"All this have I seen, and to prove it I have brought of them all back with me."
"Hast thou not also brought back with thee a wonder-working bird with human speech and man's understanding?"
"I have it on my ship."
"Hast thou spoken with others of these things?"
"Only on the marble tables are my secrets recorded."
"Thy sailors have not yet been in the town, then?"
"None of them have left the harbour."
"Then, Hanno, return to thy ship."
They led the mariner back to his ship. Late the same evening the vessel was escorted by four men-of-war into the open sea, where, after stripping her of boats, sails, and helm, they deluged her on all four sides with what was known long afterwards as Greek fire. In an instant the inextinguishable flames had ignited the planks, and there, on the open sea, Hanno's ship, with its owner, its crew, and the gold-dust, the bread-fruit, the sugar-canes, the cocoa-nuts, and the talking-bird which they had brought back with them, were utterly consumed. The fire burned everything down to the very water's edge.
And a proclamation went forth in the streets of Carthage, that whoever presumed to say a word about Hanno's happy land should be instantly offered up to the goddess Astarte, and if a Senator should dare to betray a word of what was written on Hanno's marble tables, he should be stoned at the entrance of the harbour, and his bones strewn in the sea.