“Who should this Nazarite be?” said Ben-Hur to Iras, “if not the herald of our King?”
In so short a time he had come to regard the daughter as more interested in the mysterious personage he was looking for than the aged father! Nevertheless, the latter with a positive glow in his sunken eyes half arose, and said,
“Let us make haste. I am not tired.”
They turned away to help the slave.
There was little conversation between the three at the stopping-place for the night west of Ramoth-Gilead.
“Let us arise early, son of Hur,” said the old man. “The Saviour may come, and we not there.”
“The King cannot be far behind his herald,” Iras whispered, as she prepared to take her place on the camel.
“To-morrow we will see!” Ben-Hur replied, kissing her hand.
Next day about the third hour, out of the pass through which, skirting the base of Mount Gilead, they had journeyed since leaving Ramoth, the party came upon the barren steppe east of the sacred river. Opposite them they saw the upper limit of the old palm lands of Jericho, stretching off to the hill-country of Judea. Ben-Hur’s blood ran quickly, for he knew the ford was close at hand.
“Content you, good Balthasar,” he said; “we are almost there.”