At this point the man was called away by his friends; as he was going, Balthasar spoke.
"Good stranger!" he said, tremulously, "tell us if we shall find the preacher at the place you left him.
"Yes, at Bethabara."
"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,