The sun beat upon the back of his head, and lighting up the floating hair gave it a delicate likeness to a golden nimbus.
Behind him the irregular procession, pouring forward with continuous singing and shouting, extended out of view.
There was no need of any one to tell the lepers that this was he— the wonderful Nazarene!
“He is here, Tirzah,” the mother said; “he is here.
Come, my child.”
As she spoke she glided in front of the white rock and fell upon her knees.
Directly the daughter and servant were by her side.
Then at sight of the procession in the west, the thousands from the city halted, and began to wave their green branches, shouting, or rather chanting (for it was all in one voice),
“Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord!”
And all the thousands who were of the rider’s company, both those near and those afar, replied so the air shook with the sound, which was as a great wind threshing the side of the hill.
Amidst the din, the cries of the poor lepers were not more than the twittering of dazed sparrows.
The moment of the meeting of the hosts was come, and with it the opportunity the sufferers were seeking; if not taken, it would be lost forever, and they would be lost as well.
“Nearer, my child— let us get nearer.
He cannot hear us,” said the mother.
She arose, and staggered forward.
Her ghastly hands were up, and she screamed with horrible shrillness.
The people saw her— saw her hideous face, and stopped awe-struck— an effect for which extreme human misery, visible as in this instance, is as potent as majesty in purple and gold.
Tirzah, behind her a little way, fell down too faint and frightened to follow farther.
“The lepers! the lepers!”
“Stone them!”
“The accursed of God!
Kill them!”
These, with other yells of like import, broke in upon the hosannas of the part of the multitude too far removed to see and understand the cause of the interruption.
Some there were, however, near by familiar with the nature of the man to whom the unfortunates were appealing— some who, by long intercourse with him, had caught somewhat of his divine compassion: they gazed at him, and were silent while, in fair view, he rode up and stopped in front of the woman.
She also beheld his face— calm, pitiful, and of exceeding beauty, the large eyes tender with benignant purpose.
And this was the colloquy that ensued:
“O Master, Master!
Thou seest our need; thou canst make us clean.
Have mercy upon us— mercy!”
“Believest thou I am able to do this?” he asked.
“Thou art he of whom the prophets spake— thou art the Messiah!” she replied.
His eyes grew radiant, his manner confident.
“Woman,” he said, “great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”
He lingered an instant after, apparently unconscious of the presence of the throng— an instant— then he rode away.
To the heart divinely original, yet so human in all the better elements of humanity, going with sure prevision to a death of all the inventions of men the foulest and most cruel, breathing even then in the forecast shadow of the awful event, and still as hungry and thirsty for love and faith as in the beginning, how precious and ineffably soothing the farewell exclamation of the grateful woman:
“To God in the highest, glory!
Blessed, thrice blessed, the Son whom he hath given us!”
Immediately both the hosts, that from the city and that from Bethphage, closed around him with their joyous demonstrations, with hosannas and waving of palms, and so he passed from the lepers forever.
Covering her head, the elder hastened to Tirzah, and folded her in her arms, crying,
“Daughter, look up!
I have his promise; he is indeed the Messiah. We are saved— saved!”
And the two remained kneeling while the procession, slowly going, disappeared over the mount.
When the noise of its singing afar was a sound scarcely heard the miracle began.
There was first in the hearts of the lepers a freshening of the blood; then it flowed faster and stronger, thrilling their wasted bodies with an infinitely sweet sense of painless healing.
Each felt the scourge going from her; their strength revived; they were returning to be themselves.
Directly, as if to make the purification complete, from body to spirit the quickening ran, exalting them to a very fervor of ecstasy. The power possessing them to this good end was most nearly that of a draught of swift and happy effect; yet it was unlike and superior in that its healing and cleansing were absolute, and not merely a delicious consciousness while in progress, but the planting, growing, and maturing all at once of a recollection so singular and so holy that the simple thought of it should be of itself ever after a formless yet perfect thanksgiving.
To this transformation— for such it may be called quite as properly as a cure— there was a witness other than Amrah.
The reader will remember the constancy with which Ben-Hur had followed the Nazarene throughout his wanderings; and now, recalling the conversation of the night before, there will be little surprise at learning that the young Jew was present when the leprous woman appeared in the path of the pilgrims.
He heard her prayer, and saw her disfigured face; he heard the answer also, and was not so accustomed to incidents of the kind, frequent as they had been, as to have lost interest in them. Had such thing been possible with him, still the bitter disputation always excited by the simplest display of the Master’s curative gift would have sufficed to keep his curiosity alive. Besides that, if not above it as an incentive, his hope to satisfy himself upon the vexed question of the mission of the mysterious man was still upon him strong as in the beginning; we might indeed say even stronger, because of a belief that now quickly, before the sun went down, the man himself would make all known by public proclamation.
At the close of the scene, consequently, Ben-Hur had withdrawn from the procession, and seated himself upon a stone to wait its passage.