Page:Ben-Hur a tale of the Christ.djvu/493

Rh &quot;Ay, and ate of the bread and fish.&quot;

&quot;More marvellous still,&quot; Ben-Hur continued, &quot;what would you say of a man in whom there is such healing virtue that the sick have but to touch the hem of his garment to be cured, or cry to him afar? That, too, I witnessed, not once, but many times. As we came out of Jericho two blind men by the wayside called to the Nazarene, and he touched their eyes, and they saw. So they brought a palsied man to him, and he said merely, 'Go unto thy house,' and the man went away well. What say you to these things?&quot;

The merchant had no answer.

&quot;Think you now, as I have heard others argue, that what I have told you are tricks of jugglery? Let me answer by recalling greater things which I have seen him do. Look first to that curse of God—comfortless, as you all know, except by death—leprosy.&quot;

At these words Amrah dropped her hands to the floor, and in her eagerness to hear him half arose.

&quot;What would you say,&quot; said Ben-Hur, with increased earnestness—&quot;what would you say to have seen that I now tell you? A leper came to the Nazarene while I was with him down in Galilee, and said, 'Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.' He heard the cry, and touched the outcast with his hand, saying, 'Be thou clean;' and forthwith the man was himself again, healthful as any of us who beheld the cure, and we were a multitude.&quot;

Here Amrah arose, and with her gaunt fingers held the wiry locks from her eyes. The brain of the poor creature had long since gone to heart, and she was troubled to follow the speech.

&quot;Then, again,&quot; said Ben-Hur, without stop, &quot;ten lepers came to him one day in a body, and, falling at his feet, called out—I saw and heard it all—called out, 'Master, Master, have mercy upon us!' He told them, 'Go, show yourselves to the priest, as the law requires; and before you are come there ye shall be healed.

&quot;And were they?&quot;

&quot;Yes. On the road going their infirmity left them, so that there was nothing to remind us of it except their polluted clothes.&quot;