Ben Hur (54 page)

And Ben-Hur would answer,

"Nay, sheik, have I not thy hand and heart? Let thy increase of
power and influence inure to the King who comes. Who shall say
it was not allowed thee for him? In the work I am going to, I may
have great need. Saying no now will leave me to ask of thee with
better grace hereafter."

In the midst of a controversy of the kind, two messengers arrived—Malluch
and one unknown. The former was admitted first.

The good fellow did not attempt to hide his joy over the event of
the day.

"But, coming to that with which I am charged," he said, "the master
Simonides sends me to say that, upon the adjournment of the games,
some of the Roman faction made haste to protest against payment of
the money prize."

Ilderim started up, crying, in his shrillest tones,

"By the splendor of God! the East shall decide whether the race
was fairly won."

"Nay, good sheik," said Malluch, "the editor has paid the money."

"'Tis well."

"When they said Ben-Hur struck Messala's wheel, the editor laughed,
and reminded them of the blow the Arabs had at the turn of the goal."

"And what of the Athenian?"

"He is dead."

"Dead!" cried Ben-Hur.

"Dead!" echoed Ilderim. "What fortune these Roman monsters have!
Messala escaped?"

"Escaped—yes, O sheik, with life; but it shall be a burden to
him. The physicians say he will live, but never walk again."

Ben-Hur looked silently up to heaven. He had a vision of Messala,
chairbound like Simonides, and, like him, going abroad on the
shoulders of servants. The good man had abode well; but what
would this one with his pride and ambition?

"Simonides bade me say, further," Malluch continued, "Sanballat is
having trouble. Drusus, and those who signed with him, referred the
question of paying the five talents they lost to the Consul Maxentius,
and he has referred it to Caesar. Messala also refused his losses,
and Sanballat, in imitation of Drusus, went to the consul, where the
matter is still in advisement. The better Romans say the protestants
shall not be excused; and all the adverse factions join with them.
The city rings with the scandal."

"What says Simonides?" asked Ben-Hur.

"The master laughs, and is well pleased. If the Roman pays, he
is ruined; if he refuses to pay, he is dishonored. The imperial
policy will decide the matter. To offend the East would be a bad
beginning with the Parthians; to offend Sheik Ilderim would be
to antagonize the Desert, over which lie all Maxentius's lines
of operation. Wherefore Simonides bade me tell you to have no
disquiet; Messala will pay."

Ilderim was at once restored to his good-humor.

"Let us be off now," he said, rubbing his hands. "The business will
do well with Simonides. The glory is ours. I will order the horses."

"Stay," said Malluch. "I left a messenger outside. Will you see
him?"

"By the splendor of God! I forgot him."

Malluch retired, and was succeeded by a lad of gentle manners and
delicate appearance, who knelt upon one knee, and said, winningly,
"Iras, the daughter of Balthasar, well known to good Sheik Ilderim,
hath intrusted me with a message to the sheik, who, she saith,
will do her great favor so he receive her congratulations on
account of the victory of his four."

"The daughter of my friend is kind," said Ilderim, with sparkling
eyes. "Do thou give her this jewel, in sign of the pleasure I have
from her message."

He took a ring from his finger as he spoke.

"I will as thou sayest, O sheik," the lad replied, and continued,
"The daughter of the Egyptian charged me further. She prays the
good Sheik Ilderim to send word to the youth Ben-Hur that her
father hath taken residence for a time in the palace of Idernee,
where she will receive the youth after the fourth hour to-morrow.
And if, with her congratulations, Sheik Ilderim will accept her
gratitude for this other favor done, she will be ever so pleased."

The sheik looked at Ben-Hur, whose face was suffused with pleasure.

"What will you?" he asked.

"By your leave, O sheik, I will see the fair Egyptian."

Ilderim laughed, and said, "Shall not a man enjoy his youth?"

Then Ben-Hur answered the messenger.

"Say to her who sent you that I, Ben-Hur, will see her at the palace
of Idernee, wherever that may be, to-morrow at noon."

The lad arose, and, with silent salute, departed.

