If a throat tired of one cry, they invented another for it; if brassy lungs showed signs of collapse, they set them going again; and yet the clamor, loud and continuous as it was, could have been reduced to a few syllables--King of the Jews! Room for the King of the Jews!--Defiler of the Temple!--Blasphemer of God!--Crucify him, crucify him! And of these cries the last one seemed in greatest favor, because, doubtless, it was more directly expressive of the wish of the mob, and helped to better articulate its hatred of the Nazarene.
"Come," said Simonides, when Balthasar was ready to proceed--"come, let us forward." Ben-Hur did not hear the call.

The appearance of the part of the procession then passing, its brutality and hunger for life, were reminding him of the Nazarene--his gentleness, and the many charities he had seen him do for suffering men.

Suggestions beget suggestions; so he remembered suddenly his own great indebtedness to the man; the time he himself was in the hands of a Roman guard going, as was supposed, to a death as certain and almost as terrible as this one of the cross; the cooling drink he had at the well by Nazareth, and the divine expression of the face of him who gave it; the later goodness, the miracle of Palm-Sunday; and with these recollections, the thought of his present powerlessness to give back help for help or make return in kind stung him keenly, and he accused himself.

He had not done all he might; he could have watched with the Galileans, and kept them true and ready; and this--ah! this was the moment to strike! A blow well given now would not merely disperse the mob and set the Nazarene free; it would be a trumpet-call to Israel, and precipitate the long-dreamt-of war for freedom.

The opportunity was going; the minutes were bearing it away; and if lost! God of Abraham! Was there nothing to be done--nothing?
That instant a party of Galileans caught his eye.