is peace abide with
you!"

"And, further," he added, "I cannot see thee again. Make preparation,
and to-night I will have thee taken to the gate of the Tower, and set
free. Thou knowest the law. Farewell."

He spoke to the men, and went out the door.

Very shortly some slaves came to the cell with a large gurglet
of water, a basin and napkins, a platter with bread and meat,
and some garments of women's wear; and, setting them down within
reach of the prisoners, they ran away.

About the middle of the first watch, the two were conducted to
the gate, and turned into the street. So the Roman quit himself
of them, and in the city of their fathers they were once more free.

Up to the stars, twinkling merrily as of old, they looked; then they
asked themselves,

"What next? and where to?"

CHAPTER III

About the hour Gesius, the keeper, made his appearance before the
tribune in the Tower of Antonia, a footman was climbing the eastern
face of Mount Olivet. The road was rough and dusty, and vegetation
on that side burned brown, for it was the dry season in Judea.
Well for the traveller that he had youth and strength, not to
speak of the cool, flowing garments with which he was clothed.

He proceeded slowly, looking often to his right and left;
not with the vexed, anxious expression which marks a man going
forward uncertain of the way, but rather the air with which one
approaches as old acquaintance after a long separation--half of
pleasure, half of inquiry; as if he were saying, "I am glad to be
with you again; let me see in what you are changed."

As he arose higher, he sometimes paused to look behind him over
the gradually widening view terminating in the mountains of Moab;
but when at length he drew near the summit, he quickened his step,
unmindful of fatigue, and hurried on without pause or turning of
the face. On the summit--to reach which he bent his steps somewhat
right of the beaten path--he came to a dead stop, arrested as if by
a strong hand. Then one might have seen his eyes dilate, his cheeks
flush, his breath quicken, effects all of one bright sweeping glance
at what lay before him.

The traveller, good reader, was no other than Ben-Hur; the spectacle,
Jerusalem.

Not the Holy City of to-day, but the Holy City as left by Herod--the
Holy City of the Christ. Beautiful yet, as seen from old Olivet,
what must it have been then?

Ben-Hur betook him to a stone and sat down, and, stripping his
h