Page:Ben-Hur a tale of the Christ.djvu/72

Rh not the bells or the camels, or their furniture, or the demeanor of the riders, that were so wonderful; it was the question put by the man who rode foremost of the three.

The approach to Jerusalem from the north is across a plain which dips southward, leaving the Damascus Gate in a vale or hollow. The road is narrow, but deeply cut by long use, and in places difficult on account of the cobbles left loose and dry by the washing of the rains. On either side, however, there stretched, in the old time, rich fields and handsome olive-groves, which must, in luxurious growth, have been beautiful, especially to travellers fresh from the wastes of the desert. In this road the three stopped before the party in front of the Tombs.

&quot;Good people,&quot; said Balthasar, stroking his plaited beard, and bending from his cot, &quot;is not Jerusalem close by?&quot;

&quot;Yes,&quot; answered the woman into whose arms the child had shrunk. &quot;If the trees on yon swell were a little lower you could see the towers on the market-place.&quot;

Balthasar gave the Greek and the Hindoo a look, then asked,

&quot;Where is he that is born King of the Jews?&quot;

The women gazed at each other without reply.

&quot;You have not heard of him?&quot;

&quot;No.&quot;

&quot;Well, tell everybody that we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.&quot;

Thereupon the friends rode on. Of others they asked the same question, with like result. A large company whom they met going to the Grotto of Jeremiah were so astonished by the inquiry and the appearance of the travellers that they turned about and followed them into the city.

So much were the three occupied with the idea of their mission that they did not care for the view which presently rose before them in the utmost magnificence: for the village first to receive them on Bezetha; for Mizpah and Olivet, over on their left; for the wall behind the village, with its forty tall and solid towers, superadded partly for strength, partly to gratify the critical taste of the kingly builder; for the same towered wall bending off to the right, with many an angle, and here and there an embattled gate, up to the