CHAPTER XVI
Going next day to fill his appointment with Iras, Ben-Hur turnedfrom the Omphalus, which was in the heart of the city, into theColonnade of Herod, and came shortly to the palace of Idernee.
From the street he passed first into a vestibule, on the sides ofwhich were stairways under cover, leading up to a portico. Wingedlions sat by the stairs; in the middle there was a gigantic ibisspouting water over the floor; the lions, ibis, walls, and floorwere reminders of the Egyptians: everything, even the balustradingof 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 exquisitelyproportioned, it was at that period hardly possible of conceptionexcept by a Greek. Of marble snowy white, its effect was that ofa lily dropped carelessly upon a great bare rock.
Ben-Hur paused in the shade of the portico to admire its traceryand finish, and the purity of its marble; then he passed oninto the palace. Ample folding-doors stood open to receive him.The passage into which he first entered was high, but somewhatnarrow; red tiling formed the floor, and the walls were tintedto correspond. Yet this plainness was a warning of somethingbeautiful to come.
He moved on slowly, all his faculties in repose. Presently hewould 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 glanceswhich lent voluptuous suggestion to her whisper. She had sentfor him the evening of the boat-ride on the lake in the Orchardof Palms; she had sent for him now; and he was going to her inthe beautiful palace of Idernee. He was happy and dreamful ratherthan thoughtless.
The passage brought him to a closed door, in front of whichhe paused; and, as he did so, the broad leaves began to open ofthemselves, without creak or sound of lock or latch, or touch offoot or finger. The singularity was lost in the view that brokeupon him.
Standing in the shade of the dull passage, and looking throughthe doorway, he beheld the atrium of a Roman house, roomy andrich to a fabulous degree of magnificence.
How large the chamber was cannot be stated, because of thedeceit there is in exact proportions; its depth was vista-like,something never to be said of an equal interior. When he stoppedto make survey, and looked down upon the floor, he was standingupon the breast of a Leda, represented as caressing a swan; and,looking farther, he saw the whole floor was similarly laid in mosaicpictures 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 wereinvitations of themselves. The articles of furniture, which stoodout from the walls, were duplicated on the floor distinctly as ifthey floated unrippled water; even the panelling of the walls,the figures upon them in painting and bas-relief, and the frescoof the ceiling were reflected on the floor. The ceiling curved uptowards the centre, where there was an opening through which thesunlight poured without hindrance, and the sky, ever so blue,seemed in hand-reach; the impluvium under the opening was guardedby bronzed rails; the gilded pillars supporting the roof at theedges 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 houseon 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 byall he beheld, and waiting. He did not mind a little delay;when Iras was ready, she would come or send a servant. In everywell-regulated Roman house the atrium was the reception chamberfor visitors.
Twice, thrice, he made the round. As often he stood under theopening in the roof, and pondered the sky and its azure depth;then, leaning against a pillar, he studied the distribution of lightand shade, and its effects; here a veil diminishing objects, there abrilliance exaggerating others; yet nobody came. Time, or rather thepassage of time, began at length to impress itself upon him, and hewondered why Iras stayed so long. Again he traced out the figuresupon the floor, but not with the satisfaction the first inspectiongave him. He paused often to listen: directly impatience blew alittle fevered breath upon his spirit; next time it blew strongerand hotter; and at last he woke to a consciousness of the silencewhich held the house in thrall, and the thought of it made himuneasy and distrustful. Still he put the feeling off with a smileand 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 acandelabrum--a bronze plinth on rollers, filigree on the sidesand edges; the post at one end, and on the end opposite it an altarand a female celebrant; the lamp-rests swinging by delicate chainsfrom the extremities of drooping palm-branches; altogether a wonderin its way. But the silence would obtrude itself: he listened evenas he looked at the pretty object--he listened, but there was nota sound; the palace was still as a tomb.
There might be a mistake. No, the messenger had come from theEgyptian, and this was the palace of Idernee. Then he rememberedhow 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 thesound of his stepping was loud and harsh, and he shrank from it.He was getting nervous. The cumbrous Roman lock resisted hisfirst effort to raise it; and the second--the blood chilled inhis cheeks--he wrenched with all his might: in vain--the doorwas not even shaken. A sense of danger seized him, and for amoment 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 sitewas on the great thoroughfare of the city, a very public placein which to do him violence; but for that reason it was moreaccordant with the audacious genius of his enemy. The atriumunderwent a change; with all its elegance and beauty, it was nomore 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 allfirmly fastened. Knocking might bring response. Ashamed to makeoutcry, he betook himself to a couch, and, lying down, tried toreflect.
