es of the prisoner. Never had anything struck him as
so piteous, so unfriended, so forsaken! Yet, he thought, the man
could have defended himself--he could have slain his enemies with
a breath, but he would not. What was the cup his father had given
him to drink? And who was the father to be so obeyed? Mystery upon
mystery--not one, but many.

Directly the mob started in return to the city, the soldiers
in the lead. Ben-Hur became anxious; he was not satisfied with
himself. Where the torches were in the midst of the rabble he
knew the Nazarene was to be found. Suddenly he resolved to see
him again. He would ask him one question.

Taking off his long outer garment and the handkerchief from his
head, he threw them upon the orchard wall, and started after the
posse, which he boldly joined. Through the stragglers he made way,
and by littles at length reached the man who carried the ends of
the rope with which the prisoner was bound.

The Nazarene was walking slowly, his head down, his hands bound
behind him; the hair fell thickly over his face, and he stooped
more than usual; apparently he was oblivious to all going on
around him. In advance a few steps were priests and elders talking
and occasionally looking back. When, at length, they were all near
the bridge in the gorge, Ben-Hur took the rope from the servant who
had it, and stepped past him.

"Master, master!" he said, hurriedly, speaking close to the
Nazarene's ear. "Dost thou hear, master? A word--one word.
Tell me--"

The fellow from whom he had taken the rope now claimed it.

"Tell me," Ben-Hur continued, "goest thou with these of thine own
accord?"

The people were come up now, and in his own ears asking angrily,
"Who art thou, man?"

"O master," Ben-Hur made haste to say, his voice sharp with anxiety,
"I am thy friend and lover. Tell me, I pray thee, if I bring rescue,
wilt thou accept it?"

The Nazarene never so much as looked up or allowed the slightest
sign of recognition; yet the something which when we are suffering
is always telling it to such as look at us, though they be strangers,
failed not now. "Let him alone," it seemed to say; "he has been
abandoned by his friends; the world has denied him; in bitterness
of spirit, he has taken farewell of men; he is going he knows not
where, and he cares not. Let him alone."

And to that Ben-Hur was now driven. A dozen hands were upon him,
and from all sides there was shouting, "He is one of them. Bri