“Yea, I mind well the circumstance. But what shall we both do now when we can do no more slaying together? I loved thee always as thine elder brother, Maharbal, and feel inclined—laugh not at me, I pray—to weep when I think that no longer thou and I shall be with the thundering squadron in the thick of the same combat, oft times side by side. How oft have I watched thy gigantic form from afar, cutting and slaying, when thou knewest not that I was even observing thee.”
“And I too, Mago! How often have not I watched thy crimson and white plume floating from thy silver helmet. To my dying day I never shall forget the anxiety I felt on thy behalf that day of the fight on the Ticinus, when, myself left behind in the oak trees, I saw thee a dozen times in the clash of battle, surrounded by the enemy, but thank the gods, invariably issuing the victor. Ay, we have had grand times together! but now what shall I do without thee?”
“Hast thou not got Chœras?” asked Mago tentatively.
“Ay, I have Chœras,” answered Maharbal drily, “but is Chœras the Mago whom I have loved from boyhood?”
There was a silence again after this, for the last remark was one that admitted of no reply. Then Mago spoke again.
“Thou wilt succeed to the command of all the cavalry when I am gone, Maharbal; be careful of the Gallic horsemen; their chief, Vridomarchus, is not to be relied on—watch thou him well.”
“Ay, I will watch him, and slay him too, for thy sake, if he hath offended thee in aught.”
“Nay, slay him not, at least not yet, but rule him with a hand of iron; make him fear thee, and all will go well. Treat him ever like a dog, for kindness he doth not understand, and he is verily like the dog that biteth the hand that feeds him.”
“I thank thee, Mago, but I think I will slay him; he will be far less trouble that way.”
Another pause ensued, and then, looking his comrade straight in the face, the young General Mago asked the question that Maharbal had been expecting.