Beyond the village the country was undulating and cultivated; in fact,
it was the garden-land of Antioch, with not a foot lost to labor. The
steep faces of the hills were terraced; even the hedges were brighter
of the trailing vines which, besides the lure of shade, offered
passers-by sweet promises of wine to come, and grapes in clustered
purple ripeness. Over melon-patches, and through apricot and fig-tree
groves, and groves of oranges and limes, the white-washed houses of the
farmers were seen; and everywhere Plenty, the smiling daughter of
Peace, gave notice by her thousand signs that she was at home, making
the generous traveller merry at heart, until he was even disposed to
give Rome her dues. Occasionally, also, views were had of Taurus and
Lebanon, between which, a separating line of silver, the Orontes
placidly pursued its way.
In course of their journey the friends came to the river, which they
followed with the windings of the road, now over bold bluffs, and then
into vales, all alike allotted for country-seats, and if the land was
in full foliage of oak and sycamore and myrtle, and bay and arbutus,
and perfuming jasmine, the river was bright with slanted sunlight,
which would have slept where it fell but for ships in endless
procession, gliding with the current, tacking for the wind, or bounding
under the impulse of oars—some coming, some going, and all suggestive
of the sea, and distant peoples, and famous places, and things coveted
on account of their rarity. To the fancy there is nothing so winsome as
a white sail seaward blown, unless it be a white sail homeward bound,
its voyage happily done. And down the shore the friends went
continuously till they came to a lake fed by back-water from the river,
clear, deep, and without current. An old palm-tree dominated the angle
of the inlet; turning to the left at the foot of the tree, Malluch
clapped his hands and shouted,
“Look, look! The Orchard of Palms!”
The scene was nowhere else to be found unless in the favored oases of
Arabia or the Ptolemaean farms along the Nile; and to sustain a
sensation new as it was delightful, Ben-Hur was admitted into a tract
of land apparently without limit and level as a floor. All under foot
was fresh grass, in Syria the rarest and most beautiful production of
the soil; if he looked up, it was to see the sky paley blue through the
groinery of countless date-bearers, very patriarchs of their kind, so
numerous and old, and of such mighty girth, so tall, so serried, so
wide of branch, each branch so perfect with fronds, plumy and waxlike
and brilliant, they seemed enchanters enchanted. Here was the grass
coloring the very atmosphere; there the lake, cool and clear, rippling
but a few feet under the surface, and helping the trees to their long
life in old age. Did the Grove of Daphne excel this one? And the palms,
as if they knew Ben-Hur’s thought, and would win him after a way of
their own, seemed, as he passed under their arches, to stir and
sprinkle him with dewy coolness.
The road wound in close parallelism with the shore of the lake; and
when it carried the travellers down to the water’s edge, there was
always on that side a shining expanse limited not far off by the
opposite shore, on which, as on this one, no tree but the palm was
permitted.
“See that,” said Malluch, pointing to a giant of the place. “Each ring
upon its trunk marks a year of its life. Count them from root to
branch, and if the sheik tells you the grove was planted before the
Seleucidæ were heard of in Antioch, do not doubt him.”
One may not look at a perfect palm-tree but that, with a subtlety all
its own, it assumes a presence for itself, and makes a poet of the
beholder. This is the explanation of the honors it has received,
beginning with the artists of the first kings, who could find no form
in all the earth to serve them so well as a model for the pillars of
their palaces and temples; and for the same reason Ben-Hur was moved to
say,
“As I saw him at the stand to-day, good Malluch, Sheik Ilderim appeared
to be a very common man. The rabbis in Jerusalem would look down upon
him, I fear, as a son of a dog of Edom. How came he in possession of
the Orchard? And how has he been able to hold it against the greed of
Roman governors?”
“If blood derives excellence from time, son of Arrius, then is old
Ilderim a man, though he be an uncircumcised Edomite.”
Malluch spoke warmly.
