Meanwhile Hannibal remained in Italy, with as much confidence and security as though it were his own property. And so indeed was his corner of the mighty peninsula, which he had over-run from end to end, and whence, had he but had the necessary reinforcements sent to him, he would have been ready at any time to spring forth once more like a lion and devastate the fair Italian plains, right back to those Alps whence he had long years before descended upon this promised land. But where now were all those to whom he had promised it? How many were left of the original band who had set out with him upon that wonderful march from Spain? Of all the generals and captains who had started on that journey Maharbal alone remained. Chœras, the cheery, light-hearted poet, had been slain at Salapia, and all those of superior rank who had marched across the Ebro were dead also—Monomachus, Hanno, Hasdrubal the pioneer, and thousands more, ay, even Hasdrubal the brother of Hannibal, who had marched over the Alps to join him, all—all were gone! Only old Sosilus still remained. No wonder that Elissa found her father morose and inclined to find fault with a pitiless fate which had allowed the miserable ineptitude of the rulers in Carthage to rob him of the benefit of all his victories, of all his many years of warfare, and which had cost him the lives of nearly all his old friends, and given no commensurate return.
But still, not all the twenty legions that had been raised that year in Italy could put him out of that last corner of Italy which he had selected for his own. There he sat, like an eagle upon the rock; and still, when like the eagle he chose to sally forth and swoop over the plain, even as the frightened game flying before the monarch of the skies would the Roman legions retire before him in the open and take shelter in walled towns or strongly-entrenched encampments, which, owing to his reduced numbers, he was unable to besiege. And thus it remained to the end. Hannibal was never defeated in Italy.
Meanwhile, her father’s original attachment to Maharbal had, Elissa found, gone on increasing, if possible, through all the years that they had fought side by side, and especially since he had so nearly lost his noble lieutenant’s life at the terrible slaughter of the Numidians at Salapia. From that place, wounded in half-a-dozen places, he had been one of the very few who had managed to cut their way through to the horses.
But now, poor Maharbal was but general of the Numidians in name, for there were no more than at most some seventy-five of the far-famed Numidians left. And to his great chagrin, his cousin Massinissa, after killing his uncle, King Syphax, in Numidia, had now placed many thousands of Numidian cavalry in the field on Carthaginian soil, side by side with the Romans. For he had, so it was rumoured, added all the forces of the late King Syphax to his own, and all were in active alliance with Scipio against Carthage.
Maharbal was now often almost as morose and moody as Hannibal himself; but the Numidian had an extra cause for sorrow. For throughout the whole of his long years of warrings in Italy, he had remained faithful to Elissa. And now he found that she had ceased to love him. He had been quite prepared to overlook her doubtful alliance with King Philip of Macedon; but he found, to his surprise, that no magnanimity was required upon his side, for Elissa would have nothing of him. He had been ready to excuse both the original flirtation with Scipio at the Court of Syphax, of which an exaggerated report had reached him, and also her later determination to marry Scipio; but he discovered that to be excused either on the one count or the other was the very last thing that Elissa herself desired. In fact she deliberately refused to acknowledge his right to interfere in, question, or condone her conduct from any point of view. And he felt somehow that through the barrier of reserve, which she had raised from the very moment of their meeting again, it would be far more difficult for him to break than it would have been for him to break down, single-handed, the Colline gate of the walls of Rome, over which Hannibal had cast his spear in token of defiance.
It was not that he found her hard to him, for, on the contrary, she was gentle; but she was no longer in love with him; she was indifferent. There is nothing so terrible for a man to contend against in the woman who once loved him with all her heart and soul, with every fibre of her frame, than this same indifference, that is, if he love her still himself. Now, Maharbal loved Elissa still, and the more indifferent she showed herself to him, the more he loved her. But it is not to be wondered at if, after all she had gone through, Elissa could not find it in her to rush violently all at once into a renewal of her former relations with Maharbal. Not only were all her dreams of an Utopia with Scipio now dashed to the ground, but she heard daily of the terrible reverses that had occurred to her beloved Carthage, which she had never seen, owing to the failure of her marriage with him.
And who was it who had been the direct cause of her failing to join Scipio in Syracuse but Maharbal himself, who had detached five warships from the fleet, and captured her and killed her friends. Was not poor Cleandra’s death directly attributable to Maharbal? and who, in all her life, had been such a friend to her as Cleandra? And was not Æmilius her friend? He had saved her from the court of Philip, and yet Maharbal or his men—it was the same thing—had killed him.
“What,” thought Elissa, “has Maharbal ever given to me like the devotion of a Cleandra, the love of a Scipio—ay, or even the courtesy of a Lælius or an Æmilius?” Was it sufficient for Maharbal to leave her alone for year after year, when he might have visited her instead of her uncle Mago? Was it enough for him, while taking his fill of the life he delighted in—a life of blood and military glory—to continue to love her at a distance, and to expect her to fall at his feet at his bidding after all, just because fate or chance placed her in his way? “No,” cried Elissa to herself; “a thousand times no!” and she thought of the old days, when she had wept her eyes out for Maharbal, while he was with Melania at the court of King Andobales, and stamped with her feet upon the ground with rage to think that she ever had been such a fool.
But now she was so utterly miserable, so distressed at Cleandra’s death, so disappointed at the terrible failure of her grand plans for the happiness of the world in conjunction with Scipio, that really this matter of Maharbal scarcely interested her. She had lived too much, seen too much, suffered too much! So she told him plainly one day that he must be content with the past. It might now indeed seem to both of them almost as a dream. Well, so much the better! A dream it must remain, for anything now more approaching a reality was utterly impossible. And with that she left him.