Not only the flirting little princess, but everyone present, including Hannibal himself, who was no anchorite, drained their wine-cups to the dregs, Maharbal and Elissa looking deep down into each other’s eyes as they drank. And the afternoon and night were passed in happiness, music, and song, and all was gaiety and rejoicing, both in the palace and camp, at the return of Hannibal from Saguntum.
CHAPTER IX.
A LAUGH AND A LIFE.
All was now animation in Saguntum. The winter had passed and the place was full of troops, for Hannibal was now using the city as his base of operations against all the Iberian tribes living across the Iber or Ebro.
Elissa and Maharbal had been long since ruthlessly torn apart, the latter swearing to his dear lover, for it was impossible to consider her as his wife, that Melania should be as a sister to him and nothing more. But Hannibal, careless of anybody’s feelings, even his own, so that the business of the State was advanced, had soon perceived that the occasional meetings which took place between his daughter and her lover Maharbal were disturbing to them both, and thus upsetting to his calculations. He, therefore, took an opportunity one day when Maharbal was busy exercising the large body of Numidian Cavalry now under his command, of paying an unexpected visit to the house that he had given to the young warrior.
Entering quietly, he found the beautiful young Iberian girl sitting in the most forlorn position, weeping violently. Very few questions won from the reluctant damsel the position of affairs, and the anger of the great Chief was aroused. For Maharbal, faithful to Elissa, and being but her’s alone, was not obeying his General’s commands to make Melania perfectly happy, since it was not the love of a brother, which was all that Maharbal had given her, that would fill her yearning heart. There had been a short and sharp interview between the Chief and his Commander of Numidians, and a few days later, it being now early in the autumn, Maharbal and Melania had been sent away, with a large force as escort, to travel by easy stages on an embassy to her uncle Andobales, King of the Ilergetes. And from the time that they had left New Carthage the face of the young maiden had brightened.
The description of the Court of Andobales, where Melania and Maharbal remained all the winter and early spring, is not here necessary, but the result of the embassy is a matter of history. Moved by the representations of Melania, by the munificent presents of Hannibal, and the fact that Melania was the affianced bride of one of the most powerful chiefs of the Carthaginian army, the closest compact of friendship was entered into between both Andobales and his brother Mandonius with the Carthaginians, which treaty of friendship was of the greatest advantage to Hannibal at that time, and faithfully respected by the Iberians so long as they were treated with proper consideration. Before, however, the treaty was absolutely ratified, the General Hasdrubal was sent by Hannibal on a further mission to Andobales to see the exact position of affairs. On his return, the report that he gave to his brother the great Commander was most satisfactory. But the information that he carried to his niece Elissa, which was purposely coloured and false, tore the poor girl’s heart with frantic jealousy, for it left not the slightest room for doubt as to the state of the relations now existing between the man whom she insisted, in spite of her father’s absolute disavowal of any marriage, was her husband, and the daughter of Mandonius. For Hasdrubal brought back the news that Melania was making Maharbal as happy as possible, and further that she was likely to become a mother. After hearing this intelligence, Elissa was both enraged and jealous to frenzy; moreover, she suffered the more bitterly in her spirit from the fact that no such good fortune, for so she would have indeed considered it, had fallen to herself. She felt it all the more, since, moved by her unhappy looks and frequent tears, and perhaps by the fact that the treaty of friendship he desired was now established with the tribes of the Ilergetes, Hannibal had one day told her that, had there been any such an eventuality where she herself was concerned, he would have thrown over his tool Melania, and, notwithstanding his previous refusal, have ratified his own daughter’s irregular connection with Maharbal simply in order to legitimatise her offspring. But this opportunity of gaining her heart’s desire was for poor Elissa lost, and possibly her astute father would never have told her, at this time, what he would have done, had he not already known that there would not be any chance of his having to keep his word.
Elissa’s love of Maharbal was now turned, or she imagined that it was turned, to hatred, for, misled by Hasdrubal, she had no doubt of his infidelity, and did not in the least take into account the fact that that infidelity had been imposed upon him by her father’s commands. She, womanlike, only imagined that he had broken his vow of fidelity to herself. And this thing she could not forgive!
Meanwhile, the King of the Ilergetes wrote to Hannibal requesting permission to have the nuptials of his niece and Maharbal celebrated, and to have the freedom which had been promised to Melania confirmed. Hannibal, with all the trickiness of the policy of those days, wrote in return that the marriage should be celebrated in Saguntum, and directed that the Numidian chief and his affianced wife should return for the purpose without delay to that city. He had not at heart the slightest intention of fulfilling either promise, but proposed to keep the girl really, although not nominally, as a hostage for the good behaviour of her relations. Thus State reasons influenced him again to the sacrifice of the personal feelings of the sweet-natured Melania, whom it had suited his purpose to make a plaything of in every way.
Fortunately for the great Commander’s reputation for good faith, and for the feelings of Melania herself, she was spared the indignity of the wrongs that would undoubtedly have been put upon her had she reached Saguntum alive. For death came suddenly and unexpectedly to take her away at a time when she could die happily in the arms of the man whom she loved. An accident that occurred to her by the fall of her mule over a precipice in crossing the mountains caused her sudden and early death. Maharbal had scarcely reached her where she lay crushed and mangled at the foot of a dark ravine, when she became unconscious, and passed peacefully away. And she was buried on the side of the mountain where she died.
Thus did Melania, who had never harmed a living soul, escape, by the will of Providence, from a world in which, had she lived longer, she would have undoubtedly only experienced many and bitter trials, of which the enmity of her former friend, Elissa, would have been by no means the least.