All too plainly he was a prisoner; but for what purpose? and bywhom?
If the work were Messala's! He sat up, looked about, and smileddefiantly. There were weapons in every table. But birds had beenstarved in golden cages; not so would he--the couches would servehim as battering-rams; and he was strong, and there was such increaseof might in rage and despair!
Messala himself could not come. He would never walk again; he wasa cripple like Simonides; still he could move others. And wherewere there not others to be moved by him? Ben-Hur arose, and triedthe doors again. Once he called out; the room echoed so that he wasstartled. With such calmness as he could assume, he made up his mindto 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 affairwas an accident or mistake. The palace certainly belonged to somebody;it must have care and keeping: and the keeper would come; the eveningor the night would bring him. Patience!
So concluding, he waited.
Half an hour passed--a much longer period to Ben-Hur--when the doorwhich 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 ofthe room. A footstep startled him.
"At last she has come!" he thought, with a throb of relief andpleasure, and arose.
The step was heavy, and accompanied with the gride and clang ofcoarse sandals. The gilded pillars
were between him and the door;he advanced quietly, and leaned against one of them. Presently heheard voices--the voices of men--one of them rough and guttural.What was said he could not understand, as the language was not ofthe East or South of Europe.
After a general survey of the room, the strangers crossed to theirleft, 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 mastersof the house or domestics. Everything they saw appeared wonderful tothem; everything they stopped to examine they touched. They werevulgarians. The atrium seemed profaned by their presence. At thesame time, their leisurely manner and the assurance with whichthey proceeded pointed to some right or business; if business,with whom?
With much jargon they sauntered this way and that, all the timegradually approaching the pillar by which Ben-Hur was standing.Off a little way, where a slanted gleam of the sun fell with aglare upon the mosaic of the floor, there was a statue whichattracted their notice. In examining it, they stopped in thelight.
The mystery surrounding his own presence in the palace tended,as we have seen, to make Ben-Hur nervous; so now, when in thetall stout stranger he recognized the Northman whom he had knownin Rome, and seen crowned only the day before in the Circus asthe winning pugilist; when he saw the man's face, scarred withthe wounds of many battles, and imbruted by ferocious passions;when he surveyed the fellow's naked limbs, very marvels of exerciseand training, and his shoulders of Herculean breadth, a thought ofpersonal danger started a chill along every vein. A sure instinctwarned him that the opportunity for murder was too perfect to havecome by chance; and here now were the myrmidons, and their businesswas with him. He turned an anxious eye upon the Northman'scomrade--young, black-eyed, black-haired, and altogether Jewishin appearance; he observed, also, that both the men were in costumeexactly such as professionals of their class were in the habit ofwearing in the arena. Putting the several circumstances together,Ben-Hur could not be longer in doubt: he had been lured into thepalace with design. Out of reach of aid, in this splendid privacy,he was to die!
At a loss what to do, he gazed from man to man, while there wasenacted within him that miracle of mind by which life is passedbefore us in awful detail, to be looked at by ourselves as if itwere another's; and from the evolvement, from a hidden depth, cast up,as it were, by a hidden hand, he was given to see that he had enteredupon a new life, different from the old one in this: whereas, in that,he had been the victim of violences done to him, henceforth he wasto be the aggressor. Only yesterday he had found his first victim!To the purely Christian nature the presentation would have broughtthe weakness of remorse. Not so with Ben-Hur; his spirit had itsemotions from the teachings of the first lawgiver, not the lastand greatest one. He had dealt punishment, not wrong, to Messala.By permission of the Lord, he had triumphed; and he derived faithfrom the circumstance--faith the source of all rational strength,especially strength in peril.
Nor did the influence stop there. The new life was made appear tohim a mission just begun, and holy as the King to come was holy,and certain as the coming of the King was certain--a missionin which force was lawful if only because it was unavoidable.Should he, on the very threshold of such an errand, be afraid?
He undid the sash around his waist, and, baring his head and castingoff his white Jewish gown, stood forth in an undertunic not unlike thoseof the enemy, and was ready, body and mind. Folding his arms, he placedhis back against the pillar, and calmly waited.
