Lords of the World Part 13

"Well," replied Hasdrubal, "if you choose to put it so--yes."

"I cannot do it," said Cleanor.

"I know that it is a dangerous bit of work; a spy gets no mercy. But then, think--I won't say, of the reward, for I believe that you think little of that--think of the service you may be doing to Carthage."

"It isn't that I refuse to be a spy. A spy's work, I take it, is as lawful and honest as any other. But I am not going to trade on what I did for that young man. That would be base."

Hasdrubal checked himself with some difficulty. He could see that the young Greek was not one to be bullied into compliance; but he did not give up the hope of persuading him.

"Well, well," he said after a pause, "we must talk of this again.

Perhaps we may find some way for you to help us without offending your conscience. Farewell for the present; and believe me that I am deeply concerned that you should have been put to inconvenience. It shall not happen again."

Cleanor found his quarters and his fare changed very much for the better. He had now an airy little chamber high up in the house, which commanded a view of the sea. He received a visit from the general's own physician, a countryman of his own, who claimed to be one of the great aesculapid clan.

"A little reduced," said the man of science, after feeling his pulse and listening to the beats of his heart--"a little reduced, but that is not to be wondered at. I shall not have to exhibit any drug; a generous diet will do all that is wanted. And the general gives you the use of his own private terrace, so that you will not want for fresh air and exercise."

Time now pa.s.sed pleasantly enough with the young man, though it was irksome to be shut up in idleness while so much was going on. And there was always the anxiety as to what Hasdrubal would do. The tiger was pleased for the time to sheath his claws, but the claws were there, and would be shown some day. Meanwhile he made the best of his position. The physician paid him a daily visit, told him the news of the siege, chatted with him on various subjects, played sundry games of draughts or soldiers,[36] and, best of all, lent him some books.

More than once he was summoned to an interview with the general, who, however, did not again introduce the subject of the last meeting, but was always very communicative and friendly, flattering the young man by referring to him sundry military questions, and asking his advice. At the end of a fortnight he was unconditionally released, not a little to his surprise. And his release was followed by reappointment to his old command.

He was not long left in ignorance of the causes which had brought about this unexpected result. The fact was that pressure, which he did not feel able to resist, had been brought to bear upon Hasdrubal. Tyrant and savage as he was, he stood in fear of his soldiers, and could not afford to neglect any strong feeling that they might show. The Greek contingent among the mercenaries was numerous, and const.i.tuted the most effective part of the force. With many of these men Cleanor was a personal favourite; most of them knew him by repute, and had heard with sympathy his melancholy story. Among the native Carthaginians also he had not a few well-wishers. Hasdrubal, accordingly, was made to understand that if anything should happen to the young man, it would be strongly resented.

His superior officer gave him an outline of these facts, but added, with significant emphasis:

"Be on your guard with him, though that is easier to say than to do. He does not forget or forgive."

FOOTNOTE:

36: The Latin _latrunculi_, a game somewhat resembling our "military tactics", or "fox and geese".

CHAPTER XVI.

BAAL HAMMON.

For some time after the events related in the last chapter the siege went on without any noticeable incidents. The fighting was nearly continuous, but there was nothing like a pitched battle. The besiegers did not again attempt an a.s.sault, nor did the besieged make a sally in force. Scipio's plan was to complete the blockade of the city, and then to await events, reserving his attack till famine and disease had exhausted the strength of the enemy.

The first step was to cut off all communication on the land side.

Carthage stood on a peninsula, and Scipio's superiority in the field made him master of the isthmus by which this peninsula was joined to the mainland. This he covered from sea to sea by a huge fortification, which served at the same time for a camp. It had a ditch and a rampart both on the side that looked towards the city, from which it was distant little more than a bow-shot, and on that which faced the mainland. It was necessary, indeed, that it should be defensible both in the front and in the rear. It was one of the most formidable possibilities of the war that the Roman army might be attacked from behind by the native allies of Carthage. Scipio knew--it was a mark of his genius that he knew everything--that the emissaries of the city were unceasing in their efforts to raise an army of auxiliaries among the native tribes of Northern Africa. The wall had, as usual, towers at intervals over its whole length. One of these towers, built in the most solid fashion of stone, was carried up to such a height that it commanded a view of all that was being done within the city walls.

Of course the besieged did not allow this work, threatening as it was to the very existence of their city, to be carried on without interruption.

