“Prove to me what you say, Amrah.”
“I am ready.”
“Then you shall not tell him where we are or that you have seen us— only that, Amrah.”
“But he is looking for you.
He has come from afar to find you.”
“He must not find us.
He shall not become what we are.
Hear, Amrah.
You shall serve us as you have this day.
You shall bring us the little we need— not long now— not long.
You shall come every morning and evening thus, and— and”— the voice trembled, the strong will almost broke down— “and you shall tell us of him, Amrah; but to him you shall say nothing of us.
Hear you?”
“Oh, it will be so hard to hear him speak of you, and see him going about looking for you— to see all his love, and not tell him so much as that you are alive!”
“Can you tell him we are well, Amrah?”
The servant bowed her head in her arms. “No,” the mistress continued; “wherefore to be silent altogether.
Go now, and come this evening.
We will look for you.
Till then, farewell.”
“The burden will be heavy, O my mistress, and hard to bear,” said Amrah, falling upon her face.
“How much harder would it be to see him as we are,” the mother answered as she gave the basket to Tirzah. “Come again this evening,” she repeated, taking up the water, and starting for the tomb.
Amrah waited kneeling until they had disappeared; then she took the road sorrowfully home.
In the evening she returned; and thereafter it became her custom to serve them in the morning and evening, so that they wanted for nothing needful.
The tomb, though ever so stony and desolate, was less cheerless than the cell in the Tower had been.
Daylight gilded its door, and it was in the beautiful world.
Then, one can wait death with so much more faith out under the open sky.
Chapter 6
The morning of the first day of the seventh month— Tishri in the Hebrew, October in English— Ben-Hur arose from his couch in the khan ill satisfied with the whole world.
Little time had been lost in consultation upon the arrival of Malluch.
The latter began the search at the Tower of Antonia, and began it boldly, by a direct inquiry of the tribune commanding.
He gave the officer a history of the Hurs, and all the particulars of the accident to Gratus, describing the affair as wholly without criminality.
The object of the quest now, he said, was if any of the unhappy family were discovered alive to carry a petition to the feet of C?sar, praying restitution of the estate and return to their civil rights.
Such a petition, he had no doubt, would result in an investigation by the imperial order, a proceeding of which the friends of the family had no fear.
In reply the tribune stated circumstantially the discovery of the women in the Tower, and permitted a reading of the memorandum he had taken of their account of themselves; when leave to copy it was prayed, he even permitted that.
Malluch thereupon hurried to Ben-Hur.
It were useless to attempt description of the effect the terrible story had upon the young man.
The pain was not relieved by tears or passionate outcries; it was too deep for any expression.
He sat still a long time, with pallid face and laboring heart.
Now and then, as if to show the thoughts which were most poignant, he muttered,
“Lepers, lepers!
They— my mother and Tirzah— they lepers!
How long, how long, O Lord!” One moment he was torn by a virtuous rage of sorrow, next by a longing for vengeance which, it must be admitted, was scarcely less virtuous.
At length he arose.
“I must look for them.
They may be dying.”
“Where will you look?” asked Malluch.
“There is but one place for them to go.”
Malluch interposed, and finally prevailed so far as to have the management of the further attempt intrusted to him.
Together they went to the gate over on the side opposite the Hill of Evil Counsel, immemorially the lepers’ begging-ground.
There they stayed all day, giving alms, asking for the two women, and offering rich rewards for their discovery.
So they did in repetition day after day through the remainder of the fifth month, and all the sixth. There was diligent scouring of the dread city on the hill by lepers to whom the rewards offered were mighty incentives, for they were only dead in law.