"To Rome! Me—Ilderim—sheik of ten thousand horsemen with spears me—to Rome!"
He leaped rather than rose to his feet, his arms out stretched, his fingers spread and curved like claws, his eyes glittering like a serpent’s.
"God!—nay, by all the gods except of Rome!—when shall this insolence end? A freeman am I; free are my people. Must we die slaves? Or, worse, must I live a dog, crawling to a master's feet? Must I lick his hand lest he lash me? What is mine is not mine; I am not my own; for breath of body I must be beholden to a Roman. Oh, if I were young again! Oh, could I shake off twenty years—or ten—or five!"
He ground his teeth and shook his hands overhead; then, under the impulse of another idea, he walked away and back again to Ben-Hur swiftly, and caught his shoulder with a strong grasp.
"If I were as thou, son of Arrius—as young, as strong, as practised in arms; if I had a motive hissing me to revenge—a motive, like thine, great enough to make hate holy— Away with disguise on thy part and on mine! Son of Hur, son of Hur, I say—"
At that name all the currents of Ben-Hur’s blood stopped; surprised, bewildered, he gazed into the Arab’s eyes, now close to his, and fiercely bright.
"Son of Hur, I say, were I as thou, with half thy wrongs, bearing about with me memories like thine, I would not, I could not, rest." Never pausing, his words following each other torrent-like, the old man swept on. "To all my grievances, I would add those of the world, and devote myself to vengeance. From land to land I would go firing all mankind. No war for freedom but should find me engaged; no battle against Rome in which I would not bear a part. I would turn Parthian, if I could not better. If men failed me, still I would not give over the effort—ha, ha, ha! By the splendor of God! I would herd with wolves, and make friends of lions and tigers, in hope of marshalling them against the common enemy. I would use every weapon. So- my victims were Romans, I would rejoice in slaughter. Quarter I would not ask; quarter I
