"Yes, and I shall never forget it," said Hannibal gently. "Those days are my happiest memory."
"You received me as if I were a divinity, as if Ashtoreth, who illumines our nights had descended from the sky to give you her protection. You were oblivious to my warriors and saw only me, and scorning your ambitions for the moment we spent the nights lying on the terrace of the citadel, and the stars were witnesses to our interminable embraces. But, alas! that joy was like the roses from Egypt which last but a day in the vases of the rich women of Carthage. Soon the pride of conquest returned to you, the ambition of the chieftain. You admired the training of my Numidians more than my beauty when, of an afternoon, outside the walls they astounded your old warriors by hurling darts while kneeling on their horses, which ran so fast that they raised the dust with their bellies. We went out to fight with the Olcades, the Vaccæi, all those Iberian tribes which yesterday you fought and which to-day follow you. Led by you I fought like a soldier, and I considered myself happy when on the long marches, imitating our horses which lovingly put their heads together, you bent toward me, striking your helmet against mine to kiss me. Finally—not even that! What am I? One warrior more in your camp; a friend worthy of gratitude, who brought you assistance on seeing you abandoned by Carthage, with no other force than a handful of veterans and some elephants. In the battles if you see me in danger you fly to defend me; but afterwards, in the camp, on the long marches, a few words of friendship, a cold smile as to any one of your captains. Your heart has closed against me. Am I not Asbyte, she whom you knew in New Carthage? Do you not love me when you see me made ugly and hardened by war? Tell me that, and I will become a woman again, I will bedeck myself with jewels, I will abandon my Amazons and surround myself with Greek slaves, I will cover myself with ointments which will change my skin back to its pristine freshness, and I will follow you on your marches lying on a litter with curtains of purple."
"No!" Hannibal made haste to reply, with enthusiasm. "I love you as you are. The beloved of Hannibal can only be an Amazon like yourself, who have made many warriors fall beneath your charger."
"Then why do you flee from me? Why do you abandon me, why forget the sweetness of our early love? See that nightingale, at which a moment ago you aimed your arrow! In the midst of an army camp, before a besieged city, it sings and sings, calling to its mate, heedless of the horrors of war, unconscious of the stench of blood which rises from these fields. Let us be like him! Let us make war; but let us also love each other, and let us ride through the battles with our bodies thrilled with love!"
"No, Asbyte," said the African gloomily. "That felicity is impossible; I love you, but we cannot understand each other. You complain because I see in you only an Amazon, when you are a woman; you, in return, see in me only a man, and I am more than man. I am not the demigod you imagine; I am something more; I am a formidable machine of war, without heart or sense of pity, created only to crush men and nations who obstruct my passage."
Hannibal said this with conviction, beating his firm chest, straightening his figure with sombre majesty as he declared his destructive power.
"I would love you if I were a man capable of wasting my time in such sweet folly, but when have you seen the eagle spend all his time in the nest caressing his mate, without desire to soar aloft and fall upon the quarry? Those who have talons cannot caress, and I was born to make prey of the world, or else for the world to crush me. Love? A sweet occupation, I grant you! In the past, full of blood and of battles, the only oases of my joy were those days in New Carthage when I believed that Tanith herself, with all her divine beauty, had deigned to come down to my arms. But that is over; Hannibal has other loves that attract him and dominate him; he loves his sword, he loves all that the enemy possesses, and he cannot sleep with tranquility for thinking of Rome, whom he desires to crush within these arms! How far away she is!"
The Amazon made a gesture of despair at the passion with which the chieftain declared his ambitions.
"You might complain," continued Hannibal, "if you saw that my thoughts were filled with the image of another woman. Whom have I loved but you? To draw to me those barbarians who follow me, to league them by ties of blood to my enterprises, I took to wife the daughter of an Iberian kinglet. Yes, and where is she? Does she follow me as do you? She remains in New Carthage, spinning her gay-colored wools, and she scarcely thinks of me, because never for a moment did the charms of the barbarian virgin move me. I love only you. Hannibal can fall tremulous with passion only into arms like yours, hardened by use of the lance. But be worthy of him! Think not as do other women; seek not new lovers; unite yourself to me, so that both together we can think of possessing and of hating, of making the world ours!"
As if exalted by his own words, the African, with glowing eyes, approached Asbyte, caressing her arms, while he breathed in her face his ambitious plans.