“You came here to kill me.”
“That is true.”
“Then let this man fight me singly, and I will make the proof on his body.”
A gleam of humor shone in the Northman’s face.
He spoke to his companion, who made answer; then he replied with the naivete of a diverted child,
“Wait till I say begin.”
By repeated touches of his foot, he pushed a couch out on the floor, and proceeded leisurely to stretch his burly form upon it; when perfectly at ease, he said, simply,
“Now begin.”
Without ado, Ben-Hur walked to his antagonist.
“Defend thyself,” he said.
The man, nothing loath, put up his hands.
As the two thus confronted each other in approved position, there was no discernible inequality between them; on the contrary, they were as like as brothers.
To the stranger’s confident smile, Ben-Hur opposed an earnestness which, had his skill been known, would have been accepted fair warning of danger.
Both knew the combat was to be mortal.
Ben-Hur feinted with his right hand.
The stranger warded, slightly advancing his left arm.
Ere he could return to guard, Ben-Hur caught him by the wrist in a grip which years at the oar had made terrible as a vise.
The surprise was complete, and no time given.
To throw himself forward; to push the arm across the man’s throat and over his right shoulder, and turn him left side front; to strike surely with the ready left hand; to strike the bare neck under the ear— were but petty divisions of the same act.
No need of a second blow.
The myrmidon fell heavily, and without a cry, and lay still.
Ben-Hur turned to Thord.
“Ha! What!
By the beard of Irmin!” the latter cried, in astonishment, rising to a sitting posture. Then he laughed. “Ha, ha, ha!
I could not have done it better myself.” He viewed Ben-Hur coolly from head to foot, and, rising, faced him with undisguised admiration. “It was my trick— the trick I have practised for ten years in the schools of Rome.
You are not a Jew.
Who are you?”
“You knew Arrius the duumvir.”
“Quintus Arrius?
Yes, he was my patron.”
“He had a son.”
“Yes,” said Thord, his battered features lighting dully, “I knew the boy; he would have made a king gladiator.
C?sar offered him his patronage.
I taught him the very trick you played on this one here— a trick impossible except to a hand and arm like mine.
It has won me many a crown.”
“I am that son of Arrius.”
Thord drew nearer, and viewed him carefully; then his eyes brightened with genuine pleasure, and, laughing, he held out his hand.
“Ha, ha, ha!
He told me I would find a Jew here— a Jew— a dog of a Jew— killing whom was serving the gods.”
“Who told you so?” asked Ben-Hur, taking the hand.
“He— Messala— ha, ha, ha!”
“When, Thord?”
“Last night.”
“I thought he was hurt.”
“He will never walk again.
On his bed he told me between groans.”
A very vivid portrayal of hate in a few words; and Ben-Hur saw that the Roman, if he lived, would still be capable and dangerous, and follow him unrelentingly.
Revenge remained to sweeten the ruined life; therefore the clinging to fortune lost in the wager with Sanballat.
Ben-Hur ran the ground over, with a distinct foresight of the many ways in which it would be possible for his enemy to interfere with him in the work he had undertaken for the King who was coming.
Why not he resort to the Roman’s methods?