us, yet more amazed, and retreating a step.
"Thou that assassin! All Rome rang with the story. It came to
my ship in the river by Lodinum."

The two regarded each other silently.

"I thought the family of Hur blotted from the earth," said Arrius,
speaking first.

A flood of tender recollections carried the young man's pride away;
tears shone upon his cheeks.

"Mother--mother! And my little Tirzah! Where are they? O tribune,
noble tribune, if thou knowest anything of them"--he clasped his
hands in appeal--"tell me all thou knowest. Tell me if they are
living--if living, where are they? and in what condition? Oh,
I pray thee, tell me!"

He drew nearer Arrius, so near that his hands touched the cloak
where it dropped from the latter's folded arms.

"The horrible day is three years gone," he continued--"three years,
O tribune, and every hour a whole lifetime of misery--a lifetime
in a bottomless pit with death, and no relief but in labor--and
in all that time not a word from any one, not a whisper. Oh, if,
in being forgotten, we could only forget! If only I could hide from
that scene--my sister torn from me, my mother's last look! I have
felt the plague's breath, and the shock of ships in battle; I have
heard the tempest lashing the sea, and laughed, though others prayed:
death would have been a riddance. Bend the oar--yes, in the strain of
mighty effort trying to escape the haunting of what that day occurred.
Think what little will help me. Tell me they are dead, if no more,
for happy they cannot be while I am lost. I have heard them call
me in the night; I have seen them on the water walking. Oh, never
anything so true as my mother's love! And Tirzah--her breath was
as the breath of white lilies. She was the youngest branch of the
palm--so fresh, so tender, so graceful, so beautiful! She made my
day all morning. She came and went in music. And mine was the hand
that laid them low! I--"

"Dost thou admit thy guilt?" asked Arrius, sternly.

The change that came upon Ben-Hur was wonderful to see, it was so
instant and extreme. The voice sharpened; the hands arose tight-clenched;
every fibre thrilled; his eyes inflamed.

"Thou hast heard of the God of my fathers," he said; "of the
infinite Jehovah. By his truth and almightiness, and by the love
with which he hath followed Israel from the beginning, I swear I
am innocent!"

The tribune was much moved.

"O noble Roman!" continued Ben-Hur, "give me a little faith