BOOK EIGHTH.
"Who could resist? Who in this universe?
She did so breathe ambrosia, so immerse
My fine existence in a golden clime.
She took me like a child of suckling-time,
And cradled me in roses. Thus condemn'd,
The current of my former life was stemm'd,
And to this arbitrary queen of sense
I bow'd a tranced vassal." Keats, Endymion.
"I am the resurrection and the life."
CHAPTER I.
"Esther—Esther! Speak to the servant below that he may bring me a cup of water."
"Would you not rather have wine, father?"
"Let him bring both."
This was in the summer-house upon the roof of the old palace of the Hurs of Jerusalem. From the parapet over looking the court-yard Esther called to a man in waiting there; at the same moment another man-servant came up and saluted respectfully.
"A package for the master," he said, giving her a letter enclosed in linen cloth, tied and sealed.
For the satisfaction of the reader, we stop to say that it is the twenty-first day of March, nearly three years after the annunciation of the Christ at Bethabara.
In the meanwhile, Malluch, acting for Ben-Hur, who could not longer endure the emptiness and decay of his father’s house, had bought it from Pontius Pilate; and, in process of repair, gates, courts, lewens, stairways, terraces,