Catapults, posted on the city walls, kept up a continuous discharge of missiles; unceasing showers of stones came from the archers and slingers, while bodies of infantry were kept in readiness to sally forth whenever and wherever they saw an opportunity of doing damage. The Romans had, so to speak, to build and dig with a workman's tool in the one hand and a weapon in the other, but they stuck to their task with indefatigable zeal and inexhaustible courage. The officers shared all the toils and dangers of their men, and the work progressed, not indeed without loss, but without interruption.

Meanwhile the city was in a state of constantly increasing excitement from another cause, not unconnected, however, with the war. The festival of Baal Hammon--otherwise Moloch--was approaching, and it was to be kept with unusual splendour, even, it was said, with rites of worship that had fallen into disuse for many years. For Carthage, though it had much of the unchanging temper of the East, was not wholly untouched by the spirit of progress, and some of the darker and more savage practices of her religion were no longer practised. But now again the fiercer instincts of the race were waking. It was a common topic of talk in the streets that the desperate fortunes of the state called for more effectual methods of propitiating the anger of heaven. Meetings of the Senate were held daily with closed doors, and it was known, though instant death was the appointed penalty of any indiscreet revelation by a senator, that the chief subject of debate was settling the details of the great Moloch feast.

Cleanor, in common with the other Greeks in the population, whether civil or military, heard but little of the matter. It was, in a way, kept from them by their companions and comrades, who knew that they regarded such proceedings without sympathy, not to say, with disgust. In the ordinary course the great day would have come and pa.s.sed without his knowing anything about it beyond the fact that it was the chief festival of the Carthaginian year. But this was not to be.

He was returning to his quarters somewhat late in the evening, two days before the appointed time, when he felt a hand laid on the sleeve of his tunic, and heard himself called by his name in a voice which somehow seemed familiar, though he could not immediately connect it with any friend or acquaintance. He halted, and turned to the speaker.

It was a woman, poorly clad as far as he could see in the dim light, and of middle age, to judge from what appeared of her veiled and cloaked figure.

"Help, n.o.ble Cleanor!"

That strange faculty of remembering voices that most of us have, strange because it is a sheer effort of memory, unhelped by any accessories of shape and colour, did not fail him.

"What! is it you, Theoxena?" he cried.

Theoxena was his foster-mother, the wife of a poor schoolmaster at Chelys, who had been persuaded by her own need and the liberal offers of Cleanor's father to undertake the nurture of one of his twin-children.

She had been resident for some years at Carthage, to which city her husband had migrated, tempted by the prospect of more liberal remuneration than he could hope for in his native place.

"Yes, sir, it is I," said the poor woman in a voice broken with tears.

"And oh, in such trouble! If you could help me--but come in here. 'Tis but a poor place; but I cannot tell you my story in the street."

Her home was close at hand, and Cleanor followed her in. A poor place it was, but clean and neatly kept, and even with some little marks of taste and culture. In one corner of the room stood a _capsa_, a cylindrical case for holding ma.n.u.script rolls, and above it, on a bracket fastened into the wall, a statuette of Hermes. The chairs were of elegant pattern, though of common wood, and the mats on the floor, though worn and shabby, were of artistic pattern.

"Well, Theoxena," he said, "what is the matter? What can I do for you?"

"Oh, sir!" she answered, commanding her voice with an effort, "they have stolen from me my little Cephalus, the dearest, brightest little boy that ever was, and are going to offer him for a sacrifice to their dreadful Hammon."

"But how do you know? How did it happen?"

"You shall hear the story from Daphne, who was with him when he was stolen."

"And who is Daphne?" asked Cleanor.

Daphne, who had been sitting in a small chamber leading out of the main room, came forward on hearing her name, holding in her hands a piece of tapestry at which she had been working. She was a girl of fourteen or thereabouts, not actually beautiful, perhaps, but with a rare promise of beauty; her figure had something of the awkwardness of the time which comes between childhood and womanhood; her features still wanted that subtle moulding which the last critical years of girlhood seem able to give. But her eyes, blue as a southern sea with a noonday sun above it, were marvellously clear and full of light; her complexion was dazzlingly bright, and all the more striking from its contrast to the generally swarthy hue of the inhabitants of Carthage. Her hair was of a rich red gold colour, and would have been of extraordinary beauty if it had had its natural length. As it was, it was cropped almost close, though here and there a little curl of a new growth had begun to show itself.

