Page:Ben-Hur a tale of the Christ.djvu/245

Rh. For thy sake, sweet child—my lily just budded—I pray the Lord God, who has not forgotten his wandering sheep of Israel, that they be good and comforting. Now we will know if he will let thee go with all thy beauty, and me with all my faculties.&quot;

Malluch came to the chair.

&quot;Peace to you, good master,&quot; he said, with a low obeisance—&quot;and to you, Esther, most excellent of daughters.&quot;

He stood before them deferentially, and the attitude and the address left it difficult to define his relation to them; the one was that of a servant, the other indicated the familiar and friend. On the other side, Simonides, as was his habit in business, after answering the salutation went straight to the subject. &quot;What of the young man, Malluch?&quot;

The events of the day were told quietly and in the simplest words, and until he was through there was no interruption; nor did the listener in the chair so much as move a hand during the narration; but for his eyes, wide open and bright, and an occcasional long-drawn breath, he might have been accounted an effigy.

&quot;Thank you, thank you, Malluch,&quot; he said, heartily, at the conclusion; &quot;you have done well—no one could have done better. Now what say you of the young man’s nationality?&quot;

&quot;He is an Israelite, good master, and of the tribe of Judah.&quot; &quot;You are positive?&quot;

&quot;Very positive.&quot;

&quot;He appears to have told you but little of his life.&quot;

&quot;He has somewhere learned to be prudent. I might call him distrustful. He baffled all my attempts upon his confidence until we started from the Castalian fount going to the village of Daphne.&quot;

&quot;A place of abomination! Why went he there?&quot;

&quot;I would say from curiosity, the first motive of the many who go; but, very strangely, he took no interest in the things he saw. Of the Temple, he merely asked if it were Grecian. Good master, the young man has a trouble of mind from which he would hide, and he went to the