7. CHAPTER VII.
A GALLEY SLAVE.
NEXT day a detachment of legionaries went to the desolated palace,
and, closing the gates permanently, plastered the corners with wax,
and at the sides nailed a notice in Latin:
"THIS IS THE PROPERTY OF.
THE EMPEROR."
In the haughty Roman idea, the sententious announcement was
thought sufficient for the purpose-and it was.
The day after that again, about noon, a decurion with his command of
ten horsemen approached Nazareth from the south-that is, from the
direction of Jerusalem. The place was then a straggling village
perched on a hill-side, and so insignificant that its one street was
little more than a path well beaten by the coming and going of
flocks and herds. The great plain of Esdraelon crept close to it on
the south, and from the height on the west a view could be had of
the chores of the Mediterranean, the region beyond the Jordan, and
Hermon. The valley below, and the country on every side, were given to
gardens, vineyards, orchards, and pasturage. Groves of palm-trees
Orientalized the landscape. The houses, in irregular assemblage,
were of the humbler class-square, one-storey, flat-roofed, and
covered with bright-green vines. The drought that had burned the hills
of Judea to a crisp, brown and lifeless, stopped at the boundary
line of Galilee.
A trumpet, sounded when the cavalcade drew near the village, had a
magical effect upon the inhabitants. The gates and front doors cast
forth groups eager to be the first to catch the meaning of a
visitation so unusual.
Nazareth, it must be remembered, was not only aside from any great
highway, but within the sway of Judas of Gamala; wherefore it should
not be hard to imagine the feelings with which the legionaries were
received. But when they were up and traversing the street, the duty
that occupied them became apparent, and then fear and hatred were lost
in curiosity, under the impulse of which the people, knowing there
must be a halt at the well in the north-eastern part of the town, quit
their gates and doors, and closed in after the procession.
A prisoner whom the horsemen were guarding was the object of
curiosity. He was afoot, bareheaded, half-naked, his hands bound
behind him. A thong fixed to his wrists was looped over the neck of
a horse. The dust went with the party when in movement, wrapping him
in yellow fog, sometimes in a dense cloud. He drooped forward,
footsore and faint. The villagers could see he was young.
At the well the decurion halted, and, with most of the men,
dismounted. The prisoner sank down in the dust of the road, stupefied,
and asking nothing: apparently he was in the last stage of exhaustion.
Seeing, when they came near, that he was but a boy, the villagers
would have helped him had they dared.
In the midst of their perplexity, and while the pitchers were
passing among the soldiers, a man was descried coming down the road
from Sepphoris. At sight of him a woman cried out, "Look! Yonder comes
the carpenter. Now we will hear something."
The person spoken of was quite venerable in appearance. Thin white
locks fell below the edge of his full turban, and a mass of still
whiter beard flowed down the front of his coarse grey gown. He came
slowly, for, in addition to his age, he carried some tools-an axe,
a saw, and a drawing-knife, all very rude and heavy-and had evidently
travelled some distance without rest.
He stopped close by to survey the assemblage.
"Oh, Rabbi, good Rabbi Joseph!" cried a woman, running to him. "Here
is a prisoner; come, ask the soldiers about him, that we may know
who he is, and what he has done, and what they are going to do with
him."
The rabbi's face remained stolid; he glanced at the prisoner,
however, and presently went to the officer.
"The peace of the Lord be with you!" he said, with unbending
gravity.
"And that of the gods with you," the decurion replied.
"Are you from Jerusalem?"
"Yes."
"Your prisoner is young."
"In years, yes."
"May I ask what he has done?"
"He is an assassin."
The people repeated the word in astonishment, but Rabbi Joseph
pursued his inquest.
"Is he a son of Israel?"
"He is a Jew," said the Roman, dryly.
The wavering pity of the bystanders came back.
"I know nothing of your tribes, but can speak of his family," the
speaker continued. "You may have heard of a prince of Jerusalem
named Hur-Ben-Hur, they call him. He lived in Herod's day."
"I have seen him," Joseph said.
"Well, this is his son."
Exclamations became general, and the decurion hastened to stop them.
"In the streets of Jerusalem, day before yesterday, he nearly killed
the noble Gratus by flinging a tile upon his head from the roof of a
palace-his father's, I believe."
There was a pause in the conversation, during which the Nazarenes
gazed at the young Ben-Hur as at a wild beast.
"Did he kill him?" asked the rabbi.
"No."
"He is under sentence."
"Yes-the galleys for life."
"The Lord help him!" said Joseph, for once moved out of his
stolidity.
Thereupon a youth who came up with Joseph, but had stood behind
him unobserved, laid down an axe he had been carrying, and, going to
the great stone standing by the well, took from it a pitcher of water.
The action was so quiet that before the guard could interfere, had
they been disposed to do so, he was stooping over the prisoner and
offering him a drink.
The hand laid kindly upon his shoulder awoke the unfortunate
Judah, and, looking up, he saw a face he never forgot-the face of a
boy about his own age, shaded by locks of yellowish bright chestnut
hair; a face lighted by dark-blue eyes, at the time so soft, so
appealing, so full of love and holy purpose, that they had all the
power of command and will. The spirit of the Jew, hardened though it
was by days and nights of suffering, and so imbittered by wrong that
its dreams of revenge took in all the world, melted under the
stranger's look, and became as a child's. He put his lips to the
pitcher, and drank long and deep. Not a word was said to him, nor
did he say a word.
When the draught was finished, the hand that had been resting upon
the sufferer's shoulder was placed upon his head, and stayed there
in the dusty locks time enough to say a blessing; the stranger then
returned the pitcher to its place on the stone, and, taking his axe
again, went back to Rabbi Joseph. All eyes went with him, the
decurion's as well as those of the villagers.
This was the end of the scene at the well. When the men had drunk,
and the horses, the march was resumed. But the temper of the
decurion was not as it had been; he himself raised the prisoner from
the dust, and helped him on a horse behind a soldier. The Nazarenes
went to their houses-among them Rabbi Joseph and his apprentice.
And so, for the first time, Judah and the son of Mary met and
parted.