CHAPTER III
About the hour Gesius, the keeper, made his appearance before thetribune in the Tower of Antonia, a footman was climbing the easternface of Mount Olivet. The road was rough and dusty, and vegetationon that side burned brown, for it was the dry season in Judea.Well for the traveller that he had youth and strength, not tospeak of the cool, flowing garments with which he was clothed.
He proceeded slowly, looking often to his right and left;not with the vexed, anxious expression which marks a man goingforward uncertain of the way, but rather the air with which oneapproaches as old acquaintance after a long separation--half ofpleasure, half of inquiry; as if he were saying, "I am glad to bewith you again; let me see in what you are changed."
As he arose higher, he sometimes paused to look behind him overthe gradually widening view terminating in the mountains of Moab;but when at length he drew near the summit, he quickened his step,unmindful of fatigue, and hurried on without pause or turning ofthe face. On the summit--to reach which he bent his steps somewhatright of the beaten path--he came to a dead stop, arrested as if bya strong hand. Then one might have seen his eyes dilate, his cheeksflush, his breath quicken, effects all of one bright sweeping glanceat what lay before him.
The traveller, good reader, was no other than Ben-Hur; the spectacle,Jerusalem.
Not the Holy City of to-day, but the Holy City as left by Herod--theHoly City of the Christ. Beautiful yet, as seen from old Olivet,what must it have been then?
Ben-Hur betook him to a stone and sat down, and, stripping hishead of the close white handkerchief which served it for covering,made the survey at leisure.
The same has been done often since by a great variety of persons,under circumstances surpassingly singular--by the son of Vespasian,by the Islamite, by the Crusader, conquerors all of them; by manya pilgrim from the great New World, which waited discovery nearlyfifteen hundred years after the time of our story; but of themultitude probably not one has taken that view with sensationsmore keenly poignant, more sadly sweet, more proudly bitter,than Ben-Hur. He was stirred by recollections of his countrymen,their triumphs and vicissitudes, their history the history of God.The city was of their building, at once a lasting testimony of theircrimes and devotion, their weakness and genius, their religion andtheir irreligion. Though he had seen Rome to familiarity, he wasgratified. The sight filled a measure of pride which would havemade him drunk with vainglory but for the thought, princely asthe property was, it did not any longer belong to his countrymen;the worship in the Temple was by permission of strangers; the hillwhere David dwelt was a marbled cheat--an office in which the chosenof the Lord were wrung and wrung for taxes, and scourged for verydeathlessness of faith. These, however, were pleasures and griefsof patriotism common to every Jew of the period; in addition,Ben-Hur brought with him a personal history which would not outof mind for other consideration whatever, which the spectacleserved only to freshen and vivify.
A country of hills changes but little; where the hills are of rock,it changes not at all. The scene Ben-Hur beheld is the same now,except as respects the city. The failure is in the handiwork ofman alone.
The sun dealt more kindly by the west side of Olivet than by theeast, and men were certainly more loving towards it. The vineswith which it was partially clad, and the sprinkling of trees,chiefly figs and old wild olives, were comparatively green. Down tothe dry bed of the Cedron the verdure extended, a refreshment tothe vision; there Olivet ceased and Moriah began--a wall of bluffboldness, white as snow, founded by Solomon, completed by Herod. Up,up the wall the eye climbed course by course of the ponderous rockscomposing it--up to Solomon's Porch, which was as the pedestal ofthe monument, the hill being the plinth. Lingering there a moment,the eye resumed its climbing, going next to the Gentiles' Court,then to the Israelites' Court, then to the Women's Court, then tothe Court of the Priests, each a pillared tier of white marble,one above the other in terraced retrocession; over them all acrown of crowns infinitely sacred, infinitely beautiful, majestic inproportions, effulgent with beaten gold--lo! the Tent, the Tabernacle,the Holy of Holies. The Ark was not there, but Jehovah was--in thefaith of every child of Israel he was there a personal Presence.As a temple, as a monument, there was nowhere anything of man'sbuilding to approach that superlative apparition. Now, not a stoneof it remains above another. Who shall rebuild that building? Whenshall the rebuilding be begun? So asks every pilgrim who has stoodwhere Ben-Hur was--he asks, knowing the answer is in the bosom ofGod, whose secrets are not least marvellous in their well-keeping.And then the third question, What of him who foretold the ruinwhich has so certainly befallen? God? Or man of God? Or--enoughthat the question is for us to answer.
