spian,
and up in the old lands of Gog and Magog even, separate those
who annually send gifts to the Holy Temple in acknowledgment of
God--separate them, that they may be counted also. And when you
have done counting, lo! my master, a census of the sword hands
that await you; lo! a kingdom ready fashioned for him who is to
do 'judgment and justice in the whole earth'--in Rome not less
than in Zion. Have then the answer, What Israel can do, that can
the King."

The picture was fervently given.

Upon Ilderim it operated like the blowing of a trumpet. "Oh that
I had back my youth!" he cried, starting to his feet.

Ben-Hur sat still. The speech, he saw, was an invitation to devote
his life and fortune to the mysterious Being who was palpably as
much the centre of a great hope with Simonides as with the devout
Egyptian. The idea, as we have seen, was not a new one, but had come
to him repeatedly; once while listening to Malluch in the Grove
of Daphne; afterwards more distinctly while Balthasar was giving
his conception of what the kingdom was to be; still later, in the
walk through the old Orchard, it had risen almost, if not quite,
into a resolve. At such times it had come and gone only an idea,
attended with feelings more or less acute. Not so now. A master
had it in charge, a master was working it up; already he had exalted
it into a _cause_ brilliant with possibilities and infinitely holy.
The effect was as if a door theretofore unseen had suddenly opened
flooding Ben-Hur with light, and admitting him to a service which had
been his one perfect dream--a service reaching far into the future,
and rich with the rewards of duty done, and prizes to sweeten and
soothe his ambition. One touch more was needed.

"Let us concede all you say, O Simonides," said Ben-Hur--"that
the King will come, and his kingdom be as Solomon's; say also I am
ready to give myself and all I have to him and his cause; yet more,
say that I should do as was God's purpose in the ordering of my life
and in your quick amassment of astonishing fortune; then what? Shall
we proceed like blind men building? Shall we wait till the King
comes? Or until he sends for me? You have age and experience on
your side. Answer."

Simonides answered at once.

"We have no choice; none. This letter"--he produced Messala's
despatch as he spoke--"this letter is the signal for action.
The alliance proposed between Messala and Gratus we are not
strong enough to resist;