w not but all who
stand and see it--the innocent as well as the guilty--may be
cursed from this hour."

Balthasar sank upon his knees.

"Son of Hur," said Simonides, with increasing excitement--"son of
Hur, if Jehovah stretch not forth his hand, and quickly, Israel is
lost--and we are lost."

Ben-Hur answered, calmly, "I have been in a dream, Simonides,
and heard in it why all this should be, and why it should go on.
It is the will of the Nazarene--it is God's will. Let us do as
the Egyptian here--let us hold our peace and pray."

As he looked up on the knoll again, the words were wafted to him
through the awful stillness--

"I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE."

He bowed reverently as to a person speaking.

Up on the summit meantime the work went on. The guard took
the Nazarene's clothes from him; so that he stood before the
millions naked. The stripes of the scourging he had received in
the early morning were still bloody upon his back; yet he was laid
pitilessly down, and stretched upon the cross--first, the arms upon
the transverse beam; the spikes were sharp--a few blows, and they
were driven through the tender palms; next, they drew his knees up
until the soles of the feet rested flat upon the tree; then they
placed one foot upon the other, and one spike fixed both of them
fast. The dulled sound of the hammering was heard outside the
guarded space; and such as could not hear, yet saw the hammer
as it fell, shivered with fear. And withal not a groan, or cry,
or word of remonstrance from the sufferer: nothing at which an
enemy could laugh; nothing a lover could regret.

"Which way wilt thou have him faced?" asked a soldier, bluntly.

"Towards the Temple," the pontiff replied. "In dying I would have
him see the holy house hath not suffered by him."

The workmen put their hands to the cross, and carried it, burden
and all, to the place of planting. At a word, they dropped the tree
into the hole; and the body of the Nazarene also dropped heavily,
and hung by the bleeding hands. Still no cry of pain--only the
exclamation divinest of all recorded exclamations,

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The cross, reared now above all other objects, and standing singly
out against the sky, was greeted with a burst of delight; and all
who could see and read the writing upon the board over the Nazarene's
head made haste to decipher it. Soon as read, the legend was adopted
by them and communic