“Then, as certain death is what I seek, I shall proceed,” replied the girl. “Take thou this piece of gold, and let me pass. Nay, here are two, and some silver also—take them all.”
Pushing the old man aside, she passed on, and wandered away into the recesses of the forest, until, long after having left all vestige of a trail, she fell from sheer exhaustion beneath the shadow of a spreading plane-tree, beside a little spring. After drinking a draught of the cool, refreshing water, she laid herself down to await the coming of the wild animals that were to solve the vexed problem of her existence for her, and to terminate all her woes. But she remained there that night, and also for the following three days, gradually dying from starvation, and still no ferocious beast came by to terminate her ills.
CHAPTER VIII.
LOVE FULFILLED.
Since the rescue of Elissa from the brutal grasp of Adherbal, the young girl had unrestrainedly given all her love to her protector. Although experienced in matters of war, from having accompanied her father on his campaigns, she was utterly inexperienced in matters of love, and, for all her determination—indeed, almost cruelty of character—begot by the way in which she had been brought up, she was passionately loving. This was born in her, and she was, moreover, just at the very age when a maiden’s heart is most impressionable. She had no idea of counting the cost of anything that she might do where her love was concerned, and she had fully made up her mind that Maharbal was to be hers, and she his. Although in those days, as now, eventual matrimony was considered a desirable object in life for young women, a lapse from virtue beforehand, when marriage was intended, was not looked upon as a heinous crime, even among the highest families of Carthage. For the worship of Tanais, or Astarte, was but another name for the worship of Venus, and, as all readers of the classics know, whether under the names of Artemis or Aphrodite, of Venus or Astarte, the worship of the goddess of love was seldom accompanied by the greatest continence. This was evident by the Eleusinian mysteries in Greece, and the Veneralia in Rome, while the extreme licentiousness of the Carthaginian priestesses of Tanais at Cissa, the town whither the revolted mercenaries of Hamilcar were banished, is too well known to require comment.
From her earliest youth, Elissa had been instructed to be a worshipper of the greatest of Carthaginian divinities after Melcareth, this Venus, Astarte, or Tanais. And she was more than ever a faithful votary of the shrine since she herself, youthful, ardent, and loving, had set her deepest affections upon Maharbal. She expected and intended that he should become her husband; but she had, with the laxity of the times, resulting from this worship of Tanais, fully determined that, with or without the marriage tie, their lives should be joined together in a closer union than that which usually unites those who have not already become man and wife.
The only difficulty was in Maharbal himself. He was a man who had ideas of purity far beyond his age. He did not believe at all in pre-nuptial love, and had altogether a higher standard of the moral law than any known to exist at that time. He was, indeed, laughed at in the army for never keeping even one female slave. He had, in consequence, after having come to a full understanding with Elissa, whom he loved, as she loved him, with every fibre of his soul, been extremely careful that, as far as he was concerned, she should remain absolutely pure. He intended her to be his wife, and she was, he knew, absolutely determined to marry him. There, indeed, seemed to be to neither of them the slightest reason why they should not shortly wed. Therefore, he had ever gently restrained her passionate abandonment. He recognised plainly that these loving advances were made solely in the loving confidence that she reposed in the man who was to be her husband. To any other man she would, he well knew, have been as cold as ice, and he recognised that, with body and soul, she loved him, and him alone.
Thus, when Hannibal’s mandates arrived, ordering Maharbal to take Melania as his mistress, the youthful and passionate Elissa became furious with rage and jealousy. She might have looked upon the matter in a less severe light, judging by the habits of the day, had not Hannibal, her father, so distinctly said that Maharbal and Melania were to be considered as betrothed to each other; but this order, depriving her for ever of the hope of the lover who had never as yet been hers, aroused her fury to the highest degree, and Maharbal himself was not less angry than Elissa at being caught in this trap of Hannibal’s. While discussing the matter together, the letter from Hannibal to Melania was brought to them. When Elissa had read it, for once her whole nature rose up in revolt. She became, for the first time in her life, a thorough rebel to her father’s authority, and instantly determined upon the death of her rival. For was she not still the Regent and Governor of New Carthage, and was not the power of life and death in her hands?
She instantly called the palace guards, and ordered them to go to Melania’s apartment, to lead her away for instant decapitation, and to return and inform her when her orders had been obeyed.
Maharbal strove to interfere; but Elissa, drawing herself up, remarked calmly:
“I am supreme here, Maharbal; this is my palace, and these are my guards. No one can give orders here but myself.”