"Why stand ye there?
What have I that is not yours?
Come, I say!" They stalked slowly in.
"Son of Israel," the master said, "thy Moses was a mighty man, but--ha, ha ha!--I must laugh when I think of his allowing thy fathers the plodding ox and the dull, slow-natured ass, and forbidding them property in horses.

Ha, ha, ha! Thinkest thou he would have done so had he seen that one--and that--and this ?" At the word he laid his hand upon the face of the first to reach him, and patted it with infinite pride and tenderness.
"It is a misjudgment, sheik, a misjudgment," Ben-Hur said, warmly.
"Moses was a warrior as well as a lawgiver beloved by God; and to follow war--ah, what is it but to love all its creatures--these among the rest ?" A head of exquisite turn--with large eyes, soft as a deer's, and half hidden by the dense forelock, and small ears, sharp-pointed and sloped well forward--approached then quite to his breast, the nostrils open, and the upper lip in motion.

"Who are you ?" it asked, plainly as ever man spoke.

Ben-Hur recognized one of the four racers he had seen on the course, and gave his open hand to the beautiful brute.
"They will tell you, the blasphemers!--may their days shorten as they grow fewer!"-- the sheik spoke with the feeling of a man repelling a personal defamation--"they will tell you, I say, that our horses of the best blood are derived from the Nesaean pastures of Persia.

God gave the first Arab a measureless waste of sand, with some treeless mountains, and here and there a well of bitter waters; and said to him, 'Behold thy country!' And when the poor man complained, the Mighty One pitied him, and said again, 'Be of cheer! for I will twice bless thee above other men.' The Arab heard, and gave thanks, and with faith set out to find the blessings.
He travelled all the boundaries first, and failed; then he made a path into the desert, and went on and on--and in the heart of the waste there was an island of green very beautiful to see; and in the heart of the island, lo! a herd of camels, and another of horses! He took them joyfully and kept them with care for what they were--best gifts of God.