Ben Hur (76 page)

He ate a crust, drank a cup of wine, and was soon upon the road.

"Whither would you go first?" asked the Galilean.

"To collect the legions."

"Alas!" the man replied, throwing up his hands.

"Why alas?"

"Master"—the man spoke with shame—"master, I and my friend
here are all that are faithful. The rest do follow the priests."

"Seeking what?" and Ben-Hur drew rein.

"To kill him."

"Not the Nazarene?"

"You have said it."

Ben-Hur looked slowly from one man to the other. He was hearing
again the question of the night before: "The cup my Father hath
given me, shall I not drink it?" In the ear of the Nazarene he was
putting his own question, "If I bring thee rescue, wilt thou accept
it?" He was saying to himself, "This death may not be averted.
The man has been travelling towards it with full knowledge from
the day he began his mission: it is imposed by a will higher
than his; whose but the Lord's! If he is consenting, if he goes
to it voluntarily, what shall another do?" Nor less did Ben-Hur
see the failure of the scheme he had built upon the fidelity of
the Galileans; their desertion, in fact, left nothing more of it.
But how singular it should happen that morning of all others! A dread
seized him. It was possible his scheming, and labor, and expenditure of
treasure might have been but blasphemous contention with God. When he
picked up the reins and said, "Let us go, brethren," all before him
was uncertainty. The faculty of resolving quickly, without which
one cannot be a hero in the midst of stirring scenes, was numb
within him.

"Let us go, brethren; let us to Golgotha."

They passed through excited crowds of people going south,
like themselves. All the country north of the city seemed
aroused and in motion.

Hearing that the procession with the condemned might be met with
somewhere near the great white towers left by Herod, the three
friends rode thither, passing round southeast of Akra. In the
valley below the Pool of Hezekiah, passage-way against the multitude
became impossible, and they were compelled to dismount, and take
shelter behind the corner of a house and wait.

The waiting was as if they were on a river bank, watching a flood
go by, for such the people seemed.

There are certain chapters in the First Book of this story which
were written to give the reader an idea of the composition of the
Jewish nationality as it was in the time of Christ. They were also
written in anticipation of this hour and scene; so that he who has
read them with attention can now see all Ben-Hur saw of the going
to the crucifixion—a rare and wonderful sight!

Half an hour—an hour—the flood surged by Ben-Hur and his companions,
within arm's reach, incessant, undiminished. At the end of that time
he could have said, "I have seen all the castes of Jerusalem, all the
sects of Judea, all the tribes of Israel, and all the nationalities
of earth represented by them." The Libyan Jew went by, and the Jew
of Egypt, and the Jew from the Rhine; in short, Jews from all East
countries and all West countries, and all islands within commercial
connection; they went by on foot, on horseback, on camels, in litters
and chariots, and with an infinite variety of costumes, yet with the
same marvellous similitude of features which to-day particularizes
the children of Israel, tried as they have been by climates and
modes of life; they went by speaking all known tongues, for by that
means only were they distinguishable group from group; they went by
in haste—eager, anxious, crowding—all to behold one poor Nazarene
die, a felon between felons.

These were the many, but they were not all.

Borne along with the stream were thousands not Jews—thousands
hating and despising them—Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Syrians,
Africans, Egyptians, Easterns. So that, studying the mass,
it seemed the whole world was to be represented, and, in that
sense, present at the crucifixion.

The going was singularly quiet. A hoof-stroke upon a rock, the glide
and rattle of revolving wheels, voices in conversation, and now and
then a calling voice, were all the sounds heard above the rustle of
the mighty movement. Yet was there upon every countenance the look
with which men make haste to see some dreadful sight, some sudden
wreck, or ruin, or calamity of war. And by such signs Ben-Hur judged
that these were the strangers in the city come up to the Passover,
who had had no part in the trial of the Nazarene, and might be his
friends.

At length, from the direction of the great towers, Ben-Hur heard, at
first faint in the distance, a shouting of many men.

"Hark! they are coming now," said one of his friends.

The people in the street halted to hear; but as the cry rang on
over their heads, they looked at each other, and in shuddering
silence moved along.

The shouting drew nearer each moment; and the air was already full
of it and trembling, when Ben-Hur saw the servants of Simonides
coming with their master in his chair, and Esther walking by his
side; a covered litter was next behind them.