The examination of the statue was brief. Directly the Northman turned,and said something in the unknown tongue; then both looked at Ben-Hur.A few more words, and they advanced towards him.
"Who are you?" he asked, in Latin.
The Northman fetched a smile which did not relieve his face ofits brutalism, and answered,
"Barbarians."
"This is the palace of Idernee. Whom seek you? Stand and answer."
The words were spoken with earnestness. The strangers stopped;and in his turn the Northman asked, "Who are you?"
"A Roman."
The giant laid his head back upon his shoulders.
"Ha, ha, ha! I have heard how a god once came from a cow lickinga salted stone; but not even a god can make a Roman of a Jew."
The laugh over, he spoke to his companion again, and they movednearer.
"Hold!" said Ben-Hur, quitting the pillar. "One word."
They stopped again.
"A word!" replied the Saxon, folding his immense arms across hisbreast, and relaxing the menace beginning to blacken his face."A word! Speak."
"You are Thord the Northman."
The giant opened his blue eyes.
"You were lanista in Rome."
Thord nodded.
"I was your scholar."
"No," said Thord, shaking his head. "By the beard of Irmin, I hadnever a Jew to make a fighting-man of."
"But I will prove my saying."
"How?"
"You came here to kill me."
"That is true."
"Then let this man fight me singly, and I will make the proof onhis body."
A gleam of humor shone in the Northman's face. He spoke to hiscompanion, who made answer; then he replied with the naivete ofa diverted child,
"Wait till I say begin."
By repeated touches of his foot, he pushed a couch out on thefloor, and proceeded leisurely to stretch his burly form upon it;when perfectly at ease, he said, simply, "Now begin."
Without ado, Ben-Hur walked to his antagonist.
"Defend thyself," he said.
The man, nothing loath, put up his hands.
As the two thus confronted each other in approved position,there was no discernible inequality between them; on the contrary,they were as like as brothers. To the stranger's confident smile,Ben-Hur opposed an earnestness which, had his skill been known,would have been accepted fair warning of danger. Both knew thecombat was to be mortal.
Ben-Hur feinted with his right hand. The stranger warded,slightly advancing his left arm. Ere he could return to guard,Ben-Hur caught him by the wrist in a grip which years at the oarhad made terrible as a vise. The surprise was complete, and notime given. To throw himself forward; to push the arm across theman's throat and over his right shoulder, and turn him left sidefront; to strike surely with the ready left hand; to strike thebare neck under the ear--were but petty divisions of the same act.No need of a second blow. The myrmidon fell heavily, and withouta cry, and lay still.
Ben-Hur turned to Thord.
"Ha! What! By the beard of Irmin!" the latter cried, in astonishment,rising to a sitting posture. Then he laughed.
"Ha, ha, ha! I could not have done it better myself."
He viewed Ben-Hur coolly from head to foot, and, rising, faced himwith undisguised admiration.
"It was my trick--the trick I have practised for ten years in theschools of Rome. You are not a Jew. Who are you?"
"You knew Arrius the duumvir."
"Quintus Arrius? Yes, he was my patron."
"He had a son."
"Yes," said Thord, his battered features lighting dully, "I knewthe boy; he would have made a king gladiator. Caesar offered himhis patronage. I taught him the very trick you played on this onehere--a trick impossible except to a hand and arm like mine. It haswon me many a crown."
"I am that son of Arrius."
Thord drew nearer, and viewed him carefully; then his eyesbrightened with genuine pleasure, and, laughing, he held outhis hand.
"Ha, ha, ha! He told me I would find a Jew here--a Jew--a dog ofa Jew--killing whom was serving the gods."
"Who told you so?" asked Ben-Hur, taking the hand.
"He--Messala--ha, ha, ha!"
"When, Thord?"
"Last night."
"I thought he was hurt."
"He will never walk again. On his bed he told me between groans."
A very vivid portrayal of hate in a few words; and Ben-Hur saw thatthe Roman, if he lived, would still be capable and dangerous,a
nd follow him unrelentingly. Revenge remained to sweeten theruined life; therefore the clinging to fortune lost in the wagerwith Sanballat. Ben-Hur ran the ground over, with a distinctforesight of the many ways in which it would be possible forhis enemy to interfere with him in the work he had undertaken forthe King who was coming. Why not he resort to the Roman's methods?The man hired to kill him could be hired to strike back. It was inhis power to offer higher wages. The temptation was strong; and,half yielding, he chanced to look down at his late antagonistlying still, with white upturned face, so like himself. A lightcame to him, and he asked, "Thord, what was Messala to give youfor killing me?"
