He stood, hands clasped,
face averted, in stupefaction. Simonides respected his suffering,
and waited in silence.

"Master Simonides," he said, at length, "I can only tell my story;
and I will not that unless you stay judgment so long, and with
good-will deign to hear me."

"Speak," said Simonides, now, indeed, master of the situation--"speak,
and I will listen the more willingly that I have not denied you to be
the very person you claim yourself."

Ben-Hur proceeded then, and told his life hurriedly, yet with the
feeling which is the source of all eloquence; but as we are familiar
with it down to his landing at Misenum, in company with Arrius,
returned victorious from the AEgean, at that point we will take
up the words.

"My benefactor was loved and trusted by the emperor, who heaped
him with honorable rewards. The merchants of the East contributed
magnificent presents, and he became doubly rich among the rich
of Rome. May a Jew forget his religion? or his birthplace, if it
were the Holy Land of our fathers? The good man adopted me his
son by formal rites of law; and I strove to make him just return:
no child was ever more dutiful to father than I to him. He would
have had me a scholar; in art, philosophy, rhetoric, oratory,
he would have furnished me the most famous teacher. I declined
his insistence, because I was a Jew, and could not forget the
Lord God, or the glory of the prophets, or the city set on the
hills by David and Solomon. Oh, ask you why I accepted any of
the benefactions of the Roman? I loved him; next place, I thought
with his help, array influences which would enable me one day to
unseal the mystery close-locking the fate of my mother and sister;
and to these there was yet another motive of which I shall not speak
except to say it controlled me so far that I devoted myself to arms,
and the acquisition of everything deemed essential to thorough
knowledge of the art of war. In the palaestrae and circuses of
the city I toiled, and in the camps no less; and in all of them
I have a name, but not that of my fathers. The crowns I won--and
on the walls of the villa by Misenum there are many of them--all
came to me as the son of Arrius, the duumvir. In that relation
only am I known among Romans.... In steadfast pursuit of my
secret aim, I left Rome for Antioch, intending to accompany
the Consul Maxentius in the campaign he is organizing against
the Parthians. Master of personal skill in all arms, I see