“She stops, and puts a boat over the side.”
“Dost thou see her flag?”
“Is there no other sign by which she may be known if Roman?”
“If Roman, she hath a helmet over the mast’s top.”
“Then be of cheer.
I see the helmet.”
Still Arrius was not assured.
“The men in the small boat are taking in the people afloat.
Pirates are not humane.”
“They may need rowers,” Arrius replied, recurring, possibly, to times when he had made rescues for the purpose.
Ben-Hur was very watchful of the actions of the strangers.
“The ship moves off,” he said.
“Whither?”
“Over on our right there is a galley which I take to be deserted.
The new-comer heads towards it.
Now she is alongside.
Now she is sending men aboard.”
Then Arrius opened his eyes and threw off his calm.
“Thank thou thy God,” he said to Ben-Hur, after a look at the galleys, “thank thou thy God, as I do my many gods.
A pirate would sink, not save, yon ship.
By the act and the helmet on the mast I know a Roman.
The victory is mine.
Fortune hath not deserted me.
We are saved.
Wave thy hand— call to them— bring them quickly.
I shall be duumvir, and thou! I knew thy father, and loved him.
He was a prince indeed.
He taught me a Jew was not a barbarian.
I will take thee with me.
I will make thee my son.
Give thy God thanks, and call the sailors.
Haste!
The pursuit must be kept.
Not a robber shall escape.
Hasten them!”
Judah raised himself upon the plank, and waved his hand, and called with all his might; at last he drew the attention of the sailors in the small boat, and they were speedily taken up.
Arrius was received on the galley with all the honors due a hero so the favorite of Fortune.
Upon a couch on the deck he heard the particulars of the conclusion of the fight.
When the survivors afloat upon the water were all saved and the prize secured, he spread his flag of commandant anew, and hurried northward to rejoin the fleet and perfect the victory.
In due time the fifty vessels coming down the channel closed in upon the fugitive pirates, and crushed them utterly; not one escaped.
To swell the tribune’s glory, twenty galleys of the enemy were captured.
Upon his return from the cruise, Arrius had warm welcome on the mole at Misenum.
The young man attending him very early attracted the attention of his friends there; and to their questions as to who he was the tribune proceeded in the most affectionate manner to tell the story of his rescue and introduce the stranger, omitting carefully all that pertained to the latter’s previous history.
At the end of the narrative, he called Ben-Hur to him, and said, with a hand resting affectionately upon his shoulder,
“Good friends, this is my son and heir, who, as he is to take my property— if it be the will of the gods that I leave any— shall be known to you by my name.
I pray you all to love him as you love me.”
Speedily as opportunity permitted, the adoption was formally perfected.
And in such manner the brave Roman kept his faith with Ben-Hur, giving him happy introduction into the imperial world.
The month succeeding Arrius’s return, the armilustrium was celebrated with the utmost magnificence in the theater of Scaurus.
One side of the structure was taken up with military trophies; among which by far the most conspicuous and most admired were twenty prows, complemented by their corresponding aplustra, cut bodily from as many galleys; and over them, so as to be legible to the eighty thousand spectators in the seats, was this inscription: