What shall we do when hope is gone?' 30 The words leapt like a leaping sword: 'Sail on! sail on! and on!' Then pale and worn, he paced his deck, Of all dark nights! And then a speck 35 It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. PRELUDE TO 'DAWN AT SAN DIEGO' My city sits amid her palms; The perfume of her twilight breath Is something as the sacred balms That bound sweet Jesus after death, Such soft, warm twilight sense as lies Against the gates of Paradise. 40 5 LEW WALLACE (1827-1905) General Lewis Wallace, known in literature as Lew' Wallace, was a native of Indiana. the oldest indeed of the Indiana group of writers. Law was his profession, though he won more distinction as a soldier in the Mexican and Civil Wars, and as a novelist. He was forty-six and a busy lawyer when he wrote his The Fair God, a historical novel founded on the occupation of Mexico by Cortez. He had become interested in Aztec antiquities during his campaigning in Mexico, and had written his book from the enthusiasm of an antiquarian rather than from the standpoint of the novelist, but he had found an attractive style,- the brilliant and vivid narrative of Prescott joined with the colorful romantic atmosphere of Bulwer-Lytton. The success of the book led him in 1880 to issue his Ben-Hur, a Tale of the Christ, one of the most successful novels of the later nineteenth century. His The Prince of India, and the poems which followed it are inferior work. Ben-Hur has many of the elements which are to be found in Uncle Tom's Cabin. It combines sentiment, melodrama, stirring action, and picturesque background. It is crude at times, its colors are often spread on too lavishly, but on the whole it is strangely moving. Its characters are alive, its scenes of action are rapid and compelling, and its pictures of the Roman World satisfy the imagination. THE SEA FIGHT1 Every soul aboard, even the ship, awoke. Officers went to their quarters. The marines took arms, and were led out, looking in all respects like legionaries. Sheaves of arrows and armfuls of javelins were carried on deck. By the central stairs the oil-tanks and fire-balls were set ready for use. Additional lanterns were 10 lighted. Buckets were filled with water. The rowers in relief assembled under guard in front of the chief. As Providence would have it, Ben-Hur was one of the latter. Overhead he heard the muf- 15 fled noise of the final preparations of the sailors furling sail, spreading the nettings, unslinging the machines, and hanging the armor of bull-hide over the side. Presently quiet settled about the gallery 20 again; quite full of vague dread and expectation, which, interpreted, means ready. At a signal passed down from the deck, and communicated to the hortator by a petty officer stationed on the stairs, all at 25 once the oars stopped. What did it mean? Of the hundred and twenty slaves chained to the benches, not one but asked himself the question. They were without incentive. Patriotism, love of honor, sense of duty, brought them no inspiration. They felt the thrill common to men rushed 5 helpless and blind into danger. It may be supposed the dullest of them, poising his oar, thought of all that might happen, yet could promise himself nothing; for victory would but rivet his chains the firmer, while the chances of the ship were his; sinking or on fire, he was doomed to her fate. Of the situation without they might not ask. And who were the enemy? And what if they were friends, brethren, countrymen? The reader, carrying the suggestion forward, will see the necessity which governed the Roman when, in such emergencies, he locked the hapless wretches to their seats. There was little time, however, for such thought with them. A sound like the rowing of galleys astern attracted Ben-Hur, and the Astræa rocked as if in the midst of countering waves. The idea of a fleet at hand broke upon him—a fleet in manœuvre forming probably for attack. His blood started with the fancy. Another signal order came down from deck. The oars dipped, and the galley 1 Reprinted from Ben-Hur by permission of the 30 started imperceptibly. No sound from holders of the copyright, Harper & Brothers. without, none from within. vet each man in the cabin instinctively poised himself for a shock; the very ship seemed to catch the sense, and hold its breath, and go crouched tiger-like. In such a situation time is inappreciable; so that Ben-Hur could form no judgment of distance gone. At last there was a sound of trumpets on deck, full, clear, long blown. The chief beat the soundingboard until it rang; the rowers reached 10 forward full length, and, deepening the dip of their oars, pulled suddenly with all their united force. The galley, quivering in every timber, answered with a leap. Other trumpets joined in the clamor - all 15 from the rear, none forward- from the latter quarter only a rising sound of voices in tumult heard briefly. There was a mighty blow; the rowers in front of the chief's platform reeled, some of them fell; 20 the ship bounded back, recovered, and rushed on more irresistibly than before. Shrill and high arose the shrieks of men in terror; over the blare of trumpets, and the grind and crash of the collision, they 25 arose; then under his feet, under the keel, pounding, rumbling, breaking to pieces, drowning, Ben-Hur felt something overridden. The men about him looked at each other afraid. A shout of triumph 30 from the deck - the beak of the Roman had won! But who were they whom the sea had drunk? Of what tongue, from what land were they? and then a Roman in armor was borne down the hatchway, and laid bleeding, sometimes dying, on the floor. Sometimes, also, puffs of smoke, blended 5 with steam, and foul with the scent of roasting human flesh, poured into the cabin, turning the dimming light into yellow murk. Gasping for breath the while, Ben-Hur knew they were passing through the cloud of a ship on fire, and burning up with the rowers chained to the bench es. The Astrea all this time was in motion. Suddenly she stopped. The oars forward were dashed from the hands of the rowers, and the rowers from their benches. On deck, then, a furious trampling, and on the sides a grinding of ships afoul of each other. For the first time the beating of the gavel was lost in the uproar. Men sank on the floor in fear or looked about seeking a hiding-place. In the midst of the panic a body plunged or was pitched. headlong down the hatchway, falling near Ben-Hur. He beheld the half naked carcass, a mass of hair blackening the face, and under it a shield of