Then to enforce silence, Hamilcar, in addition to the awful sounds of the musical instruments, ordered the drivers of the elephants to strike them with the goads and make them trumpet. The trumpeting of the elephants, in addition to the rest of the infernal din, at length completely drowned the yells of the women. They subsided in complete silence. Then, rising in his car, Hamilcar addressed the multitude:
“Oh, priests! men and women of Carthage! it is not meet that I decide upon this man’s fate. He hath been mine enemy all my life as much, ay, far more, than he hath been yours. His fate, whether we shall slay him now or leave him to the future terrible vengeance of the gods, shall not be left in either your hands or in mine. Here in this car with him and me, a sacred car devoted as all can see to all the gods, is my son Hannibal, the favoured of Baal. His young life, from jealousy of me the father, this miscreant, Hanno, hath often tried to take; ay, even this very day before the Hundred Judges he suggested openly that I—I who have saved you all, and saved Carthage, should sacrifice my young son in a common heap with the bloodthirsty malefactors who are, rightly for their awful crimes, being sacrificed this day to the mighty Baal Hammon.”
Here such a howl of execration against Hanno again burst forth from the crowd that the elephants had once more to be made to trumpet, and the musical instruments to raise their hideous din, to obtain silence.
Then Hamilcar continued:
“In the hands of this my son, whom I hope may be spared to protect this country even as I have done, I leave the life of his would-be murderer. Speak, Hannibal, my son, say, shall this Hanno, who would have slain thee, die now for thy vengeance and for mine? Or shall he be left in the hands of the gods, who doubtless for our punishment have placed such a scourge here on earth among us?”
The boy Hannibal arose and regarded steadily, first the now silent crowd, and then the bloated form of Hanno, who, with face all bleeding, hung back upon his seat in the car, while stretching forth his ring-covered hands to the child as if for mercy. Then he spoke clearly, in the voice of a child but with the decision of a man:
“My father, and people of Carthage, I am destined from my birth to be a warrior, one to fight for and protect my country. Do not then let my first act, where the life of others be concerned, be that of an executioner. It would not be worthy of one of the blood of Barca. Let Hanno live. The gods are powerful; his punishment lies in their hands!”
The boy sank back upon the cushions in the car, and a roar of applause greeted the speech, for it met the fancy of the crowd. Henceforth the life of Hanno was secure. He was taken off the elephant, placed in a litter, and sent to his home under a small escort. But the escort was not necessary. He was now looked upon as one under the curse of the gods, and no one in the crowd, whether man or woman, would have defiled their hands by touching him.
Meanwhile, Hamilcar and his son proceeded to the temple of Melcareth, where, entering the sacred fane quite alone save for the priests, the former sacrificed to his protecting deity a bull and a lamb. For no human blood was ever shed in those days in the temple of the Carthaginian unknown god. And in that solemn presence, on that sacred occasion, the boy Hannibal plunged his right arm up to the elbow in the reeking blood of the sacrifice, and solemnly vowed before the great god Melcareth an eternal hatred to Rome and the Romans.
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