Let no one smile at Ben-Hur for doing that which he himself would have done at that time and place under the same circumstances.
The sun stooped low in its course.

Awhile the flaring disk seemed to perch itself on the far summit of the mountains in the west, brazening all the sky above the city, and rimming the walls and towers with the brightness of gold.

Then it disappeared as with a plunge.

The quiet turned Ben-Hur's thought homeward.

There was a point in the sky a little north of the peerless front of the Holy of Holies upon which he fixed his gaze: under it, straight as a leadline would have dropped, lay his father's house, if yet the house endured.
The mellowing influences of the evening mellowed his feelings, and, putting his ambitions aside, he thought of the duty that was bringing him to Jerusalem.
Out in the desert while with Ilderim, looking for strong places and acquainting himself with it generally, as a soldier studies a country in which he has projected a campaign, a messenger came one evening with the news that Gratus was removed, and Pontius Pilate sent to take his place.
Messala was disabled and believed him dead; Gratus was powerless and gone; why should Ben-Hur longer defer the search for his mother and sister?
There was nothing to fear now.