Ben Hur Lew Wallace (black male authors .TXT) 📖

It is of great concern now that the reader should be fully informed of the contents of the letter thus forwarded, and it is accordingly given:

Antioch, XII Kal. Jul.

Messala to Gratus.

O my Midas!

I pray thou take no offense at the address, seeing it is one of love and gratitude, and an admission that thou art most fortunate among men; seeing, also, that thy ears are as they were derived from thy mother, only proportionate to thy matured condition.

O my Midas!

I have to relate to thee an astonishing event, which, though as yet somewhat in the field of conjecture, will, I doubt not, justify thy instant consideration.

Allow me first to revive thy recollection. Remember, a good many years ago, a family of a prince of Jerusalem, incredibly ancient and vastly rich⁠—by name Ben-Hur. If thy memory have a limp or ailment of any kind, there is, if I mistake not, a wound on thy head which may help thee to a revival of the circumstance.

Next, to arouse thy interest. In punishment of the attempt upon thy life⁠—for dear repose of conscience, may all the gods forbid it should ever prove to have been an accident!⁠—the family were seized and summarily disposed of, and their property confiscated. And inasmuch, O my Midas! as the action had the approval of our Caesar, who was as just as he was wise⁠—be there flowers upon his altars forever!⁠—there should be no shame in referring to the sums which were realized to us respectively from that source, for which it is not possible I can ever cease to be grateful to thee, certainly not while I continue, as at present, in the uninterrupted enjoyment of the part which fell to me.

In vindication of thy wisdom⁠—a quality for which, as I am now advised, the son of Gordius, to whom I have boldly likened thee, was never distinguished among men or gods⁠—I recall further that thou didst make disposition of the family of Hur, both of us at the time supposing the plan hit upon to be the most effective possible for the purposes in view, which were silence and delivery over to inevitable but natural death. Thou wilt remember what thou didst with the mother and sister of the malefactor; yet, if now I yield to a desire to learn whether they be living or dead, I know, from knowing the amiability of thy nature, O my Gratus, that thou wilt pardon me as one scarcely less amiable than thyself.

As more immediately essential to the present business, however, I take the liberty of inviting to thy remembrance that the actual criminal was sent to the galleys a slave for life⁠—so the precept ran; and it may serve to make the event which I am about to relate the more astonishing by saying here that I saw and read the receipt for his body delivered in course to the tribune commanding a galley.

Thou mayst begin now to give me more especial heed, O my most excellent Phrygian!

Referring to the limit of life at the oar, the outlaw thus justly disposed of should be dead, or, better speaking, some one of the three thousand Oceanides should have taken him to husband at least five years ago. And if thou wilt excuse a momentary weakness, O most virtuous and tender of men! inasmuch as I loved him in childhood, and also because he was very handsome⁠—I used in much admiration to call him my Ganymede⁠—he ought in right to have fallen into the arms of the most beautiful daughter of the family. Of opinion, however, that he was certainly dead, I have lived quite five years in calm and innocent enjoyment of the fortune for which I am in a degree indebted to him. I make the admission of indebtedness without intending it to diminish my obligation to thee.

Now I am at the very point of interest.

Last night, while acting as master of the feast for a party just from Rome⁠—their extreme youth and inexperience appealed to my compassion⁠—I heard a singular story. Maxentius, the consul, as you know, comes today to conduct a campaign against the Parthians. Of the ambitious who are to accompany him there is one, a son of the late duumvir Quintus Arrius. I had occasion to inquire about him particularly. When Arrius set out in pursuit of the pirates, whose defeat gained him his final honors, he had no family; when he returned from the expedition, he brought back with him an heir. Now be thou composed as becomes the owner of so many talents in ready sestertii! The son and heir of whom I speak is he whom thou didst send to the galleys⁠—the very Ben-Hur who should have died at his oar five years ago⁠—returned now with fortune and rank, and possibly as a Roman citizen, to⁠—Well, thou art too firmly seated to be alarmed, but I, O my Midas! I am in danger⁠—no need to tell thee of what. Who should know, if thou dost not?

Sayst thou to all this, tut-tut?

When Arrius, the father, by adoption, of this apparition from the arms of the most beautiful of the Oceanides (see above my opinion of what she should be), joined battle with the pirates, his vessel was sunk, and but two of all her crew escaped drowning⁠—Arrius himself and this one, his heir.

The officers who took them from the plank on which they were floating say the associate of the fortunate tribune was a young man who, when lifted to the deck, was in the dress of a galley slave.

This should be convincing, to say least; but lest thou say tut-tut again, I tell thee, O my Midas! that yesterday, by good chance⁠—I have a vow to Fortune in consequence⁠—I met the mysterious son of Arrius face to face; and I declare now that, though I did not then recognize him, he is the very