And, savagely in his disappointment, Maharbal kicked at an adjacent shield, making it ring like a bell.
Hannibal sprang to his feet.
“Maharbal, listen unto me! Thou art young and rash—ay, rash even as dead Minucius yonder. But on me alone depends the whole safety of the army, the whole honour of Carthage. By all the gods! were I to listen to mine own wishes in this matter, I would instantly do as thou dost suggest, for I long to follow thine advice, and make an instant dash for Rome. ’Tis, by Moloch, the greatest disappointment I have ever felt not to be able to do so instantly; but, for all my wishing, I must not think of self alone in this matter, and prudence tells me plainly that ’tis not wise; therefore, regretfully—ay, with very deep regret—must I wait for the reinforcements from Carthage. Let us now go forward; ’tis useless our talking over the matter further—I am determined.”
Alas, for Hannibal! those reinforcements never came. But still, he could not have added to his fame had they arrived, and had he then taken Rome. It is for the marvellous manner in which, for many years, he maintained himself in Italy without them that he is so justly famous.
But now we must leave him and Maharbal for a time, ever over-running the country, and capturing or receiving the submission of important Italian cities, such as Capua in Campania, where the inhabitants first smothered all the Romans in the public baths and then yielded; or of Greek cities such as Tarentum in Calabria, where the gates were opened to him through the treachery to Rome of two young hunters, and where Hannibal himself pulled all the beleagured Tarentine warships, under the very nose of the Romans, out of the harbour and overland across the isthmus. It is not our province here to give in detail the many Italian campaigns of Elissa’s father and Elissa’s lover, for we must see what Elissa herself is doing elsewhere.
CHAPTER II.
WIFE OR MISTRESS.
We left Hannibal’s daughter at the Court of Syphax after a serious fall out boar-hunting, from the effects of which, however, she soon recovered.
The young ædile Scipio was now madly in love with her, and the very fact that she had, while apparently returning his embraces, called upon the hated name of Maharbal, made him all the more anxious to win her for himself. For if he had been three times worsted by Maharbal in the field, he was only all the more anxious to conquer him in the lists of love.
Elissa herself was, it must be owned, exceedingly attracted by the charm of the young Roman; and, still feeling very sore at the neglect of Maharbal, she let herself go rather more than she intended, and encouraged him considerably. At first she did so merely for amusement, thinking it a triumph to subjugate a Roman noble; and then she went on with the game because it pleased her, for Scipio was a most loveable man. Yet had Hannibal’s daughter not the least idea of what her own feelings really were. She only knew that she was attracted by the young Roman, for she had, since her affair with Maharbal, so seldom met anyone of rank equal to her own to whom she could allow herself to be attracted, that she was no mistress in the arts of love-making, or allowing herself to be made love to. She, therefore, wondered if it were possible that this attraction could be more than a passing liking. She wondered again if it could be possible that this Roman, the enemy of her country, whom she now met daily as a friend in the intimacy of a foreign court, could ever become to her anything more than a friend. She did not know if she wished that he should do so; but she certainly knew that his presence gave her pleasure. Therefore, without arguing out the matter with herself too far, she took the pleasure of the moment.
Very early in their acquaintance, they found politics a dangerous subject. Therefore the old vexed questions of the rights of Rome to Sicily, or the rights of Carthage to Sardinia, the justification of the invasion of Libya by Regulus, or, in defiance of all treaties, the attack by Hannibal on Saguntum and his subsequent invasion of Italy, were entirely abandoned between them from a controversial standpoint. But as they were both educated in the art of war, all these incidents were discussed between them from their strategical aspects, and thrashed out to the full. Thus, as the daily gossip of the palace was soon exhausted, these two always had a mutual subject of conversation. But it was only natural that when a handsome young man and a handsome young woman were constantly together—and when, moreover, the latter had good grounds for believing that her lover was neglecting her—strategy sometimes was a subject that ceased to be referred to, and a softer theme engrossed the thoughts of both.