And still Ben-Hur's eyes climbed on and up--up over the roof ofthe Temple, to the hill Zion, consecrated to sacred memories,inseparable from the anointed kings. He knew the Cheesemonger'sValley dipped deep down between Moriah and Zion; that it was spannedby the Xystus; that there were gardens and palaces in its depths;but over them all his thoughts soared with his vision to the greatgrouping on the royal hill--the house of Caiaphas, the CentralSynagogue, the Roman Praetorium, Hippicus the eternal, and thesad but mighty cenotaphs Phasaelus and Mariamne--all relievedagainst Gareb, purpling in the distance. And when midst them hesingled out the palace of Herod, what could he but think of theKing Who Was Coming, to whom he was himself devoted, whose path hehad undertaken to smooth, whose empty hands he dreamed of filling?And forward ran his fancy to the day the new King should come toclaim his own and take possession of it--of Moriah and its Temple;of Zion and its towers and palaces; of Antonia, frowning darklythere just to the right of the Temple; of the new unwalled city ofBezetha; of the millions of Israel to assemble with palm-branchesand banners, to sing rejoicing because the Lord had conquered andgiven them the world.
Men speak of dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep.They should know better. All results achieved by us are self-promised,and all self-promises are made in dreams awake. Dreaming is the reliefof labor, the wine that sustains us in act. We learn to love labor,not for itself, but for the opportunity it furnishes for dreaming,which is the great under-monotone of real life, unheard, unnoticed,because of its constancy. Living is dreaming. Only in the graveare there no dreams. Let no one smile at Ben-Hur for doing thatwhich he himself would have done at that time and place under thesame circumstances.
The sun stooped low in its course. Awhile the flaring disk seemedto perch itself on the far summit of the mountains in the west,brazening all the sky above the city, and rimming the walls andtowers with the brightness of gold. Then it disappeared as witha plunge. The quiet turned Ben-Hur's thought homeward. There was apoint in the sky a little north of the peerless front of the Holyof Holies upon which he fixed his gaze: under it, straight as aleadline would have dropped, lay his father's house, if yet thehouse endured.
The mellowing influences of the evening mellowed his feelings,and, putting his ambitions aside, he thought of the duty thatwas bringing him to Jerusalem.
Out in the desert while with Ilderim, looking for strong placesand acquainting himself with it generally, as a soldier studiesa country in which he has projected a campaign, a messenger cameone evening with the news that Gratus was removed, and PontiusPilate sent to take his place.
Messala was disabled and believed him dead; Gratus was powerlessand gone; why should Ben-Hur longer defer the search for his motherand sister? There was nothing to fear now. If he could not himselfsee into the prisons of Judea, he could examine them with the eyesof others. If the lost were found, Pilate could have no motive inholding them in custody--none, at least, which could not be overcomeby purchase. If found, he would carry them to a place of safety,and then, in calmer mind, his conscience at rest, this one firstduty done, he could give himself more entirely to the King WhoWas Coming. He resolved at once. That night he counselled withIlderim, and obtained his assent. Three Arabs came with him toJericho, where he left them and the horses, and proceeded aloneand on foot. Ma
lluch was to meet him in Jerusalem.
Ben-Hur's scheme, be it observed, was as yet a generality.
In view of the future, it was advisable to keep himself in hidingfrom the authorities, particularly the Romans. Malluch was shrewdand trusty; the very man to charge with the conduct of the investigation.
Where to begin was the first point. He had no clear idea about it.His wish was to commence with the Tower of Antonia. Tradition notof long standing planted the gloomy pile over a labyrinth ofprison-cells, which, more even than the strong garrison, kept it aterror to the Jewish fancy. A burial, such as his people had beensubjected to, might be possible there. Besides, in such a strait,the natural inclination is to start search at the place where theloss occurred, and he could not forget that his last sight of theloved ones was as the guard pushed them along the street in thedirection to the Tower. If they were not there now, but had been,some record of the fact must remain, a clew which had only to befollowed faithfully to the end.
Under this inclination, moreover, there was a hope which he couldnot forego. From Simonides he knew Amrah, the Egyptian nurse,was living. It will be remembered, doubtless, that the faithfulcreature, the morning the calamity overtook the Hurs, broke fromthe guard and ran back into the palace, where, along with otherchattels, she had been sealed up. During the years following,Simonides kept her supplied; so she was there now, sole occupantof the great house, which, with all his offers, Gratus had notbeen able to sell. The story of its rightful owners sufficedto secure the property from strangers, whether purchasers ormere occupants. People going to and fro passed it with whispers.Its reputation was that of a haunted house; derived probably fromthe infrequent glimpses of poor old Amrah, sometimes on the roof,sometimes in a latticed window. Certainly no more constant spirit everabided than she; nor was there ever a tenement so shunned and fittedfor ghostly habitation. Now, if he could get to her, Ben-Hur fanciedshe could help him to knowledge which, though faint, might yetbe serviceable. Anyhow, sight of her in that place, so endearedby recollection, would be to him a pleasure next to finding theobjects of his solicitude.
So, first of all things, he would go to the old house, and lookfor Amrah.
Thus resolved, he arose shortly after the going-down of the sun,and began descent of the Mount by the road which, from the summit,bends a little north of east. Down nearly at the foot, close bythe bed of the Cedron, he came to the intersection with the roadleading south to the village of Siloam and the pool of that name.There he fell in with a herdsman driving some sheep to market.He spoke to the man, and joined him, and in his company passedby Gethsemane on into the city through the Fish Gate.