Then throwing himself upon the ground by her side, Scipio cried:
“Oh, Elissa, my beloved Elissa, art thou dead? for if thou art, then will I not survive thee! Gone is the glory of my victory! thrice accursed be the hand that hath struck thee down!”
Gently he raised her in his arms, and, aided by Caius Lælius, reverently they removed her golden helmet and the corselet of steel inlaid with gold, beneath which she was clad in but a silken vest of Tyrian purple, which, being all drenched with blood, they were forced partly to remove in order to staunch the still flowing gore.
Commanding his followers to fall back to a distance, Scipio remained upon his knees supporting her, with her beautiful face lying upon his shoulder; while Caius Lælius brought some water in his helmet from the waters of the upspringing fountain, which were fresh, and unstained with blood.
While she was being supported thus, and the two men were ministering to her, bathing her face and binding up her wound, Elissa recovered her senses with a sigh.
For a few seconds she did not realise the situation, and remained motionless, and then the whole sad truth burst upon her. With a bitter smile she spoke.
“And so it hath then come to pass, oh, Scipio! and thou hast conquered me and killed my faithful troops, and I am now thy slave. I have not forgotten! I was but now, even as thou art thyself, a warrior, then why hast thou removed my harness and exposed my person to the crowd, and why dost thou embrace me thus, even on the battlefield itself? Surely ’tis unmanly of thee. Oh, I do hate thee, Scipio! Release me, I beg of thee, and insult me not in public.”
With a look of repulsion on her beautiful pale face, she turned from him, and would have withdrawn herself from his embrace, but was too weak.
“Nay, nay, dear Elissa, mistrust me not,” rejoined Scipio, with the air not of a conqueror, but of a very suppliant. “Thou dost wrong me. ’Twas but to save thy life that Caius and I alone, both thy friends, have thus removed thine armour; and even now the joy of seeing thee living far outweighs the grief caused by the bitterness of thy words.”
“And so ye are my friends, are ye? Pretty friends, in sooth, to war upon a woman and murder all my people!” answered Elissa, arguing, like a woman, unreasonably, and forgetting that all the bloodshed could have been spared and no lives lost had she but accepted the offered terms of amnesty.