"Peace to you, O Simonides—and to you, Esther," said Ben-Hur,
meeting them. "If you are for Golgotha, stay until the procession
passes; I will then go with you. There is room to turn in by the
house here."

The merchant's large head rested heavily upon his breast; rousing
himself, he answered, "Speak to Balthasar; his pleasure will be
mine. He is in the litter."

Ben-Hur hastened to draw aside the curtain. The Egyptian was lying
within, his wan face so pinched as to appear like a dead man's.
The proposal was submitted to him.

"Can we see him?" he inquired, faintly.

"The Nazarene? yes; he must pass within a few feet of us."

"Dear Lord!" the old man cried, fervently. "Once more, once more!
Oh, it is a dreadful day for the world!"

Shortly the whole party were in waiting under shelter of the house.
They said but little, afraid, probably, to trust their thoughts
to each other; everything was uncertain, and nothing so much so as
opinions. Balthasar drew himself feebly from the litter, and stood
supported by a servant; Esther and Ben-Hur kept Simonides company.

Meantime the flood poured along, if anything, more densely
than before; and the shouting came nearer, shrill up in the air,
hoarse along the earth, and cruel. At last the procession was up.

"See!" said Ben-Hur, bitterly; "that which cometh now is Jerusalem."

The advance was in possession of an army of boys, hooting and
screaming, "The King of the Jews! Room, room for the King of
the Jews!"

Simonides watched them as they whirled and danced along, like a
cloud of summer insects, and said, gravely, "When these come to
their inheritance, son of Hur, alas for the city of Solomon!"

A band of legionaries fully armed followed next, marching in
sturdy indifference, the glory of burnished brass about them
the while.

Then came the NAZARENE!

He was nearly dead. Every few steps he staggered as if he would
fall. A stained gown badly torn hung from his shoulders over a
seamless undertunic. His bare feet left red splotches upon the
stones. An inscription on a board was tied to his neck. A crown
of thorns had been crushed hard down upon his head, making cruel
wounds from which streams of blood, now dry and blackened, had run
over his face and neck. The long hair, tangled in the thorns,
was clotted thick. The skin, where it could be seen, was ghastly
white. His hands were tied before him. Back somewhere in the city
he had fallen exhausted under the transverse beam of his cross,
which, as a condemned person, custom required him to bear to the
place of execution; now a countryman carried the burden in his
stead. Four soldiers went with him as a guard against the mob,
who sometimes, nevertheless, broke through, and struck him with
sticks, and spit upon him. Yet no sound escaped him, neither
remonstrance nor groan; nor did he look up until he was nearly in
front of the house sheltering Ben-Hur and his friends, all of whom
were moved with quick compassion. Esther clung to her father; and he,
strong of will as he was, trembled. Balthasar fell down speechless.
Even Ben-Hur cried out, "O my God! my God!" Then, as if he divined
their feelings or heard the exclamation, the Nazarene turned his
wan face towards the party, and looked at them each one, so they
carried the look in memory through life. They could see he was
thinking of them, not himself, and the dying eyes gave them the
blessing he was not permitted to speak.

"Where are thy legions, son of Hur?" asked Simonides, aroused.

"Hannas can tell thee better than I."

"What, faithless?"

"All but these two."

"Then all is lost, and this good man must die!"

The face of the merchant knit convulsively as he spoke, and his
head sank upon his breast. He had borne his part in Ben-Hur's
labors well, and he had been inspired by the same hopes, now blown
out never to be rekindled.

Two other men succeeded the Nazarene bearing cross-beams.

"Who are these?" Ben-Hur asked of the Galileans.

"Thieves appointed to die with the Nazarene," they replied.

Next in the procession stalked a mitred figure clad all in the
golden vestments of the high-priest. Policemen from the Temple
curtained him round about; and after him, in order, strode the
sanhedrim, and a long array of priests, the latter in their plain
white garments, overwrapped by abnets of many folds and gorgeous
colors.

"The son-in-law of Hannas," said Ben-Hur, in a low voice.

