-"take it back, and all thy promises of favor in
the event of delivery from this peril. The judgment which sent me
to the oar for life made me a slave, yet I am not a slave; no more
am I thy freedman. I am a son of Israel, and this moment, at least,
my own master. Take back the ring."

Arrius remained passive.

"Thou wilt not?" Judah continued. "Not in anger, then, nor in any
despite, but to free myself from a hateful obligation, I will give
thy gift to the sea. See, O tribune!"

He tossed the ring away. Arrius heard the splash where it struck
and sank, though he did not look.

"Thou hast done a foolish thing," he said; "foolish for one placed
as thou art. I am not dependent upon thee for death. Life is
a thread I can break without thy help; and, if I do, what will
become of thee? Men determined on death prefer it at the hands
of others, for the reason that the soul which Plato giveth us is
rebellious at the thought of self-destruction; that is all. If the
ship be a pirate, I will escape from the world. My mind is fixed.
I am a Roman. Success and honor are all in all. Yet I would have
served thee; thou wouldst not. The ring was the only witness of
my will available in this situation. We are both lost. I will die
regretting the victory and glory wrested from me; thou wilt live
to die a little later, mourning the pious duties undone because
of this folly. I pity thee."

Ben-Hur saw the consequences of his act more distinctly than before,
yet he did not falter.

"In the three years of my servitude, O tribune, thou wert the first
to look upon me kindly. No, no! There was another." The voice dropped,
the eyes became humid, and he saw plainly as if it were then before
him the face of the boy who helped him to a drink by the old well
at Nazareth. "At least," he proceeded, "thou wert the first to ask
me who I was; and if, when I reached out and caught thee, blind and
sinking the last time, I, too, had thought of the many ways in which
thou couldst be useful to me in my wretchedness, still the act was
not all selfish; this I pray you to believe. Moreover, seeing as
God giveth me to know, the ends I dream of are to be wrought by
fair means alone. As a thing of conscience, I would rather die
with thee than be thy slayer. My mind is firmly set as thine;
though thou wert to offer me all Rome, O tribune, and it belonged
to thee to make the gift good, I would not kill thee. Thy Cato and
Brutus were as little children compared