He held him firmly by the arm as though he were afraid of losing him, and the child, who was hurt, wept a little as he ran beside him.

When on a level with the ergastulum, under a palm tree, a voice was raised, a mournful and supplicant voice.  It murmured:  “Master! oh! master!”

Hamilcar turned and beside him perceived a man of abject appearance, one of the wretches who led a haphazard existence in the household.

“What do you want?” said the Suffet.

The slave, who trembled horribly, stammered: 

“I am his father!”

Hamilcar walked on; the other followed him with stooping loins, bent hams, and head thrust forward.  His face was convulsed with unspeakable anguish, and he was choking with suppressed sobs, so eager was he at once to question him, and to cry:  “Mercy!”

At last he ventured to touch him lightly with one finger on the elbow.

“Are you going to—?” He had not the strength to finish, and Hamilcar stopped quite amazed at such grief.

He had never thought—­so immense was the abyss separating them from each other—­that there could be anything in common between them.  It even appeared to him a sort of outrage, an encroachment upon his own privileges.  He replied with a look colder and heavier than an executioner’s axe; the slave swooned and fell in the dust at his feet.  Hamilcar strode across him.

The three black-robed men were waiting in the great hall, and standing against the stone disc.  Immediately he tore his garments, and rolled upon the pavement uttering piercing cries.

“Ah! poor little Hannibal!  Oh! my son! my consolation! my hope! my life!  Kill me also! take me away!  Woe!  Woe!” He ploughed his face with his nails, tore out his hair, and shrieked like the women who lament at funerals.  “Take him away then! my suffering is too great! begone! kill me like him!” The servants of Moloch were astonished that the great Hamilcar was so weak-spirited.  They were almost moved by it.

A noise of naked feet became audible, with a broken throat-rattling like the breathing of a wild beast speeding along, and a man, pale, terrible, and with outspread arms appeared on the threshold of the third gallery, between the ivory pots; he exclaimed: 

“My child!”

Hamilcar threw himself with a bound upon the slave, and covering the man’s mouth with his hand exclaimed still more loudly: 

“It is the old man who reared him! he calls him ‘my child!’ it will make him mad! enough! enough!” And hustling away the three priests and their victim he went out with them and with a great kick shut the door behind him.

Hamilcar strained his ears for some minutes in constant fear of seeing them return.  He then thought of getting rid of the slave in order to be quite sure that he would see nothing; but the peril had not wholly disappeared, and, if the gods were provoked at the man’s death, it might be turned against his son.  Then, changing his intention, he sent him by Taanach the best from his kitchens—­a quarter of a goat, beans, and preserved pomegranates.  The slave, who had eaten nothing for a long time, rushed upon them; his tears fell into the dishes.