"Caiaphas! I have seen him," Simonides replied, adding, after a
pause during which he thoughtfully watched the haughty pontiff,
"And now am I convinced. With such assurance as proceeds from clear
enlightenment of the spirit—with absolute assurance—now know I
that he who first goes yonder with the inscription about his neck is
what the inscription proclaims him—KING OF THE JEWS. A common man,
an impostor, a felon, was never thus waited upon. For look! Here are
the nations—Jerusalem, Israel. Here is the ephod, here the blue
robe with its fringe, and purple pomegranates, and golden bells,
not seen in the street since the day Jaddua went out to meet the
Macedonian—proofs all that this Nazarene is King. Would I could
rise and go after him!"

Ben-Hur listened surprised; and directly, as if himself awakening
to his unusual display of feeling, Simonides said, impatiently,

"Speak to Balthasar, I pray you, and let us begone. The vomit of
Jerusalem is coming."

Then Esther spoke.

"I see some women there, and they are weeping. Who are they?"

Following the pointing of her hand, the party beheld four women
in tears; one of them leaned upon the arm of a man of aspect not
unlike the Nazarene's. Presently Ben-Hur answered,

"The man is the disciple whom the Nazarene loves the best of all;
she who leans upon his arm is Mary, the Master's mother; the others
are friendly women of Galilee."

Esther pursued the mourners with glistening eyes until the multitude
received them out of sight.

It may be the reader will fancy the foregoing snatches of conversation
were had in quiet; but it was not so. The talking was, for the most
part, like that indulged by people at the seaside under the sound
of the surf; for to nothing else can the clamor of this division
of the mob be so well likened.

The demonstration was the forerunner of those in which, scarce
thirty years later, under rule of the factions, the Holy City
was torn to pieces; it was quite as great in numbers, as fanatical
and bloodthirsty; boiled and raved, and had in it exactly the same
elements—servants, camel-drivers, marketmen, gate-keepers, gardeners,
dealers in fruits and wines, proselytes, and foreigners not proselytes,
watchmen and menials from the Temple, thieves, robbers, and the myriad
not assignable to any class, but who, on such occasions as this,
appeared no one could say whence, hungry and smelling of caves
and old tombs—bareheaded wretches with naked arms and legs,
hair and beard in uncombed mats, and each with one garment the
color of clay; beasts with abysmal mouths, in outcry effective
as lions calling each other across desert spaces. Some of them
had swords; a greater number flourished spears and javelins;
though the weapons of the many were staves and knotted clubs,
and slings, for which latter selected stones were stored in
scrips, and sometimes in sacks improvised from the foreskirts
of their dirty tunics. Among the mass here and there appeared
persons of high degree—scribes, elders, rabbis, Pharisees with
broad fringing, Sadducees in fine cloaks—serving for the time as
prompters and directors. If a throat tired of one cry, they invented
another for it; if brassy lungs showed signs of collapse, they set
them going again; and yet the clamor, loud and continuous as it
was, could have been reduced to a few syllables—King of the Jews!
Room for the King of the Jews!—Defiler of the Temple!—Blasphemer
of God!—Crucify him, crucify him! And of these cries the last one
seemed in greatest favor, because, doubtless, it was more directly
expressive of the wish of the mob, and helped to better articulate
its hatred of the Nazarene.

"Come," said Simonides, when Balthasar was ready to proceed—"come,
let us forward."

Ben-Hur did not hear the call. The appearance of the part of
the procession then passing, its brutality and hunger for life,
were reminding him of the Nazarene—his gentleness, and the many
charities he had seen him do for suffering men. Suggestions beget
suggestions; so he remembered suddenly his own great indebtedness
to the man; the time he himself was in the hands of a Roman
guard going, as was supposed, to a death as certain and almost as
terrible as this one of the cross; the cooling drink he had at the
well by Nazareth, and the divine expression of the face of him who
gave it; the later goodness, the miracle of Palm-Sunday; and with
these recollections, the thought of his present powerlessness to
give back help for help or make return in kind stung him keenly,
and he accused himself. He had not done all he might; he could
have watched with the Galileans, and kept them true and ready;
and this—ah! this was the moment to strike! A blow well given
now would not merely disperse the mob and set the Nazarene
free; it would be a trumpet-call to Israel, and precipitate
the long-dreamt-of war for freedom. The opportunity was going;
the minutes were bearing it away; and if lost! God of Abraham!
Was there nothing to be done—nothing?