The apartment was hung with strips of tapestry alternately red and yellow, and the paved floor was covered with mats. The guards who had ushered us all the way from the outer court-yard remained standing at the door, and having given us permission to enter, Hanno and I advanced alone towards a window, where, seated in a chair of painted wood, I recognised old Adonibal, the naval suffes, or suffect.
Nearly every one is aware that our Libyan cities are subject to a government in many respects similar to that which existed among the children of Israel before the time of King Saul; that is, they are ruled by suffects, whose office corresponds very nearly to that of the "judges." A council, all eligible as suffects, are nominated by the people, and these from their own number elect two (whom, however, the people reserve to themselves the power of displacing), one to be "naval suffect," entrusted with the control of all maritime matters; the other, popularly called the "sacred suffect," to have the superintendence of all inland affairs. But it is not so generally known that for the last ten years the Libyan suffects have been appointed without any sanction either of the Kings of Tyre or Sidon. The representatives are chosen independently, subject only to the condition that no Tyrians are admitted to the office at Utica, which is essentially a Sidonian colony, and no Sidonian can be elected for Carthage, where it is the Tyrians who have been rearing the new city around the ancient Bozrah.
At the time of our visit, Adonibal, the son of Adoniram, had been for eight years the naval suffect, and it was universally acknowledged that he wielded his magistracy with a resolute and steady hand. After many years of adventure both by sea and land, he had settled at Utica, where he had carried on his affairs, both in trade and warfare, with great success. He had led the forces of the city against the Libyans, had made incursions upon the coast of Tarshish, and in a great measure had contributed to the establishment of Massalia, the city of the Salians, at the mouth of the Rhone, in the land of the Celts. In return for his services, and as a proof of the confidence they had in his judgment and experience, the people of Utica elected him their naval suffect, and the way in which the city and its dependencies prospered under his rule convinced them that their choice could not have fallen on a better man.
In the course of my many voyages I had at various times been brought into contact with Adonibal, and although I was quite aware that he had been a daring freebooter, I knew him to be a brave sailor and a clever merchant. It was therefore with much pleasure that I advanced towards the chair in which the hale old man was seated. Although he had a flowing white beard, his upper lip was shorn perfectly smooth in the old Chittim fashion; he wore his mariner's cap pressed closely over his ears; and his nose, slightly redder than of yore, betokened that he had more than a slight acquaintance with the luscious produce of Helbon and Berytos.
I bowed, and congratulated him that I found him looking so well.
"Ah!" he said, speaking in a sort of facetious way that had become habitual to him, "here's Mago, the Sidonian, the cutest captain that ever took cedar ship to Tarshish! And who is this young man with you?"
I introduced Hanno as my scribe and fellow-townsman.
"And the brave fellows that were with you when you came here before; how are they all?" continued Adonibal, stroking his beard; "Himilco with his one eye, and Gisgo who had lost his ears, how are they? And what has become of the notable Gadita?"
Flattered by the accuracy with which he retained me and my people in his memory, I replied that they were all well and with me, and that he had only to turn his head to the window and he would see all my ships in the harbour, amongst them the Gadita, whose name had been altered to the Cabiros.
The old man laughed significantly.