency
of a Roman visiting the provinces fresh from the ceremonies which
daily eddied round and round the golden pillar set up by Augustus
as the centre of the world. It was not possible for the provinces
to offer anything new or superior. He rather availed himself of
every opportunity to push forward through the companies in the
way, and too slow-going for his impatience. By the time he reached
Heracleia, a suburban village intermediate the city and the Grove,
he was somewhat spent with exercise, and began to be susceptible
of entertainment. Once a pair of goats led by a beautiful woman,
woman and goats alike brilliant with ribbons and flowers, attracted
his attention. Then he stopped to look at a bull of mighty girth,
and snowy white, covered with vines freshly cut, and bearing on its
broad back a naked child in a basket, the image of a young Bacchus,
squeezing the juice of ripened berries into a goblet, and drinking
with libational formulas. As he resumed his walk, he wondered whose
altars would be enriched by the offerings. A horse went by with
clipped mane, after the fashion of the time, his rider superbly
dressed. He smiled to observe the harmony of pride between the
man and the brute. Often after that he turned his head at hearing
the rumble of wheels and the dull thud of hoofs; unconsciously he
was becoming interested in the styles of chariots and charioteers,
as they rustled past him going and coming. Nor was it long until
he began to make notes of the people around him. He saw they were
of all ages, sexes, and conditions, and all in holiday attire.
One company was uniformed in white, another in black; some bore
flags, some smoking censers; some went slowly, singing hymns;
others stepped to the music of flutes and tabrets. If such were
the going to Daphne every day in the year, what a wondrous sight
Daphne must be! At last there was a clapping of hands, and a burst
of joyous cries; following the pointing of many fingers, he looked
and saw upon the brow of a hill the templed gate of the consecrated
Grove. The hymns swelled to louder strains; the music quickened
time; and, borne along by the impulsive current, and sharing the
common eagerness, he passed in, and, Romanized in taste as he was,
fell to worshiping the place.

Rearward of the structure which graced the entrance-way—a purely
Grecian pile—he stood upon a broad esplanade paved with polished
stone; around him a restless exclamatory multitude, in gayest
colors, relieved against the iridescent spray flying crystal-white
from fountains; before him, off to the southwest, dustless paths
radiated out into a garden, and beyond that into a forest, over
which rested a veil of pale-blue vapor. Ben-Hur gazed wistfully,
uncertain where to go. A woman that moment exclaimed,

"Beautiful! But where to now?"

Her companion, wearing a chaplet of bays, laughed and answered,
"Go to, thou pretty barbarian! The question implies an earthly
fear; and did we not agree to leave all such behind in Antioch
with the rusty earth? The winds which blow here are respirations
of the gods. Let us give ourselves to waftage of the winds."

"But if we should get lost?"

"O thou timid! No one was ever lost in Daphne, except those on
whom her gates close forever."

"And who are they?" she asked, still fearful.

"Such as have yielded to the charms of the place and chosen it
for life and death. Hark! Stand we here, and I will show you of
whom I speak."

Upon the marble pavement there was a scurry of sandalled feet;
the crowd opened, and a party of girls rushed about the speaker
and his fair friend, and began singing and dancing to the tabrets
they themselves touched. The woman, scared, clung to the man,
who put an arm about her, and, with kindled face, kept time to
the music with the other hand overhead. The hair of the dancers
floated free, and their limbs blushed through the robes of gauze
which scarcely draped them. Words may not be used to tell of the
voluptuousness of the dance. One brief round, and they darted off
through the yielding crowd lightly as they had come.

"Now what think you?" cried the man to the woman.

"Who are they?" she asked.

"Devadasi—priestesses devoted to the Temple of Apollo. There is
an army of them. They make the chorus in celebrations. This is
their home. Sometimes they wander off to other cities, but all
they make is brought here to enrich the house of the divine
musician. Shall we go now?"

Next minute the two were gone.

Ben-Hur took comfort in the assurance that no one was ever lost
in Daphne, and he, too, set out—where, he knew not.

A sculpture reared upon a beautiful pedestal in the garden attracted
him first. It proved to be the statue of a centaur. An inscription
informed the unlearned visitor that it exactly represented Chiron,
the beloved of Apollo and Diana, instructed by them in the mysteries
of hunting, medicine, music, and prophecy. The inscription also
bade the stranger look out at a certain part of the heavens, at a
certain hour of the clear night, and he would behold the dead alive
among the stars, whither Jupiter had transferred the good genius.

The wisest of the centaurs continued, nevertheless, in the service
of mankind. In his hand he held a scroll, on which, graven in Greek,
were paragraphs of a notice:

"O Traveller!
"Art thou a stranger?

"I. Hearken to the singing of the brooks, and fear not the rain of
the fountains; so will the Naiades learn to love thee.

"II. The invited breezes of Daphne are Zephyrus and Auster;
gentle ministers of life, they will gather sweets for thee;
when Eurus blows, Diana is elsewhere hunting; when Boreas
blusters, go hide, for Apollo is angry.

"III. The shades of the Grove are thine in the day; at night they
belong to Pan and his Dryades. Disturb them not.

"IV. Eat of the Lotus by the brooksides sparingly, unless thou
wouldst have surcease of memory, which is to become a child of
Daphne.

"V. Walk thou round the weaving spider—'tis Arachne at work for
Minerva.

"VI. Wouldst thou behold the tears of Daphne, break but a bud from
a laurel bough—and die.

"Heed thou!
"And stay and be happy."

Ben-Hur left the interpretation of the mystic notice to others
fast enclosing him, and turned away as the white bull was led by.
The boy sat in the basket, followed by a procession; after them again,
the woman with the goats; and behind her the flute and tabret players,
and another procession of gift-bringers.

"Whither go they?" asked a bystander.

Another made answer, "The bull to Father Jove; the goat—"

"Did not Apollo once keep the flocks of Admetus?"

"Ay, the goat to Apollo!"

The goodness of the reader is again besought in favor of an
explanation. A certain facility of accommodation in the matter
of religion comes to us after much intercourse with people of a
different faith; gradually we attain the truth that every creed is
illustrated by good men who are entitled to our respect, but whom
we cannot respect without courtesy to their creed. To this point
Ben-Hur had arrived. Neither the years in Rome nor those in the
galley had made any impression upon his religious faith; he was
yet a Jew. In his view, nevertheless, it was not an impiety to
look for the beautiful in the Grove of Daphne.