“All his fathers before him were sheiks. One of them—I shall not say
when he lived or did the good deed—once helped a king who was being
hunted with swords. The story says he loaned him a thousand horsemen,
who knew the paths of the wilderness and its hiding-places as shepherds
know the scant hills they inhabit with their flocks; and they carried
him here and there until the opportunity came, and then with their
spears they slew the enemy, and set him upon his throne again. And the
king, it is said, remembered the service, and brought the son of the
Desert to this place, and bade him set up his tent and bring his family
and his herds, for the lake and trees, and all the land from the river
to the nearest mountains, were his and his children’s forever. And they
have never been disturbed in the possession. The rulers succeeding have
found it policy to keep good terms with the tribe, to whom the Lord has
given increase of men and horses, and camels and riches, making them
masters of many highways between cities; so that it is with them any
time they please to say to commerce, ‘Go in peace,’ or ‘Stop,’ and what
they say shall be done. Even the prefect in the citadel overlooking
Antioch thinks it happy day with him when Ilderim, surnamed the
Generous on account of good deeds done unto all manner of men, with his
wives and children, and his trains of camels and horses, and his
belongings of sheik, moving as our fathers Abraham and Jacob moved,
comes up to exchange briefly his bitter wells for the pleasantness you
see about us.”
“How is it, then?” said Ben-Hur, who had been listening unmindful of
the slow gait of the dromedaries. “I saw the sheik tear his beard while
he cursed himself that he had put trust in a Roman. Cæsar, had he
heard him, might have said, ‘I like not such a friend as this; put him
away.’”
“It would be but shrewd judgment,” Malluch replied, smiling. “Ilderim
is not a lover of Rome; he has a grievance. Three years ago the
Parthians rode across the road from Bozra to Damascus, and fell upon a
caravan laden, among other things, with the incoming tax-returns of a
district over that way. They slew every creature taken, which the
censors in Rome could have forgiven if the imperial treasure had been
spared and forwarded. The farmers of the taxes, being chargeable with
the loss, complained to Cæsar, and Cæsar held Herod to payment, and
Herod, on his part, seized property of Ilderim, whom he charged with
treasonable neglect of duty. The sheik appealed to Cæsar, and Cæsar
has made him such answer as might be looked for from the unwinking
sphinx. The old man’s heart has been aching sore ever since, and he
nurses his wrath, and takes pleasure in its daily growth.”
“He can do nothing, Malluch.”
“Well,” said Malluch, “that involves another explanation, which I will
give you, if we can draw nearer. But see!—the hospitality of the sheik
begins early—the children are speaking to you.”
The dromedaries stopped, and Ben-Hur looked down upon some little girls
of the Syrian peasant class, who were offering him their baskets filled
with dates. The fruit was freshly gathered, and not to be refused; he
stooped and took it, and as he did so a man in the tree by which they
were halted cried, “Peace to you, and welcome!”
Their thanks said to the children, the friends moved on at such gait as
the animals chose.
“You must know,” Malluch continued, pausing now and then to dispose of
a date, “that the merchant Simonides gives me his confidence, and
sometimes flatters me by taking me into council; and as I attend him at
his house, I have made acquaintance with many of his friends, who,
knowing my footing with the host, talk to him freely in my presence. In
that way I became somewhat intimate with Sheik Ilderim.”
For a moment Ben-Hur’s attention wandered. Before his mind’s eye there
arose the image, pure, gentle, and appealing, of Esther, the merchant’s
daughter. Her dark eyes bright with the peculiar Jewish lustre met his
in modest gaze; he heard her step as when she approached him with the
wine, and her voice as she tendered him the cup; and he acknowledged to
himself again all the sympathy she manifested for him, and manifested
so plainly that words were unnecessary, and so sweetly that words would
have been but a detraction. The vision was exceeding pleasant, but upon
his turning to Malluch, it flew away.
“A few weeks ago,” said Malluch, continuing, “the old Arab called on
Simonides, and found me present. I observed he seemed much moved about
something, and, in deference, offered to withdraw, but he himself
forbade me. ‘As you are an Israelite,’ he said, ‘stay, for I have a
strange story to tell.’ The emphasis on the word Israelite excited my
curiosity. I remained, and this is in substance his story—I cut it
short because we are drawing nigh the tent, and I leave the details to
the good man himself. A good many years ago, three men called at
Ilderim’s tent out in the wilderness. They were all foreigners, a
Hindoo, a Greek, and an Egyptian; and they had come on camels, the
largest he had ever seen, and all white. He welcomed them, and gave
them rest. Next morning they arose and prayed a prayer new to the
sheik—a prayer addressed to God and his son—this with much mystery
besides. After breaking fast with him, the Egyptian told who they were,
and whence they had come. Each had seen a star, out of which a voice
had bidden them go to Jerusalem and ask, Where is he that is born King
of the Jews?’ They obeyed. From Jerusalem they were led by a star to
Bethlehem, where, in a cave, they found a child newly born, which they
fell down and worshipped; and after worshipping it, and giving it
costly presents, and bearing witness of what it was, they took to their
camels, and fled without pause to the sheik, because if Herod—meaning
him surnamed the Great—could lay hands upon them, he would certainly
kill them. And, faithful to his habit, the sheik took care of them, and
kept them concealed for a year, when they departed, leaving with him
gifts of great value, and each going a separate way.”
