life even should not hold him back. Yet there was no
passion, on his part; no blinding rush of heated blood from heart
to brain, and back again; no impulse to fling himself upon Fortune:
he did not believe in Fortune; far otherwise. He had his plan, and,
confiding in himself, he settled to the task never more observant,
never more capable. The air about him seemed aglow with a renewed
and perfect transparency.

When not half-way across the arena, he saw that Messala's rush
would, if there was no collision, and the rope fell, give him the
wall; that the rope would fall, he ceased as soon to doubt; and,
further, it came to him, a sudden flash-like insight, that Messala
knew it was to be let drop at the last moment (prearrangement
with the editor could safely reach that point in the contest);
and it suggested, what more Roman-like than for the official
to lend himself to a countryman who, besides being so popular,
had also so much at stake? There could be no other accounting
for the confidence with which Messala pushed his four forward the
instant his competitors were prudentially checking their fours in
front of the obstruction--no other except madness.

It is one thing to see a necessity and another to act upon it.
Ben-Hur yielded the wall for the time.

The rope fell, and all the fours but his sprang into the course
under urgency of voice and lash. He drew head to the right, and,
with all the speed of his Arabs, darted across the trails of his
opponents, the angle of movement being such as to lose the least
time and gain the greatest possible advance. So, while the spectators
were shivering at the Athenian's mishap, and the Sidonian, Byzantine,
and Corinthian were striving, with such skill as they possessed,
to avoid involvement in the ruin, Ben-Hur swept around and took
the course neck and neck with Messala, though on the outside.
The marvellous skill shown in making the change thus from the
extreme left across to the right without appreciable loss did
not fail the sharp eyes upon the benches; the Circus seemed to
rock and rock again with prolonged applause. Then Esther clasped
her hands in glad surprise; then Sanballat, smiling, offered his
hundred sestertii a second time without a taker; and then the Romans
began to doubt, thinking Messala might have found an equal, if not
a master, and that in an Israelite!

And now, racing together side by side, a narrow interval between
them, the two neared the second goal.