"Let my Arabs come!"
The man drew aside part of the division curtain of the tent, exposing to view a group of horses, which lingered a moment where they were as if to make certain of the invitation.
"Come!" Ilderim said to them. "Why stand ye there? What have I that is not yours? Come, I say!"
They stalked slowly in.
"Son of Israel," the master said, "thy Moses was a mighty man, but—ha, ha, ha!—I must laugh when I think of his allowing thy fathers the plodding ox and the dull, slow-natured ass, and forbidding them property in horses. Ha, ha, ha! Thinkest thou he would have done so had he seen that one—and that—and this?" At the word he laid his hand upon the face of the first to reach him, and patted it with infinite pride and tenderness.
"It is a misjudgment, sheik, a misjudgment," Ben-Hur said, warmly. "Moses was a warrior as well as a lawgiver beloved by God; and to follow war—ah, what is it but to love all its creatures—these among the rest?"
A head of exquisite turn—with large eyes, soft as a deer’s, and half hidden by the dense forelock, and small ears, sharp-pointed and sloped well forward—approached then quite to his breast, the nostrils open, and the upper lip in motion. "Who are you ?" it asked, plainly as ever man spoke. Ben-Hur recognized one of the four racers he had seen on the course, and gave his open hand to the beautiful brute.
"They will tell you, the blasphemers!—may their days shorten as they grow fewer!"—the sheik spoke with the feeling of a man repelling a personal defamation—"they will tell you, I say, that our horses of the best blood are derived from the Nessean pastures of Persia. God gave the first Arab a measureless waste of sand, with some treeless mountains, and here and there a well of bitter waters; and said to him, Behold thy country!" And when the poor man complained, the Mighty One pitied him, and said again, Be of cheer! for I will twice bless thee above other men. The Arab heard, and gave thanks, and with faith set out to find the blessings. He travelled all the bound-
