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

said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was before me. And I knew him not: but that he should be manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record, that this”⁠—he paused, his staff still pointing at the stranger in the white garments, as if to give a more absolute certainty to both his words and the conclusions intended⁠—“I bare record, that this is the Son of God!”

“It is he, it is he!” Balthasar cried, with upraised tearful eyes. Next moment he sank down insensible.

In this time, it should be remembered, Ben-Hur was studying the face of the stranger, though with an interest entirely different. He was not insensible to its purity of feature, and its thoughtfulness, tenderness, humility, and holiness; but just then there was room in his mind for but one thought⁠—Who is this man? And what? Messiah or king? Never was apparition more unroyal. Nay, looking at that calm, benignant countenance, the very idea of war and conquest, and lust of dominion, smote him like a profanation. He said, as if speaking to his own heart, Balthasar must be right and Simonides wrong. This man has not come to rebuild the throne of Solomon; he has neither the nature nor the genius of Herod; king he may be, but not of another and greater than Rome.

It should be understood now that this was not a conclusion with Ben-Hur, but an impression merely; and while it was forming, while yet he gazed at the wonderful countenance, his memory began to throe and struggle. “Surely,” he said to himself, “I have seen the man; but where and when?” That the look, so calm, so pitiful, so loving, had somewhere in a past time beamed upon him as that moment it was beaming upon Balthasar became an assurance. Faintly at first, at last a clear light, a burst of sunshine, the scene by the well at Nazareth what time the Roman guard was dragging him to the galleys returned, and all his being thrilled. Those hands had helped him when he was perishing. The face was one of the pictures he had carried in mind ever since. In the effusion of feeling excited, the explanation of the preacher was lost by him, all but the last words⁠—words so marvellous that the world yet rings with them:

“⁠—this is the Son of God!”

Ben-Hur leaped from his horse to render homage to his benefactor; but Iras cried to him, “Help, son of Hur, help, or my father will die!”

He stopped, looked back, then hurried to her assistance. She gave him a cup; and leaving the slave to bring the camel to its knees, he ran to the river for water. The stranger was gone when he came back.

At last Balthasar was restored to consciousness. Stretching forth his hands, he asked, feebly, “Where is he?”

“Who?” asked Iras.

An intense instant interest shone upon the good man’s face, as if a last wish had been gratified, and he answered,

“He⁠—the Redeemer⁠—the Son of God, whom I have seen again.”

“Believest thou so?” Iras asked in a low voice of Ben-Hur.

“The time is full of wonders; let us wait,” was all he said.

And next day while the three were listening to him, the Nazarite broke off in mid-speech, saying reverently, “Behold the Lamb of God!”

Looking to where he pointed, they beheld the stranger again. As Ben-Hur surveyed the slender figure, and holy beautiful countenance compassionate to sadness, a new idea broke upon him.

“Balthasar is right⁠—so is Simonides. May not the Redeemer be a king also?”

And he asked one at his side, “Who is the man walking yonder?”

The other laughed mockingly, and replied,

“He is the son of a carpenter over in Nazareth.”

Book VIII

“Who could resist? Who in this universe?
She did so breathe ambrosia, so immerse
My fine existence in a golden clime.
She took me like a child of suckling-time,
And cradled me in roses. Thus condemn’d,
The current of my former life was stemm’d,
And to this arbitrary queen of sense
I bow’d a tranced vassal.”

Keats, “Endymion”

“I am the resurrection and the life.”

I

“Esther⁠—Esther! Speak to the servant below that he may bring me a cup of water.”

“Would you not rather have wine, father?”

“Let him bring both.”

This was in the summerhouse upon the roof of the old palace of the Hurs in Jerusalem. From the parapet overlooking the courtyard Esther called to a man in waiting there; at the same moment another manservant came up the steps and saluted respectfully.

“A package for the master,” he said, giving her a letter enclosed in linen cloth, tied and sealed.

For the satisfaction of the reader, we stop to say that it is the twenty-first day of March, nearly three years after the annunciation of the Christ at Bethabara.

In the meanwhile, Malluch, acting for Ben-Hur, who could not longer endure the emptiness and decay of his father’s house, had bought it from Pontius Pilate; and, in process of repair, gates, courts, lewens, stairways, terraces, rooms, and roof had been cleansed and thoroughly restored; not only was there no reminder left of the tragic circumstances so ruinous to the family, but the refurnishment was in a style richer than before. At every point, indeed, a visitor was met by evidences of the higher tastes acquired by the young proprietor during his years of residence in the villa by Misenum and in the Roman capital.

Now it should not be inferred from this explanation that Ben-Hur had publicly assumed ownership of the property. In his opinion, the hour for that was not yet come. Neither had he yet taken his proper