upon them; never a slave
more faithful. They have lost much, but, by the God of my fathers,
I would find them more!"

The answer was unexpected by the Roman. For a moment he lost his
purpose.

"I spoke to thy ambition," he said, recovering. "If thy mother
and sister were dead, or not to be found, what wouldst thou do?"

A distinct pallor overspread Ben-Hur's face, and he looked over
the sea. There was a struggle with some strong feeling; when it
was conquered, he turned to the tribune.

"What pursuit would I follow?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Tribune, I will tell thee truly. Only the night before the dreadful
day of which I have spoken, I obtained permission to be a soldier.
I am of the same mind yet; and, as in all the earth there is but
one school of war, thither I would go."

"The palaestra!" exclaimed Arrius.

"No; a Roman camp."

"But thou must first acquaint thyself with the use of arms."

Now a master may never safely advise a slave. Arrius saw his
indiscretion, and, in a breath, chilled his voice and manner.

"Go now," he said, "and do not build upon what has passed between us.
Perhaps I do but play with thee. Or"--he looked away musingly--"or,
if thou dost think of it with any hope, choose between the renown of
a gladiator and the service of a soldier. The former may come of the
favor of the emperor; there is no reward for thee in the latter.
Thou art not a Roman. Go!"

A short while after Ben-Hur was upon his bench again.

A man's task is always light if his heart is light. Handling the
oar did not seem so toilsome to Judah. A hope had come to him,
like a singing bird. He could hardly see the visitor or hear
its song; that it was there, though, he knew; his feelings told
him so. The caution of the tribune--"Perhaps I do but play with
thee"--was dismissed often as it recurred to his mind. That he
had been called by the great man and asked his story was the
bread upon which he fed his hungry spirit. Surely something good
would come of it. The light about his bench was clear and bright
with promises, and he prayed.

"O God! I am a true son of the Israel thou hast so loved! Help me,
I pray thee!"

CHAPTER IV

In the Bay of Antemona, east of Cythera the island, the hundred
galleys assembled. There the tribune gave one day to inspection.
He sailed then to Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades, midway the
coasts of Greece and Asia, like a great stone planted in the
centre of a highway, from whi