Page:Ben-Hur a tale of the Christ.djvu/57

Rh voice and speech, he raised his hand in half-salutation, and replied,

&quot;Peace be to you, Rabbi! I am a son of Judah, and will answer you. I dwell in Beth-Dagon, which, you know, is in what used to be the land of the tribe of Dan.&quot;

&quot;On the road to Joppa from Modin,&quot; said Joseph.

&quot;Ah, you have been in Beth-Dagon,&quot; the man said, his face softening yet more. &quot;What wanderers we of Judah are! I have been away from the ridge—old Ephrath, as our father Jacob called it—for many years. When the proclamation went abroad requiring all Hebrews to be numbered at the cities of their birth— That is my business here, Rabbi.&quot;

Joseph's face remained stolid as a mask, while he remarked, &quot;I have come for that also—I and my wife.&quot;

The stranger glanced at Mary and kept silence. She was looking up at the bald top of Gedor. The sun touched her upturned face, and filled the violet depths of her eyes; and upon her parted lips trembled an aspiration which could not have been to a mortal. For the moment, all the humanity of her beauty seemed refined away: she was as we fancy they are who sit close by the gate in the transfiguring light of Heaven. The Beth-Dagonite saw the original of what, centuries after, came as a vision of genius to Sanzio the divine, and left him immortal.

&quot;Of what was I speaking? Ah! I remember. I was about to say that when I heard of the order to come here, I was angry. Then I thought of the old hill, and the town, and the valley falling away into the depths of Cedron; of the vines and orchards, and fields of grain, unfailing since the days of Boaz and Ruth; of the familiar mountains—Gedor here, Gibeah yonder, Mar Elias—there which, when I was a boy, were the walls of the world to me; and I forgave the tyrants and came—I, and Rachel, my wife, and Deborah and Michal, our roses of Sharon.&quot;

The man paused again, looking abruptly at Mary, who was now looking at him and listening. Then he said, &quot;Rabbi, will not your wife go to mine? You may see her yonder with the children, under the leaning olive-tree at the bend of the road. I tell you&quot;—he turned to Joseph