h as hath not entered
imagination--original, incomparable, impossible of increase."

"What thou sayest, father, is a riddle to me," said Ben-Hur.
"I never heard of such a kingdom."

"Nor did I," said Ilderim.

"And I may not tell more of it," Balthasar added, humbly dropping
his eyes. "What it is, what it is for, how it may be reached,
none can know until the Child comes to take possession of it as
his own. He brings the key of the viewless gate, which he will
open for his beloved, among whom will be all who love him, for of
such only the redeemed will be."

After that there was a long silence, which Balthasar accepted as
the end of the conversation.

"Good sheik," he said, in his placid way, "to-morrow or the next
day I will go up to the city for a time. My daughter wishes to
see the preparations for the games. I will speak further about
the time of our going. And, my son, I will see you again. To you
both, peace and good-night."

They all arose from the table. The sheik and Ben-Hur remained
looking after the Egyptian until he was conducted out of the tent.

"Sheik Ilderim," said Ben-Hur then, "I have heard strange things
tonight. Give me leave, I pray, to walk by the lake that I may
think of them."

"Go; and I will come after you."

They washed their hands again; after which, at a sign from the
master, a servant brought Ben-Hur his shoes, and directly he
went out.

CHAPTER XVII

Up a little way from the dower there was a cluster of palms,
which threw its shade half in the water, half on the land. A bulbul
sang from the branches a song of invitation. Ben-Hur stopped beneath
to listen. At any other time the notes of the bird would have driven
thought away; but the story of the Egyptian was a burden of wonder,
and he was a laborer carrying it, and, like other laborers, there was
to him no music in the sweetest music until mind and body were happily
attuned by rest.

The night was quiet. Not a ripple broke upon the shore. The old
stars of the old East were all out, each in its accustomed place;
and there was summer everywhere--on land, on lake, in the sky.

Ben-Hur's imagination was heated, his feelings aroused, his will
all unsettled.

So the palms, the sky, the air, seemed to him of the far south
zone into which Balthasar had been driven by despair for men;
the lake, with its motionless surface, was a suggestion of the
Nilotic mother by which the good man stood praying when the
Spirit made