“Such is, in my opinion, the only possible mode of proceeding.  To move now would be to ensure a rejection of our demands, to bring fresh persecutions upon us, and so to weaken us that we should be powerless to turn to good account the opportunity which the news of another great victory would afford.  I will write at once to Hannibal and explain all the circumstances of the situation, and will tell him why I have counselled you to avoid carrying out his instructions, seeing that to do so now would be to ensure your own destruction and greatly damage our cause.

“In the meantime you must, for a short time, remain in concealment, while I arrange for a ship to carry you back to Italy.”

“The sooner the better,” Malchus said bitterly, “for Carthage with its hideous tyranny, its foul corruption, its forgetfulness of its glory, its honour, and even its safety, is utterly hateful to me.  I trust that never again shall I set foot within its walls.  Better a thousand times to die in a battlefield than to live in this accursed city.”

“It is natural that you should be indignant,” Manon said, “for the young blood runs hotly in your veins, and your rage at seeing the fate which is too certainly impending over Carthage, and which you are powerless to prevent, is in no way to be blamed.  We old men bow more resignedly to the decrees of the gods.  You know the saying, `Those whom the gods would destroy they first strike with madness.’  Carthage is such.  She sees unmoved the heroic efforts which Hannibal and his army are making to save her, and she will not stretch out a hand to aid him.  She lives contentedly under the constant tyranny of Hanno’s rule, satisfied to be wealthy, luxurious, and slothful, to carry on her trade, to keep her riches, caring nothing for the manly virtues, indifferent to valour, preparing herself slowly and surely to fall an easy prey to Rome.

“The end probably will not come in my time, it may come in yours, but come it certainly and surely will.  A nation which can place a mere handful of its own citizens in the line of battle voluntarily dooms herself to destruction.”

“Whether it comes in my time or not,” Malchus said, “I will be no sharer in the fate of Carthage.  I have done with her; and if I do not fall in the battlefield I will, when the war is over, seek a refuge among the Gauls, where, if the life is rough, it is at least free and independent, where courage and manliness and honour count for much, and where the enervating influence of wealth is as yet unknown.  Such is my firm resolution.”

“I say nothing to dissuade you, Malchus,” the old man replied, “such are the natural sentiments of your age; and methinks, were my own time to come over again, I too would choose such a life in preference to an existence in the polluted atmosphere of ungrateful Carthage.  And now, will you stop here with me, or will you return to the place where you are staying?  I need not say how gladly I would have you here, but I cannot answer certainly for your safety.  Every movement of those belonging to our party is watched by Hanno, and I doubt not that he has his spies among my slaves and servants.