“I believe that you are just as eager as I am, Adherbal,” the boy replied laughing.  “It’s your first lion hunt as well as mine, and I am sure you are longing to see whether the assault of the king of beasts is more trying to the nerves than that of the Iberian tribesmen.”

“I am looking forward to it, Malchus, certainly,” the young man replied; “but as I know the lions will not quit their coverts until after nightfall, and as no efforts on my part will hasten the approach of that hour, I am well content to lie quiet and to keep myself as cool as may be.”

“Your cousin is right,” the general said, “and impatience is a fault, Malchus.  We must make allowances for your impatience on the present occasion, for the lion is a foe not to be despised, and he is truly as formidable an antagonist when brought to bay as the Iberians on the banks of the Ebro —­ far more so than the revolted tribesmen we have been hunting for the past three weeks.”

“Giscon says nothing,” Adherbal remarked; “he has a soul above even the hunting of lions.  I warrant that during the five hours we have been reclining here his thoughts have never once turned towards the hunt we are going to have tonight.”

“That is true enough,” Giscon said, speaking for the first time.  “I own that my thoughts have been of Carthage, and of the troubles that threaten her owing to the corruption and misgovernment which are sapping her strength.”

“It were best not to think too much on the subject, Giscon,” the general said; “still better not to speak of it.  You know that I lament, as you do, the misgovernment of Carthage, and mourn for the disasters which have been brought upon her by it.  But the subject is a dangerous one; the council have spies everywhere, and to be denounced as one hostile to the established state of things is to be lost.”

“I know the danger,” the young man said passionately.  “I know that hitherto all who have ventured to raise their voices against the authority of these tyrants have died by torture —­ that murmuring has been stamped out in blood.  Yet were the danger ten times as great,” and the speaker had risen now from his couch and was walking up and down the tent, “I could not keep silent.  What have our tyrants brought us to?  Their extravagance, their corruption, have wasted the public funds and have paralyzed our arms.  Sicily and Sardinia have been lost; our allies in Africa have been goaded by their exactions again and again into rebellion, and Carthage has more than once lately been obliged to fight hard for her very existence.  The lower classes in the city are utterly disaffected; their earnings are wrung from them by the tax gatherers.  Justice is denied them by the judges, who are the mere creatures of the committee of five.  The suffetes are mere puppets in their hands.  Our vessels lie unmanned in our harbours, because the funds which should pay the sailors are appropriated by our tyrants to their own purposes.  How can a Carthaginian who loves his country remain silent?”