e spoke rapidly, and with animation; indeed, she had never
appeared to him so fascinating.

"You had once a friend," she continued. "It was in your boyhood.
There was a quarrel, and you and he became enemies. He did you
wrong. After many years you met him again in the Circus at Antioch."

"Messala!"

"Yes, Messala. You are his creditor. Forgive the past; admit him
to friendship again; restore the fortune he lost in the great
wager; rescue him. The six talents are as nothing to you; not so
much as a bud lost upon a tree already in full leaf; but to him-- Ah,
he must go about with a broken body; wherever you meet him he
must look up to you from the ground. O Ben-Hur, noble prince! to
a Roman descended as he is beggary is the other most odious name
for death. Save him from beggary!"

If the rapidity with which she spoke was a cunning invention
to keep him from thinking, either she never knew or else had
forgotten that there are convictions which derive nothing from
thought, but drop into place without leave or notice. It seemed
to him, when at last she paused to have his answer, that he could
see Messala himself peering at him over her shoulder; and in its
expression the countenance of the Roman was not that of a mendicant
or a friend; the sneer was as patrician as ever, and the fine edge
of the hauteur as flawless and irritating.

"The appeal has been decided then, and for once a Messala takes
nothing. I must go and write it in my book of great occurrences--a
judgment by a Roman against a Roman! But did he--did Messala send
you to me with this request, O Egypt?"

"He has a noble nature, and judged you by it."

Ben-Hur took the hand upon arm.

"As you know him in such friendly way, fair Egyptian, tell me,
would he do for me, there being a reversal of the conditions,
that he asks of me? Answer, by Isis! Answer, for the truth's
sake!"

There was insistence in the touch of his hand, and in his look also.

"Oh!" she began, "he is--"

"A Roman, you were about to say; meaning that I, a Jew, must not
determine dues from me to him by any measure of dues from him
to me; being a Jew, I must forgive him my winnings because he
is a Roman. If you have more to tell me, daughter of Balthasar,
speak quickly, quickly; for by the Lord God of Israel, when this
heat of blood, hotter waxing, attains its highest, I may not be
able longer to see that you are a woman, and beautiful! I may
see but the spy of a master the more hatef