CHAPTER XV.
Ben-Hur tarried across the river with Ilderim; for at midnight, as previously determined, they would take the road which the caravan, then thirty hours out, had pursued.
The sheik was happy; his offers of gifts had been royal; but Ben-Hur had refused everything, insisting that he was satisfied with the humiliation of his enemy.

The generous dispute was long continued.
"Think," the sheik would say, "what thou hast done for me.

In every black tent down to the Akaba and to the ocean, and across to the Euphrates, and beyond to the sea of the Scythians, the renown of my Mira and her children will go; and they who sing of them will magnify me, and forget that I am in the wane of life; and all the spears now masterless will come to me, and my sword-hands multiply past counting.

Thou dost not know what it is to have sway of the desert such as will now be mine.

I tell thee it will bring tribute incalculable from commerce, and immunity from kings.