Page:Ben-Hur a tale of the Christ.djvu/237

Rh a dog of Edom. How came he in possession of the Orchard? And how has he been able to hold it against the greed of Roman governors?&quot;

&quot;If blood derives excellence from time, son of Arrius, then is old Ilderim a man, though he be an uncircumcised Edomite.&quot;

Malluch spoke warmly.

&quot;All his fathers before him were sheiks. One of them—I shall not say when he lived or did the good deed—once helped a king who was being hunted with swords. The story says he loaned him a thousand horsemen, who knew the paths of the wilderness and its hiding-places as shepherds know the scant hills they inhabit with their flocks; and they carried him here and there until the opportunity came, and then with their spears they slew the enemy, and set him upon his throne again. And the king, it is said, remembered the service, and brought the son of the Desert to this place, and bade him set up his tent and bring his family and his herds, for the lake and trees, and all the land from the river to the nearest mountains, were his and his children’s forever. And they have never been disturbed in the possession. The rulers succeeding have found it policy to keep good terms with the tribe, to whom the Lord has given increase of men and horses, and camels and riches, making them masters of many highways between cities; so that it is with them any time they please to say to commerce, ’Go in peace,’ or ’Stop,’ and what they say shall be done. Even the prefect in the citadel overlooking Antioch thinks it happy day with him when Ilderim, surnamed the Generous on account of good deeds done unto all manner of men, with his wives and children, and his trains of camels and horses, and his belongings of sheik, moving as our fathers Abraham and Jacob moved, comes up to exchange briefly his bitter wells for the pleasantness you see about us.&quot;

&quot;How is it, then?&quot; said Ben-Hur, who had been listening unmindful of the slow gait of the dromedaries. &quot;I saw the sheik tear his beard while he cursed himself that he had put trust in a Roman. Cæsar, had he heard him, might have said, ’I like not such a friend as this; put him away.’&quot;