Reassured by Asbyte's answer, Hannibal lowered his head and crossed his arms, resigned to listen.
"You are as hard and disdainful as a god," sighed the Amazon. "The woman who loves you feels within her the fire of Moloch, and you will not deign to quench it even with a glance of kindness, nor with a smile. You have a heart of bronze; your eyes ever gaze aloft, and you cannot see those who crawl to approach you. You imagine that you have made me happy because you lead me from battle to battle, from conquest to conquest, and you consider that my happiness consists in having my hands, which used to be adorned with rings, calloused by the lance; my face, which in other times was covered with costly unguents brought from Egypt by my caravans, hardened by the cheek-pieces of the helmet. I have become rude and fierce like a man. Though I possess gardens far away where an eternal springtime dwells, I have suffered hunger and thirst at your side. I know not who I am; I doubt my sex, seeing my body made ugly by fatigue. My skin, over which the hands of my slaves used to slip as if it were a mirror, is now as hard as that of a crocodile. If I do not seem as hideous as the troop of wasted females which follows your soldiers it is because my youth has not forsaken me. And all this for whom? For you who will not deign to look at me; for you who have forgotten our first meeting; for you who see in Asbyte only a good friend, an esteemed ally, who came to you bringing a strong array of fighters. Hannibal! Lightning-flash of Baal! You are as great as a demigod, but you do not know human beings. You see in me only an Amazon, a warrior virgin like those of whom the Grecian poets sing—but I am a woman!"
Asbyte sadly and silently searched the face of the pensive Hannibal.
"You have forgotten, perhaps, how we met," she added, presently, with melancholy tone. "I dwelt happy in my oasis until I rushed to your side, drawn by some irresistible charm that emanates from your person. I, the daughter of Iarbas the Garamantan, wearied of the comforts of my house, of the songs of my slaves, and of the splendors which the merchants flung from the caravans at my feet, went into the desert hunting lions with Iarbas, and the warriors marveled when the most savage colts trembled, obedient and timid, as soon as they felt me on their backs. I was strong, and I was beautiful. Scarcely had I grown out of my girlhood than the bravest of the Numidian sheikhs came seeking hospitality of my father that they might see me, and they told of their flocks and of their warriors, proposing an alliance to Iarbas. And I, indifferent, cold, kept my thoughts ever on Carthage where I once had been in company with my father to adjust the tribute with the rich men of the Senate. Ah, the magnificent city, the immense city, with her temples as huge as towns and her gigantic gods!"
Wandering from the trend of her ideas, she fell into enthusiastic reminiscence of Carthage, the great city which after all her travels and warlike adventures was still a vivid memory. She called to mind the dwellings of the rich Carthaginians, with their polychrome walls finished by brilliant spheres of metal and of glass; the great marble temples, with their mysterious groves through which resounded the lyres and cymbals of the priests; the temple of Tanith surrounded by rose gardens, perfumed hiding places which served as shelters for the sacred phallic rites in honor of the goddess; and then the port, the immense port, with a whole city of ships which poured into the metropolis a continual stream of riches from all over the world, tin from Brittania, copper from Italy, silver from Iberia, gold from Ophir, frankincense from Saba, amber from northern seas, purple from Tyre, ebony and ivory from Ethiopia, spices and pearls from India, and brilliant fabrics from nameless and mysterious peoples of Asia who dwelt at the uttermost borders of the world, wrapped in the mists of legend.
She adored the city, not only for its splendors, but far more because it harbored partisans of the Barcas, the supporters of the heroic family whose deeds the Numidian warriors recounted in the moonlight, and of whom Hannibal, who added renown to his name in the wars of Iberia when still a boy, was the glorious descendant.
"My people ever loved your people," continued the Amazon. "If my father Iarbas submitted to the domination of Carthage, it was because at the head of it was Hamilcar, an African, a Numidian like ourselves. I hate the Carthaginian merchants as bitterly as you do—those ancient Phœnicians from the rock-bound Aradus who prospered and reproduced like worms, afterwards to cross the sea and take possession of our beautiful soil of Africa. I hate the ship figured upon so many of your coins and temples, because it is the sign of the avaricious people who came to exploit us, but I adore the Carthaginian charger, the Numidian horse, the symbol of our past."
Then she spoke of the charm which the glory of the Barcas had exercised over her mind from afar. She had loved Hannibal without realizing it, influenced by tales of his achievements which had reached her ears. She imagined him fighting like a young lion at his father's side, among herds of bulls with flaming horns, and among burning chariots which the Iberians drove against the Carthaginian invader; she thought of him, mad with fury, before the body of Hamilcar, and then languishing from inaction beside the beautiful Hasdrubal, conciliatory and pacific, until the moment when, his brother being assassinated by the dagger of a Gaul, the whole army acclaimed the youth as chieftain.
Her father Iarbas had just died, and she, now become queen of her tribes, heard that Hannibal, thirsting for glory and for combat, was isolated in the fortress of New Carthage, with no other troops than the remnant of the army which Hamilcar had taken to Iberia. The rich of Carthage, enemies of the Barcas, fearing the populace, dared not deprive Hamilcar's son of the chieftancy which his soldiers tendered him; they confirmed it by their silence, but they kept him isolated, without resources, left to his own devices, so that the natives should put an end to him, or at the most, that he might conquer a small territory on the Iberian coast in which the ambition of the Barcas would gradually become extinguished.
"Then I flew to your side," continued Asbyte. "I wished to know the man and to save the hero. I turned over a great part of my riches to the merchants of Carthage for the loan of their ships; I kindled the enthusiasm of the most warlike of my tribes to follow me; even their daughters imitated me, and went lion hunting, galloping all day long, lance in hand, drawn on by my mad adventure, and one afternoon, when perhaps you were weeping, believing your hopes of glory dead, you beheld from the height of the citadel of New Carthage a whole fleet coming from Africa. Do you remember? Tell me! Do you remember how you received me?"