We may be needed.
Make haste!" As if the thought and the act were one, there was quick putting away of useless garments, and the party stood forth bareheaded, and in the short sleeveless under-tunics they were used to wearing as reapers in the field and boatmen on the lake--the garb in which they climbed the hills following the herds, and plucked the ripened vintage, careless of the sun.

Lingering only to tighten their girdles, they said, "We are ready." Then Ben-Hur spoke to them.
"Men of Galilee," he said, "I am a son of Judah.

Will you take me in your company ?" "We may have to fight," they replied.
"Oh, then, I will not be first to run away!" They took the retort in good humor, and the messenger said, "You seem stout enough.

Come along." Ben-Hur put off his outer garments.
"You think there may be fighting ?" he asked, quietly, as he tightened his girdle.
"Yes." "With whom ?" "The guard." "Legionaries ?" "Whom else can a Roman trust ?" "What have you to fight with ?" They looked at him silently.
"Well," he continued, "we will have to do the best we can; but had we not better choose a leader?
The legionaries always have one, and so are able to act with one mind." The Galileans stared more curiously, as if the idea were new to them.
"Let us at least agree to stay together," he said.

"Now I am ready, if you are." "Yes, let us go." The khan, it should not be forgotten, was in Bezetha, the new town; and to get to the Praetorium, as the Romans resonantly styled the palace of Herod on Mount Zion, the party had to cross the lowlands north and west of the Temple.