“It is, indeed, a most wonderful story,” Ben-Hur exclaimed at its
conclusion. “What did you say they were to ask at Jerusalem?”
“They were to ask, ‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews?’”
“Was that all?”
“There was more to the question, but I cannot recall it.”
“And they found the child?”
“Yes, and worshipped him.”
“It is a miracle, Malluch.”
“Ilderim is a grave man, though excitable as all Arabs are. A lie on
his tongue is impossible.”
Malluch spoke positively. Thereupon the dromedaries were forgotten,
and, quite as unmindful of their riders, they turned off the road to
the growing grass.
“Has Ilderim heard nothing more of the three men?” asked Ben-Hur. “What
became of them?”
“Ah, yes, that was the cause of his coming to Simonides the day of
which I was speaking. Only the night before that day the Egyptian
reappeared to him.”
“Where?”
“Here at the door of the tent to which we are coming.”
“How knew he the man?”
“As you knew the horses to-day—by face and manner.”
“By nothing else?”
“He rode the same great white camel, and gave him the same
name—Balthasar, the Egyptian.”
“It is a wonder of the Lord’s!”
Ben-Hur spoke with excitement.
And Malluch, wondering, asked, “Why so?”
“Balthasar, you said?”
“Yes. Balthasar, the Egyptian.”
“That was the name the old man gave us at the fountain today.”
Then, at the reminder, Malluch became excited.
“It is true,” he said; “and the camel was the same—and you saved the
man’s life.”
“And the woman,” said Ben-Hur, like one speaking to himself—“the woman
was his daughter.”
He fell to thinking; and even the reader will say he was having a
vision of the woman, and that it was more welcome than that of Esther,
if only because it stayed longer with him; but no—
“Tell me again,” he said, presently. “Were the three to ask, ‘Where is
he that is to be King of the Jews?’”
“Not exactly. The words were BORN TO BE KING OF THE JEWS. Those were
the words as the old sheik caught them first in the desert, and he has
ever since been waiting the coming of the king; nor can any one shake
his faith that he will come.”
“How—as king?”
“Yes, and bringing the doom of Rome—so says the sheik.”
Ben-Hur kept silent awhile, thinking and trying to control his
feelings.
“The old man is one of many millions,” he said, slowly—“one of many
millions each with a wrong to avenge; and this strange faith, Malluch,
is bread and wine to his hope; for who but a Herod may be King of the
Jews while Rome endures? But, following the story, did you hear what
Simonides said to him?”
“If Ilderim is a grave man, Simonides is a wise one,” Malluch replied.
“I listened, and he said— But hark! Some one comes overtaking us.”
The noise grew louder, until presently they heard the rumble of wheels
mixed with the beating of horse-hoofs—a moment later Sheik Ilderim
himself appeared on horseback, followed by a train, among which were
the four wine-red Arabs drawing the chariot. The sheik’s chin, in its
muffling of long white beard, was drooped upon his breast. Our friends
had out-travelled him; but at sight of them he raised his head and
spoke kindly.
“Peace to you!—Ah, my friend Malluch! Welcome! And tell me you are not
going, but just come; that you have something for me from the good
Simonides—may the Lord of his fathers keep him in life for many years
to come! Ay, take up the straps, both of you, and follow me. I have
bread and leben, or, if you prefer it, arrack, and the flesh of young
kid. Come!”
They followed after him to the door of the tent, in which, when they
were dismounted, he stood to receive them, holding a platter with three
cups filled with creamy liquor just drawn from a great smoke-stained
skin bottle, pendent from the central post.
“Drink,” he said, heartily, “drink, for this is the fear-naught of the
tentmen.”
They each took a cup, and drank till but the foam remained.
“Enter now, in God’s name.”
And when they were gone in, Malluch took the sheik aside, and spoke to
him privately; after which he went to Ben-Hur and excused himself.
“I have told the sheik about you, and he will give you the trial of his
horses in the morning. He is your friend. Having done for you all I
can, you must do the rest, and let me return to Antioch. There is one
there who has my promise to meet him to-night. I have no choice but to
go. I will come back to-morrow prepared, if all goes well in the
meantime, to stay with you until the games are over.”
With blessings given and received, Malluch set out in return.