"This, sir, is my Daphne," said the woman, laying her hand upon the girl's head. "We are good patriots, I am sure, for the dear girl gave up her beautiful hair--if you will believe me, it used to come down nearly to her ankles--to be made into a string for a bow. The bow-maker said it was the very finest he had had, though all the great ladies in Carthage did the same, I am told. Daphne," she went on, "tell the n.o.ble Cleanor about our darling little Cephalus."

"Remember," said the young man, who saw that the girl was trembling excessively, "remember that the n.o.ble Cleanor is your brother, even as Theoxena is his mother," and he lifted his foster-mothers hand to his lips and respectfully kissed it.

The girl began her story: "I took my little brother to walk in the garden--the garden, I mean, of Mago the senator, who kindly lets us use it, because the streets are so noisy and crowded, and the people are so rude." Cleanor did not wonder that she attracted more notice than she liked. "There is seldom anybody there; but that day there was an old man who began to pet dear little Cephalus, and give him sweetmeats and cakes. He seemed very kind, and I never dreamt of any harm; and besides, I was there, for I never leave Cephalus alone. Ah! but I did leave him alone that morning, wicked girl that I am." And she burst into a flood of tears. "But then what could I do? Hylax--that is the puppy that Cephalus is so fond of--began to fight with another dog, and Cephalus was frightened, and said, 'He'll be killed! he'll be killed! Do save him, Daphne.' He would himself have run to help, but I was afraid he would be bitten, though that would have been better than what did happen. So I told him to sit still where he was, and I ran to help Hylax. It took me a long time to get hold of him, for he was very angry, and would go on fighting though the other dog was much bigger. And when I looked round, the dear little boy was gone. I hunted all over the garden, and called him a hundred times, but it was no use. Mother hasn't blamed me once, but I can't help feeling that it was my fault."

"But what," asked Cleanor, speaking to Theoxena, "has put this dreadful idea of Hammon into your head?"

"Oh! I know from what my neighbours have told me that there is going to be a sacrifice such as there has not been for years and years, and that a number of children are to be put into the fire. The priests say that there must be a hundred, not one less. Some parents offered their own children--to think that anybody could be so wicked!--and these quite rich and n.o.ble people, I am told; but still there were not enough, so others had to be taken by force. Besides, the priests said that there must be children of every race that was in Carthage; and no Greek children could be got except by kidnapping them. And there was something, too, which Daphne did not tell you. She picked up a b.u.t.ton where the old man had been sitting, and I have been told by someone who knows that it is of a kind that only the temple servants of Hammon use."

"I see," said Cleanor; "there seems very little doubt that it is so. But don't trouble; you shall have your son again. I have a hundred things to ask you, but that must be for another day; there is no time to be lost now. Farewell!"

The young man had spoken confidently enough to the agonized mother, but when he came to reflect on what he had to do he did not feel by any means confident. All night he was busy with the problem, but seemed, when the morning came, as far off a solution as ever. He could not even think where to go for counsel and help. His Greek comrades would feel with him, but they probably knew no more about the matter than he did.

As to his Carthaginian fellow-officers, though he was on the best of terms with them, it was quite useless, and indeed impossible, to approach them. At last an idea occurred to him. The Greek physician who had attended him when he was in Hasdrubal's house might possibly be not only willing, but able to help him. Willing he would certainly be, for he was a Greek; able, possibly, seeing that his practice lay largely among Carthaginians of the highest cla.s.s.

He lost no time in looking for his friend, and was luckily soon successful in his search.

"I am not surprised," said the physician when he had heard the story. "I knew that something of the kind was going on, though the priests keep it as quiet as they can. I was called in yesterday to see the wife of a senator. She was in a state of prostration, for which I could see no physical cause. Of course I diagnosed mental trouble, and put some questions in that direction. I got nothing but the vaguest answers. Just when I was going away I asked some question about her children. She said nothing, but the next moment she fell into the very worst fit of hysterics I have ever seen. I put two and two together, for I haven't been a doctor for forty years for nothing, and guessed the truth. And afterwards, when I was giving the maid in attendance some directions, I heard it for certain. The poor woman had given up her eldest boy, a beautiful little creature of six, to Moloch. And now about this Greek child. Well, we must not be seen on the street talking together. Come to my house about noon to-morrow, and we will talk it over."