"Can you ask?" he answered; "is it that you wish to betray me? Well, then, know truly that I have betrayed myself to your heart's content. Do you not see the mourning garments I wear for my city's faithlessness and for her coming ruin? Have you not heard how my father dragged me from the side of Decius Magius in the market place that I might attend the banquet?—ah! but you have not heard how I had planned to startle them all."
Marcia began to wonder whether she was talking with a madman.
"Shall I tell?"
She made a sign of assent.
"It was toward evening—they have but just risen from the tables now. Then, it was to seek the red feathers for the third time; but I led my father back among the rose bushes and showed him a sword which I had girt to my side, beneath my tunic. 'This,' said I, 'shall win us pardon from Rome. Look you, when we return, I will plunge it into the Carthaginian's breast.'"
Marcia bent forward eagerly.
"And then," he went on, "my father bound my arms to my sides, with his own around me, and wept and talked of our recent pledges to these foreigners. 'Can they outweigh our ancient pledges to Rome?' I answered. So he pleaded how the attendants would surely cut me down, and mentioned Hannibal's look, which he affirmed I would not be able to confront; but I laughed and made little of these things. Then he spoke of the hospitable board, which I admitted had something of reason; and, finally, when he had declared that the sword must reach Hannibal only through his own breast, then, at last, from filial duty, mark you, I threw the weapon from me, telling him that he had betrayed his country thrice: in revolting from Rome, in allying with foreigners, and, now, in turning aside the instrument of escape. Then we returned to the banquet, but my father trembled, and ate and drank no more. There, now, is a story to tell your city's destroyer. If you betray me, perhaps he may yet love you."
Marcia viewed him sternly.
"Truly your father was right, when he said you were ill in mind."
"Yes, ill in mind and in heart."