"Very soon now; the tribes were beginning to move when we left to return. It took us ten days' hard riding to get back from the last settlement that we visited. They can't come as quickly as that, but they don't linger on the march. Remember that they are all horsemen, though, when it comes to a battle, some of them dismount."
"Well," said Cleanor, "you have been into a new country. Did you see anything strange? There are marvellous tales told about these regions and the people who live in them. What has your experience been?"
"Well," replied Gisco, "I saw some very curious things. And as to the things I heard, and heard too from people who swore that they had seen them with their own eyes, they pass all belief. I never saw such trees as there are on the lower slopes of the hills. You know those tables made of one piece of wood? Well, they come from that region. I saw some that were being sawn off, and others that were being polished. Then the vines were enormously large. I came across some with stems as big as an ordinary-sized column of a temple, and I heard of others—one never sees things quite as wonderful as one hears of—that two men could hardly encompass with their arms. I saw crocodiles, just like those one has heard of in the Nile, and I was told of leeches that were ten feet long—that is pretty good, but then the ear can take in more than the eye. In one place that we came to there was a whole colony of monkeys, just like so many men and women, mothers nursing their children, and old ones with white heads, some chattering peaceably together like friends, and some quarrelling ever so fiercely. As for lions, there were troops of them. Hardly a night passed without an alarm, and though we picketed our horses close to our tents, we had several carried off at night."
"And what," asked Cleanor, "do you think of these people as soldiers?"
"Well," replied Gisco, "I can hardly judge. They are marvellously good horsemen, and have their animals trained to obey them in a most wonderful way. A man may leave his horse standing, not tethered, you understand, as long as he chooses, and when he is riding on one, he will have another following him like a dog. But whether they will be able to stand against the Romans is another matter. If it were not for their numbers, I should not expect much. But with four or five to one they must do something; let them only go on charging, and they must break the line at last."
As Gisco had predicted, the native forces did not linger on the march. They had none of the impedimenta of an army, carrying only their arms and their food,—of this last but a few days' supply,—and they were all mounted. On the third day after the conversation related above their advanced guard could be seen on the summit of the hills which formed the sky-line to the south. It had been arranged that they should make their way to the rock-fortress of Nepheris, now almost the only place, some remote spots in the hills excepted, which Carthage still possessed outside its own city walls. Nepheris was held by a strong garrison of mercenaries, under the command of a skilful soldier, Diogenes by name. Scipio had never been able to spare a sufficient force to invest it, but it had been masked by a considerable body of troops under the command of King Gulussa, strengthened by a small Roman contingent under the leadership of C. Lælius.[38] This force was to be attacked by the native army, while Diogenes with his mercenaries was to make a sally from the fortress. Another sally, timed as nearly as possible for the same moment, was to be made from the city. Everyone, besiegers as well as besieged, recognized the fact that the critical moment had come. If this effort succeeded, the fate of Carthage would be postponed almost indefinitely; if it failed, the capture of the city could be only a question of time. If it did not yield to force, it would certainly succumb to famine.
Hasdrubal himself was roused by the gravity of the situation from his usual self-indulgence and lethargy. He was not wholly without the feelings of a patriot and a soldier, and in this supreme effort of his country he did his best to rise to the occasion. The chief object of his energies was the formation of what may be called a Sacred Phalanx. It was to consist entirely of native Carthaginians, a class of troops seldom used except in cases of grave necessity. These were to be chosen by a method which Hasdrubal borrowed from the practice of Rome. He began by selecting a hundred men of tried courage. Each of the hundred chose nine comrades; and each of these nine, again, chose nine more. The result was a hundred companies, numbering each a hundred men, all bound together by the special obligation of a common tie. The legion was splendidly equipped with richly gilded armour, and arms of the very finest quality. Each company had its own badge.
It was a fine force, but it was all that the citizen population of Carthage could do to raise it. Indeed so reduced were the numbers on the roll of military effectives that some recruits had to be enfranchised in order that they might be enrolled in the legion. Cleanor, not a little to his surprise, found himself attached to Hasdrubal's own staff. The general, indeed, said a few gracious words to the young man when he reported himself. If there had been any difference between them, said Hasdrubal, it might now be forgotten. A chance such as might never be repeated had occurred of saving Carthage. The city would not be ungrateful to those who used this occasion energetically.
Cleanor could not banish his recollections of the past, and the suspicions which persistently followed them; but his pride was naturally flattered, and he hoped for the best.