"Speak to them, O master, speak to them!" she said.
He waited no longer, but ran, with outstretched arms, crying, "Mother! mother! Tirzah! Here I am!"
They heard his call, and with a cry as loving started to meet him. Suddenly the mother stopped, drew back, and uttered the old alarm,
"Stay, Judah, my son; come not nearer. Unclean, unclean!"
The utterance was not from habit, grown since the dread disease struck her, as much as fear; and the fear was but another form of the ever-thoughtful maternal love. Though they were healed in person, the taint of the scourge might be in their garments ready for communication. He had no such thought. They were before him; he had called them, they had answered. Who or what should keep them from him now? Next moment the three, so long separated, were mingling their tears in each other’s arms.
The first ecstasy over, the mother said, "In this happiness, O my children, let us not be ungrateful. Let us begin life anew by acknowledgment of him to whom we are all so indebted."
They fell upon their knees, Amrah with the rest; and the prayer of the elder outspoken was as a psalm.
Tirzah repeated it word for word; so did Ben-Hur, but not with the same clear mind and questionless faith; for when they were risen, he asked,
"In Nazareth, where the man was born, mother, they call him the son of a carpenter. What is he?"
Her eyes rested upon him with all their old tenderness, and she answered as she had answered the Nazarene himself—
"He is the Messiah."
"And whence has he his power?"
"We may know by the use he makes of it. Can you tell me any ill he has done?"
"No."
"By that sign then I answer, He has his power from God."
It is not an easy thing to shake off in a moment the expectations nurtured through years until they have be-