"A thousand sestertii."
"You shall have them yet; and so you do now what I tell you, I willadd three thousand more to the sum."
The giant reflected aloud,
"I won five thousand yesterday; from the Roman one--six. Give mefour, good Arrius--four more--and I will stand firm for you,though old Thor, my namesake, strike me with his hammer. Make itfour, and I will kill the lying patrician, if you say so. I haveonly to cover his mouth with my hand--thus."
He illustrated the process by clapping his hand over his own mouth.
"I see," said Ben-Hur; "ten thousand sestertii is a fortune.It will enable you to return to Rome, and open a wine-shop nearthe Great Circus, and live as becomes the first of the lanistae."
The very scars on the giant's face glowed afresh with the pleasurethe picture gave him.
"I will make it four thousand," Ben-Hur continued; "and in what youshall do for the money there will be no blood on your hands, Thord.Hear me now. Did not your friend here look like me?"
"I would have said he was an apple from the same tree."
"Well, if I put on his tunic, and dress him in these clothes ofmine, and you and I go away together, leaving him here, can younot get your sestertii from Messala all the same? You have onlyto make him believe it me that is dead."
Thord laughed till the tears ran into his mouth.
"Ha, ha, ha! Ten thousand sestertii were never won so easily.And a wine-shop by the Great Circus!--all for a lie without bloodin it! Ha, ha, ha! Give me thy hand, O son of Arrius. Get on now,and--ha, ha, ha!--if ever you come to Rome, fail not to ask for thewine-shop of Thord the Northman. By the beard of Irmin, I will giveyou the best, though I borrow it from Caesar!"
They shook hands again; after which the exchange of clothes waseffected. It was arranged then that a messenger should go at nightto Thord's lodging-place with the four thousand sestertii. Whenthey were done, the giant knocked at the front door; it openedto him; and, passing out of the atrium, he led Ben-Hur into aroom adjoining, where the latter completed his attire from thecoarse garments of the dead pugilist. They separated directly inthe Omphalus.
"Fail not, O son of Arrius, fail not the wine-shop near the GreatCircus! Ha, ha, ha! By the beard of Irmin, there was never fortunegained so cheap. The gods keep you!"
Upon leaving the atrium, Ben-Hur gave a last look at the myrmidonas he lay in the Jewish vestments, and was satisfied. The likenesswas striking. If Thord kept faith, the cheat was a secret to endureforever.
* * * * * *
At night, in the house of Simonides, Ben-Hur told the good man allthat had taken place in the palace of Idernee; and it was agreedthat, after a few days, public inquiry should be set afloat for thediscovery of the whereabouts of the son of Arrius. Eventually thematter was to be carried boldly to Maxentius; then, if the mysterycame not out, it was concluded that Messala and Gratus would be atrest and happy, and Ben-Hur free to betake himself to Jerusalem,to make search for his lost people.
At the leave-taking, Simonides sat in his chair out on the terraceoverlooking the river, and gave his farewell and the peace of theLord with the impressment of a father. Esther went with the youngman to the head of the steps.
"If I find my mother, Esther, thou shalt go to her at Jerusalem,and be a sister to Tirzah."
And with the words he kissed her.
Was it only a kiss of peace?
He crossed the river next to the late quarters of Ilderim, wherehe found the Arab who was to serve him as guide. The horses werebrought out.
"This one is thine," said the Arab.
Ben-Hur looked, and, lo! it was Aldebaran, the swiftest andbrightest of the sons of Mira, and, next to Sirius, the belovedof the sheik; and he knew the old man's heart came to him alongwith the gift.
The corpse in the atrium was taken up and buried by night; and,as part of Messala's plan, a courier was sent off to Gratus tomake him at rest by the announcement of Ben-Hur's death--thistime past question.
Ere long a wine-shop was opened near the Circus Maximus,with inscription over the door:
THORD THE NORTHMAN.
BOOK SIXTH
"Is that a Death? and are there two? Is Death that woman's mate? * * * * Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold."
COLERIDGE.