At midnight Ilderim took the road, having arranged to leave a
horse and a guide for Ben-Hur, who was to follow him.

Going next day to fill his appointment with Iras, Ben-Hur turned
from the Omphalus, which was in the heart of the city, into the
Colonnade of Herod, and came shortly to the palace of Idernee.

From the street he passed first into a vestibule, on the sides of
which were stairways under cover, leading up to a portico. Winged
lions sat by the stairs; in the middle there was a gigantic ibis
spouting water over the floor; the lions, ibis, walls, and floor
were reminders of the Egyptians: everything, even the balustrading
of the stairs, was of massive gray stone.

Above the vestibule, and covering the landing of the steps,
arose the portico, a pillared grace, so light, so exquisitely
proportioned, it was at that period hardly possible of conception
except by a Greek. Of marble snowy white, its effect was that of
a lily dropped carelessly upon a great bare rock.

Ben-Hur paused in the shade of the portico to admire its tracery
and finish, and the purity of its marble; then he passed on
into the palace. Ample folding-doors stood open to receive him.
The passage into which he first entered was high, but somewhat
narrow; red tiling formed the floor, and the walls were tinted
to correspond. Yet this plainness was a warning of something
beautiful to come.

He moved on slowly, all his faculties in repose. Presently he
would be in the presence of Iras; she was waiting for him;
waiting with song and story and badinage, sparkling, fanciful,
capricious—with smiles which glorified her glance, and glances
which lent voluptuous suggestion to her whisper. She had sent
for him the evening of the boat-ride on the lake in the Orchard
of Palms; she had sent for him now; and he was going to her in
the beautiful palace of Idernee. He was happy and dreamful rather
than thoughtless.

The passage brought him to a closed door, in front of which
he paused; and, as he did so, the broad leaves began to open of
themselves, without creak or sound of lock or latch, or touch of
foot or finger. The singularity was lost in the view that broke
upon him.

Standing in the shade of the dull passage, and looking through
the doorway, he beheld the atrium of a Roman house, roomy and
rich to a fabulous degree of magnificence.

How large the chamber was cannot be stated, because of the
deceit there is in exact proportions; its depth was vista-like,
something never to be said of an equal interior. When he stopped
to make survey, and looked down upon the floor, he was standing
upon the breast of a Leda, represented as caressing a swan; and,
looking farther, he saw the whole floor was similarly laid in mosaic
pictures of mythological subjects. And there were stools and chairs,
each a separate design, and a work of art exquisitely composed,
and tables much carven, and here and there couches which were
invitations of themselves. The articles of furniture, which stood
out from the walls, were duplicated on the floor distinctly as if
they floated unrippled water; even the panelling of the walls,
the figures upon them in painting and bas-relief, and the fresco
of the ceiling were reflected on the floor. The ceiling curved up
towards the centre, where there was an opening through which the
sunlight poured without hindrance, and the sky, ever so blue,
seemed in hand-reach; the impluvium under the opening was guarded
by bronzed rails; the gilded pillars supporting the roof at the
edges of the opening shone like flame where the sun struck them,
and their reflections beneath seemed to stretch to infinite depth.
And there were candelabra quaint and curious, and statuary and vases;
the whole making an interior that would have befitted well the house
on the Palatine Hill which Cicero bought of Crassus, or that other,
yet more famous for extravagance, the Tusculan villa of Scaurus.

Still in his dreamful mood, Ben-Hur sauntered about, charmed by
all he beheld, and waiting. He did not mind a little delay;
when Iras was ready, she would come or send a servant. In every
well-regulated Roman house the atrium was the reception chamber
for visitors.