bull-hide and wicker-work-a barbarian from the white-skinned nations of the North whom death had robbed of plunder and revenge. How came he there? An iron hand had snatched him. from the opposing deckno, the Astræa had been boarded! The Romans were fighting on their own deck? A chill smote the young Jew: Arrius was hard pressed - he might be defending his own life. If he should be slain? God of Abraham forefend! The hopes and dreams so lately come, were they only hopes and dreams? Mother and sisterhouse-home-Holy Land - was he not to see them, after all? The tumult thundered above him; he looked around; in the cabin all was confusion-the rowers 45 on the benches paralyzed; men running blindly hither and thither; only the chief on his seat imperturbable, vainly beating the sounding-board, and waiting the order of the tribune - in the red murk illustrating the matchless discipline which had won the world. No pause, no stay! Forward rushed 35 the Astræa; and, as it went, some sailors ran down, and, plunging the cotton balls into the oil-tanks, tossed them dripping to comrades at the head of the stairs: fire was to be added to other horrors of the 40 combat. Directly the galley heeled over so far that the oarsmen on the uppermost side with difficulty kept their benches. Again the hearty Roman cheer, and with it despairing shrieks. An opposing vessel, caught by the grappling-hooks of the great crane swinging from the prow, was being lifted into the air that it might be dropped and sunk. 50 The shouting increased on the right hand and on the left; before, behind, swelled an indescribable clamor. Occasionally there was a crash, followed by sudden peals of fright, telling of other 55 ships ridden down, and their crews drowned in the vortexes. Nor was the fight all on one side. Now The example had a good effect upon Ben-Hur. He controlled himself enough to think. Honor and duty bound the Roman to the platform; but what had he to do with such motives then? The bench was a thing to run from; while, if he were to die a slave, who would be the better for ing, leaped in, and all became darkness and surging water to Ben-Hur. It cannot be said that the young Jew helped himself in this stress. Besides his 5 usual strength, he had the indefinite extra force which nature keeps in reserve for just such perils to life; yet the darkness, and the whirl and roar of water, stupefied him. Even the holding his breath was involuntary. the sacrifice? With him living was duty, if not honor. His life belonged to his people. They arose before him never more real; he saw them, their arms outstretched; he heard them imploring him. And he would go to them. He startedstopped. Alas! a Roman judgment held him in doom. While it endured, escape would be profitless. In the wide, wide earth there was no place in which he 10 would be safe from the imperial demand; upon the land none, nor upon the sea. Whereas he required freedom according to the forms of law, so only could he abide in Judea and execute the filial purpose to 15 which he would devote himself: in other land he would not live. Dear God! How. he had waited and watched and prayed for such a release! And how it had been delayed! But at last he had 20 seen it in the promise of the tribune. What else the great men's meaning? And if the benefactor so belated should now be slain! The dead come not back to redeem the pledges of the living. It should 25 not be Arrius should not die. At least, better perish with him than to survive a galley-slave. Once more Ben-Hur looked around. Upon the roof of the cabin the battle yet 30 beat; against the sides the hostile vessels yet crushed and grided. On the benches, the slaves struggled to tear loose from their chains, and, finding their efforts vain, howled like madmen; the guards had gone 35 up stairs; discipline was out, panic in. No, the chief kept his chair, unchanged, calm as ever-except the gavel, weaponless. Vainly with his clangor he filled the lulls in the din. Ben-Hur gave him a last 40 look, then broke away - not in flight, but to seek the tribune. - A very short space lay between him and the stairs of the hatchway aft. He took it with a leap, and was half-way up the 45 steps up far enough to catch a glimpse of the sky blood-red with fire, of the ships alongside, of the sea covered with ships. and wrecks, of the fight closed in about the pilot's quarter, the assailants many, 50 the defenders few when suddenly his foothold was knocked away, and he pitched backward. The floor, when he reached it, seemed to be lifting itself and breaking to pieces; then, in a twinkling, 55 the whole after-part of the hull broke asunder, and, as if it had all the time been lying in wait. the sea, hissing and foam The influx of the flood tossed him like a log forward into the cabin, where he would have drowned but for the refluence of the sinking motion. As it was, fathoms under the surface the hollow mass vomited him forth, and he arose along with the loosed débris. In the act of rising, he clutched something, and held to it. The time he was under seemed an age longer than it really was; at last he gained the top; with a great gasp he filled his lungs afresh, and, tossing the water from his hair and eyes, climbed higher upon the plank he held, and looked about him. Death had pursued him closely under the waves; he found it waiting for him when he was risen-waiting multiform. Smoke lay upon the sea like a semitransparent fog, through which here and there shone cores of intense brilliance. A quick intelligence told him that they were ships of fire. The battle was yet on; nor could he say who was victor. Within the radius of his vision now and then ships passed, shooting shadows athwart lights. Out of the dun clouds farther on he caught the crash of other ships colliding. The danger, however, was closer at hand. When the Astraa went down, her deck, it will be recollected, held her own crew, and the crews of the two galleys which had attacked her at the same time, all of whom were ingulfed. Many of them came to the surface together, and on the same plank or support of whatever kind continued the combat, begun possibly in the vortex fathoms down. Writhing and twisting in deadly embrace, sometimes striking with sword or javelin, they kept the sea around them in agitation, at one place inky-black, at another aflame with fiery reflections. With their struggles he had nothing to do; they were all his enemies: not one of them but would kill him for the plank upon which he floated. He made haste to get away. About that time he heard oars in quick |