Ben Hur by Lew Wallace (best romance ebooks TXT) 📕

like rivers which have met and joined their waters. I think their flowing will be better if every cloud is blown from the sky above them. You left my door the other day with what seemed a denial of the claims which I have just allowed in the broadest terms; but it was not so, indeed it was not. Esther is witness that I recognized you; and that I did not abandon you, let Malluch say.”

“Malluch!” exclaimed Ben-Hur.

“One bound to a chair, like me, must have many hands far-reaching, if he would move the world from which he is so cruelly barred. I have many such, and Malluch is one of the best of them. And, sometimes”⁠—he cast a grateful glance at the sheik⁠—“sometimes I borrow from others good of heart, like Ilderim the Generous⁠—good and brave. Let him say if I either denied or forgot you.”

Ben-Hur looked at the Arab.

“This is he, good Ilderim, this is he who told you of me?”

Ilderim’s eyes twinkled as he nodded his answer.

“How, O my master,” said Simonides, “may we without trial tell what a man is? I knew you; I saw your father in you; but the kind of man you were I did not know. There are people to whom fortune is a curse in disguise. Were you of them? I sent Malluch to find out for me, and in the service he was my eyes and ears. Do not blame him. He brought me report of you which was all good.”

“I do not,” said Ben-Hur, heartily. “There was wisdom in your goodness.”

“The words are very pleasant to me,” said the merchant, with feeling, “very pleasant. My fear of misunderstanding is laid. Let the rivers run on now as God may give them direction.”

After an interval he continued:

“I am compelled now by truth. The weaver sits weaving, and, as the shuttle flies, the cloth increases, and the figures grow, and he dreams dreams meanwhile; so to my hands the fortune grew, and I wondered at the increase, and asked myself about it many times. I could see a care not my own went with the enterprises I set going. The simooms which smote others on the desert jumped over the things which were mine. The storms which heaped the seashore with wrecks did but blow my ships the sooner into port. Strangest of all, I, so dependent upon others, fixed to a place like a dead thing, had never a loss by an agent⁠—never. The elements stooped to serve me, and all my servants, in fact, were faithful.”

“It is very strange,” said Ben-Hur.

“So I said, and kept saying. Finally, O my master, finally I came to be of your opinion⁠—God was in it⁠—and, like you, I asked, What can his purpose be? Intelligence is never wasted; intelligence like God’s never stirs except with design. I have held the question in heart, lo! these many years, watching for an answer. I felt sure, if God were in it, some day, in his own good time, in his own way, he would show me his purpose, making it clear as a whited house upon a hill. And I believe he has done so.”

Ben-Hur listened with every faculty intent.

“Many years ago, with my people⁠—thy mother was with me, Esther, beautiful as morning over old Olivet⁠—I sat by the wayside out north of Jerusalem, near the Tombs of the Kings, when three men passed by riding great white camels, such as had never been seen in the Holy City. The men were strangers, and from far countries. The first one stopped and asked me a question. ‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews?’ As if to allay my wonder, he went on to say, ‘We have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him.’ I could not understand, but followed them to the Damascus Gate; and of every person they met on the way⁠—of the guard at the Gate, even⁠—they asked the question. All who heard it were amazed like me. In time I forgot the circumstance, though there was much talk of it as a presage of the Messiah. Alas, alas! What children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart. You have seen Balthasar?”

“And heard him tell his story,” said Ben-Hur.

“A miracle!⁠—a very miracle!” cried Simonides. “As he told it to me, good my master, I seemed to hear the answer I had so long waited; God’s purpose burst upon me. Poor will the King be when he comes⁠—poor and friendless; without following, without armies, without cities or castles; a kingdom to be set up, and Rome reduced and blotted out. See, see, O my master! thou flushed with strength, thou trained to arms, thou burdened with riches; behold the opportunity the Lord hath sent thee! Shall not his purpose be thine? Could a man be born to a more perfect glory?”

Simonides put his whole force in the appeal.

“But the kingdom, the kingdom!” Ben-Hur answered, eagerly. “Balthasar says it is to be of souls.”

The pride of the Jew was strong in Simonides, and therefore the slightly contemptuous curl of the lip with which he began his reply:

“Balthasar has been a witness of wonderful things⁠—of miracles, O my master; and when he speaks of them, I bow with belief, for they are of sight and sound personal to him. But he is a son of Mizraim, and not even a proselyte. Hardly may he be supposed to have special knowledge by virtue of which we must bow to him in a matter of God’s dealing with our Israel. The prophets had their light from Heaven directly, even as he had his⁠—many to one, and Jehovah the same forever. I must believe the prophets.⁠—Bring me the Torah, Esther.”

He proceeded without waiting for her.

“May the testimony of a whole people be slighted, my master? Though you travel from Tyre, which is by the sea in the north, to the capital of