Twice, thrice, he made the round. As often he stood under the
opening in the roof, and pondered the sky and its azure depth;
then, leaning against a pillar, he studied the distribution of light
and shade, and its effects; here a veil diminishing objects, there a
brilliance exaggerating others; yet nobody came. Time, or rather the
passage of time, began at length to impress itself upon him, and he
wondered why Iras stayed so long. Again he traced out the figures
upon the floor, but not with the satisfaction the first inspection
gave him. He paused often to listen: directly impatience blew a
little fevered breath upon his spirit; next time it blew stronger
and hotter; and at last he woke to a consciousness of the silence
which held the house in thrall, and the thought of it made him
uneasy and distrustful. Still he put the feeling off with a smile
and a promise. "Oh, she is giving the last touch to her eyelids,
or she is arranging a chaplet for me; she will come presently,
more beautiful of the delay!" He sat down then to admire a
candelabrum—a bronze plinth on rollers, filigree on the sides
and edges; the post at one end, and on the end opposite it an altar
and a female celebrant; the lamp-rests swinging by delicate chains
from the extremities of drooping palm-branches; altogether a wonder
in its way. But the silence would obtrude itself: he listened even
as he looked at the pretty object—he listened, but there was not
a sound; the palace was still as a tomb.

There might be a mistake. No, the messenger had come from the
Egyptian, and this was the palace of Idernee. Then he remembered
how mysteriously the door had opened so soundlessly, so of itself.
He would see!

He went to the same door. Though he walked ever so lightly the
sound of his stepping was loud and harsh, and he shrank from it.
He was getting nervous. The cumbrous Roman lock resisted his
first effort to raise it; and the second—the blood chilled in
his cheeks—he wrenched with all his might: in vain—the door
was not even shaken. A sense of danger seized him, and for a
moment he stood irresolute.

Who in Antioch had the motive to do him harm?

Messala!

And this palace of Idernee? He had seen Egypt in the vestibule,
Athens in the snowy portico; but here, in the atrium, was Rome;
everything about him betrayed Roman ownership. True, the site
was on the great thoroughfare of the city, a very public place
in which to do him violence; but for that reason it was more
accordant with the audacious genius of his enemy. The atrium
underwent a change; with all its elegance and beauty, it was no
more than a trap. Apprehension always paints in black.

The idea irritated Ben-Hur.

There were many doors on the right and left of the atrium, leading,
doubtless, to sleeping-chambers; he tried them, but they were all
firmly fastened. Knocking might bring response. Ashamed to make
outcry, he betook himself to a couch, and, lying down, tried to
reflect.

All too plainly he was a prisoner; but for what purpose? and by
whom?

If the work were Messala's! He sat up, looked about, and smiled
defiantly. There were weapons in every table. But birds had been
starved in golden cages; not so would he—the couches would serve
him as battering-rams; and he was strong, and there was such increase
of might in rage and despair!

Messala himself could not come. He would never walk again; he was
a cripple like Simonides; still he could move others. And where
were there not others to be moved by him? Ben-Hur arose, and tried
the doors again. Once he called out; the room echoed so that he was
startled. With such calmness as he could assume, he made up his mind
to wait a time before attempting to break a way out.

In such a situation the mind has its ebb and flow of disquiet,
with intervals of peace between. At length—how long, though,
he could not have said—he came to the conclusion that the affair
was an accident or mistake. The palace certainly belonged to somebody;
it must have care and keeping: and the keeper would come; the evening
or the night would bring him. Patience!

So concluding, he waited.

Half an hour passed—a much longer period to Ben-Hur—when the door
which had admitted him opened and closed noiselessly as before,
and without attracting his attention.

The moment of the occurrence he was sitting at the farther end of
the room. A footstep startled him.

"At last she has come!" he thought, with a throb of relief and
pleasure, and arose.

The step was heavy, and accompanied with the gride and clang of
coarse sandals. The gilded pillars were between him and the door;
he advanced quietly, and leaned against one of them. Presently he
heard voices—the voices of men—one of them rough and guttural.
What was said he could not understand, as the language was not of
the East or South of Europe.

After a general survey of the room, the strangers crossed to their
left, and were brought into Ben-Hur's view—two men, one very stout,
both tall, and both in short tunics. They had not the air of masters
of the house or domestics. Everything they saw appeared wonderful to
them; everything they stopped to examine they touched. They were
vulgarians. The atrium seemed profaned by their presence. At the
same time, their leisurely manner and the assurance with which
they proceeded pointed to some right or business; if business,
with whom?