With great assurance, Ben-Hur fell in on the right of the priest, and walked along with him.
Now if the man would lift his head!
And presently he did so, letting the light of the lanterns strike full in his face, pale, dazed, pinched with dread; the beard roughed; the eyes filmy, sunken, and despairing.
In much going about following the Nazarene, Ben-Hur had come to know his disciples as well as the Master; and now, at sight of the dismal countenance, he cried out,
“The ’Scariot!”
Slowly the head of the man turned until his eyes settled upon Ben-Hur, and his lips moved as if he were about to speak; but the priest interfered.
“Who art thou?
Begone!” he said to Ben-Hur, pushing him away.
The young man took the push good-naturedly, and, waiting an opportunity, fell into the procession again.
Thus he was carried passively along down the street, through the crowded lowlands between the hill Bezetha and the Castle of Antonia, and on by the Bethesda reservoir to the Sheep Gate.
There were people everywhere, and everywhere the people were engaged in sacred observances.
It being Passover night, the valves of the Gate stood open.
The keepers were off somewhere feasting.
In front of the procession as it passed out unchallenged was the deep gorge of the Cedron, with Olivet beyond, its dressing of cedar and olive trees darker of the moonlight silvering all the heavens.
Two roads met and merged into the street at the gate— one from the northeast, the other from Bethany.
Ere Ben-Hur could finish wondering whether he were to go farther, and if so, which road was to be taken, he was led off down into the gorge.
And still no hint of the purpose of the midnight march.
Down the gorge and over the bridge at the bottom of it. There was a great clatter on the floor as the crowd, now a straggling rabble, passed over beating and pounding with their clubs and staves. A little farther, and they turned off to the left in the direction of an olive orchard enclosed by a stone wall in view from the road.
Ben-Hur knew there was nothing in the place but old gnarled trees, the grass, and a trough hewn out of a rock for the treading of oil after the fashion of the country.
While, yet more wonder-struck, he was thinking what could bring such a company at such an hour to a quarter so lonesome, they were all brought to a standstill.
Voices called out excitedly in front; a chill sensation ran from man to man; there was a rapid falling-back, and a blind stumbling over each other.
The soldiers alone kept their order.
It took Ben-Hur but a moment to disengage himself from the mob and run forward.
There he found a gateway without a gate admitting to the orchard, and he halted to take in the scene.
A man in white clothes, and bareheaded, was standing outside the entrance, his hands crossed before him— a slender, stooping figure, with long hair and thin face— in an attitude of resignation and waiting.
It was the Nazarene!
Behind him, next the gateway, were the disciples in a group; they were excited, but no man was ever calmer than he.
The torchlight beat redly upon him, giving his hair a tint ruddier than was natural to it; yet the expression of the countenance was as usual all gentleness and pity.
Opposite this most unmartial figure stood the rabble, gaping, silent, awed, cowering— ready at a sign of anger from him to break and run.
And from him to them—then at Judas, conspicuous in their midst— Ben-Hur looked— one quick glance, and the object of the visit lay open to his understanding.
Here was the betrayer, there the betrayed; and these with clubs and staves, and the legionaries, were brought to take him.
A man may not always tell what he will do until the trial is upon him.
This was the emergency for which Ben-Hur had been for years preparing.
The man to whose security he had devoted himself, and upon whose life he had been building so largely, was in personal peril; yet he stood still.
Such contradictions are there in human nature!
To say truth, O reader, he was not entirely recovered from the picture of the Christ before the Gate Beautiful as it had been given by the Egyptian; and, besides that, the very calmness with which the mysterious person confronted the mob held him in restraint by suggesting the possession of a power in reserve more than sufficient for the peril.
Peace and good-will, and love and non-resistance, had been the burden of the Nazarene’s teaching; would he put his preaching into practice?
He was master of life; he could restore it when lost; he could take it at pleasure.
What use would he make of the power now?
Defend himself?
And how?
A word— a breath— a thought were sufficient.
That there would be some signal exhibition of astonishing force beyond the natural Ben-Hur believed, and in that faith waited. And in all this he was still measuring the Nazarene by himself— by the human standard.
Presently the clear voice of the Christ arose.
“Whom seek ye?”
“Jesus of Nazareth,” the priest replied.
“I am he.”
At these simplest of words, spoken without passion or alarm, the assailants fell back several steps, the timid among them cowering to the ground; and they might have let him alone and gone away had not Judas walked over to him.
“Hail, master!”
With this friendly speech, he kissed him.