ies were forgotten,
and, quite as unmindful of their riders, they turned off the road
to the growing grass.

"Has Ilderim heard nothing more of the three men?" asked Ben-Hur.
"What became of them?"

"Ah, yes, that was the cause of his coming to Simonides the day of
which I was speaking. Only the night before that day the Egyptian
reappeared to him."

"Where?"

"Here at the door of the tent to which we are coming."

"How knew he the man?"

"As you knew the horses to-day--by face and manner."

"By nothing else?"

"He rode the same great white camel, and gave him the same
name--Balthasar, the Egyptian."

"It is a wonder of the Lord's!"

Ben-Hur spoke with excitement.

And Malluch, wondering, asked, "Why so?"

"Balthasar, you said?"

"Yes. Balthasar, the Egyptian."

"That was the name the old man gave us at the fountain today."

Then, at the reminder, Malluch became excited.

"It is true," he said; "and the camel was the same--and you saved
the man's life."

"And the woman," said Ben-Hur, like one speaking to himself--"the
woman was his daughter."

He fell to thinking; and even the reader will say he was having
a vision of the woman, and that it was more welcome than that
of Esther, if only because it stayed longer with him; but no--

"Tell me again," he said, presently. "Were the three to ask,
'Where is he that is to be King of the Jews?'"

"Not exactly. The words were BORN TO BE KING OF THE JEWS. Those were
the words as the old sheik caught them first in the desert, and he
has ever since been waiting the coming of the king; nor can any one
shake his faith that he will come."

"How--as king?"

"Yes, and bringing the doom of Rome--so says the sheik."

Ben-Hur kept silent awhile, thinking and trying to control his
feelings.

"The old man is one of many millions," he said, slowly--"one of
many millions each with a wrong to avenge; and this strange faith,
Malluch, is bread and wine to his hope; for who but a Herod may
be King of the Jews while Rome endures? But, following the story,
did you hear what Simonides said to him?"

"If Ilderim is a grave man, Simonides is a wise one," Malluch replied.
"I listened, and he said-- But hark! Some one comes overtaking us."

The noise grew louder, until presently they heard the rumble of
wheels mixed with the beating of horse-hoofs--a moment later Sheik
Ilderim himself appeared on horseback, followed by a train, among which
were the four wine-red Arabs