"
"Speak thou, then."
"Well, we stopped the faction, and--"
"Offered them a wager," said Drusus, relenting, and taking the word
from the shadow's mouth. "And--ha, ha, ha!--one fellow with not
enough skin on his face to make a worm for a carp stepped forth,
and--ha, ha, ha!--said yes. I drew my tablets. 'Who is your man?'
I asked. 'Ben-Hur, the Jew,' said he. Then I: 'What shall it be?
How much?' He answered, 'A--a--' Excuse me, Messala. By Jove's
thunder, I cannot go on for laughter! Ha, ha, ha!"
The listeners leaned forward.
Messala looked to Cecilius.
"A shekel," said the latter.
"A shekel! A shekel!"
A burst of scornful laughter ran fast upon the repetition.
"And what did Drusus?" asked Messala.
An outcry over about the door just then occasioned a rush to that
quarter; and, as the noise there continued, and grew louder, even
Cecilius betook himself off, pausing only to say, "The noble Drusus,
my Messala, put up his tablets and--lost the shekel."
"A white! A white!"
"Let him come!"
"This way, this way!"
These and like exclamations filled the saloon, to the stoppage
of other speech. The dice-players quit their games; the sleepers
awoke, rubbed their eyes, drew their tablets, and hurried to the
common centre.
"I offer you--"
"And I--"
"I--"
The person so warmly received was the respectable Jew, Ben-Hur's
fellow-voyager from Cyprus. He entered grave, quiet, observant.
His robe was spotlessly white; so was the cloth of his turban.
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