Chapter VI: A Momentous Meeting

Although Maharbal’s union with Elissa was kept absolutely secret, yet, since he lived in the same building as that which his Chief had selected as his head-quarters, it was easy for him to be with her at all times. Moreover, since he was Hannibal’s right-hand man, there were none who dared to criticise the terms of intimacy upon which he might be with Hannibal’s daughter. In years gone by, she had been looked upon as being virtually his wife, and it had been well known in those days that it was only the dislike on the part of Hannibal to his officers being married just before going on a campaign that had prevented the union being then acknowledged. Now there were none of the superior officers still alive who had left Spain with Hannibal at the beginning of the Italian war, and, of all others present, none dared to cast an aspersion upon the daughter of their great Chief and greatest and most daring General, especially as her unusual intimacy with Maharbal apparently met with the Chief’s own approval.

Thus it came to pass that during the few months passed at Adrumentum, Elissa, while still passing as an unmarried woman, was constantly in her husband’s society, and that gradually his single-mindedness, his frank boyishness of character, which years of campaigning and bloodshed had been unable to spoil, won somewhat upon her once more. It was by degrees certainly, but they won upon her all the same.

Maharbal was ever so diffident, so conscious of his own shortcomings, so ready to make excuses for everything in Elissa’s own past life, that it would have been wonderful indeed, if, after having once become his actual wife, she had not considerably melted towards him.

He, poor fellow, recognised the barrier at first, and with reason put it down to his own fault in that he had not come back to her when Hannibal had given him, upon two occasions, the opportunity of doing so. He was now inclined to blame himself for his behaviour upon those occasions, and treated his wife, in consequence, with an amount of delicacy and respect which could scarcely have been expected in a man whose whole life had been passed in scenes of carnage and slaughter.

But although a soldier, and even at times a cruel soldier, his own life had ever been absolutely pure. As Scipio had been in the Roman army, so had Maharbal been in the Carthaginian army. In an era when rapine was law, when lust in its most brutal forms was not merely tolerated but approved, each had selected for himself a higher standard than that of the age. The unfortunate thing was that they had both placed their whole affections upon the same woman, that that woman had loved each in turn, and that, strive how she might, she had been unable to fulfil her duty, or what she considered her whole duty to either of them. For what she gave to one she took from the other.

Poor Elissa! It were useless to say that she ought only to have loved one of them. Now, living with Maharbal, and being a woman of great acumen, she soon recognised his greatness, and her mistake in having condemned him too readily. For it became patent to her that it was no idea of his own self-aggrandisement, his own military glory, that had kept him from her side, but solely love and devotion to her own father. With an open simple nature like his, there was no concealment possible from such a clever woman as herself. Therefore, she very soon learned the secret of the terrible act of self-renunciation which the young warrior must have put upon himself at the time that he allowed her uncle Mago to return to Iberia and New Carthage in his place, when he might have come back himself to find a loving bride. As all this dawned upon her, Elissa respected Maharbal more and more. She even loved him in a way, yet it was never in the old way of early girlhood. For all that, from sheer gratitude, she tried to persuade herself, and easily succeeded in persuading him, that the old passion had come back again with all its old intensity. Thus was she more nearly happy than she had been for years past, while she made Maharbal supremely so.

While Hannibal was collecting troops at his head-quarters at Adrumentum, he had not forgotten his idea of recruiting as many Numidian cavalry as possible. For this purpose he sent Maharbal with a large escort, to visit various Numidian chieftains, and upon this expedition, although having for appearance sake a separate guard and a separate camp, Elissa accompanied him.

The Roman armies had not traversed the districts of Libya through which the Carthaginians were travelling, and as, for the first time in her life, Elissa rode through the green fertile hills and villages of Northern Africa, the tears came into her eyes at the peaceful beauty of the scene, and with grief at the idea that all might soon be laid waste and destroyed by the hand of the invader.

They had, however, a prosperous journey through the highlands and lowlands lying on the banks of the winding Bagradus, and were hospitably received at the city of the Numidian Prince Tychæus. This prince, a kinsman to Maharbal, was at first loth to join Hannibal for fear of their mutual kinsman Massinissa; but Elissa’s beautiful eyes being once turned upon the young Numidian, carried the day, for their soul-stirring appeal went deep down into his heart far more than all the arguments of Maharbal. The result was that upon their return to the head-quarters camp at Adrumentum, Maharbal and Hannibal’s daughter carried back with them in their train not only the Prince Tychæus himself, but also two thousand of his Numidian cavalry, whereupon Hannibal determined upon taking the field instantly, and seeking Scipio without more delay.

After Hannibal had once taken the field, confidence was restored to an enormous extent throughout Libya, while the inhabitants of Carthage, from having fallen to a state of the utmost gloom and despondency, became elated to the highest degree. The foolish Carthaginians, who had, since the time of Hamilcar, deteriorated more and more under the long-continued ascendancy of the party of Hanno, now gave way to the greatest excesses, so certain were they that their delivery was at hand. Hence, not only did the horrible sacrifices to Moloch continue, or rather, re-commence in full swing, but the worship of Tanais, the Carthaginian Venus, was celebrated with an amount of debauchery that had never been known before. Instead of devoting all their energies to assisting the lion of Iberia and Italy, the inhabitants of Carthage, under the pretence of thanking the gods for the mercies vouchsafed to them in sending Hannibal to the rescue, vowed their slaves to Moloch, and their daughters to Tanais. As regards the actual war, they had sent to Hannibal a contingent of untrained men and of untrained elephants, that was enough. Hannibal was expected to do all the rest. And although in his heart he despised--ay, utterly despised this people of Carthage--he determined to do the best he could with the materials at his command. But neither in quantity nor in quality were his new Carthaginian recruits what he would have wished, deteriorated as they were by all the vices of the city of modern Carthage. He, however, received valuable assistance at this period from Philip of Macedon, who sent a considerable reinforcement of good troops. Hannibal now marched across Libya from east to west, and had various small successes over occasional detachments of Roman soldiers whom he met with on his way. At length he found himself face to face with the whole of Scipio’s army near a little town called Zama.

Elissa had accompanied her father upon the line of march, and occupied a tent adjacent to his own. Once they had taken the field, there was no more intimacy between Maharbal and his wife than had she been the unmarried woman she was supposed to be.

When the two armies were still lying inactive face to face off Zama, the same idea of a personal parley occurred to both of the commanders; but Scipio it was who first put the idea into words. He sent a herald with great state to Hannibal’s camp with a letter.

In this letter he demanded a personal interview with Hannibal ere they should decide the most momentous issue at stake in mortal combat. And as he knew that Hannibal’s daughter spoke Greek, a language with which he was well acquainted, he requested that she might be present at the interview and serve, moreover, as interpreter between them.

Hannibal accepted the invitation, and on the following morning rode out into the plain separating the two armies, with his staff officers and his daughter Elissa. The latter was attired in the garments of a young Carthaginian nobleman, for although she had discarded her arms for ever, she had assumed manly raiment upon taking the field. She was gorgeously clad in raiment of light blue and silver, which, closely fitting her figure, showed off to the greatest advantage the charms of her person. Upon her head she wore a little silver casque surmounted with wings. As she rode up upon her black charger, which she bestrode gallantly Numidian-wise, being seated upon a pale blue and silver saddle-cloth, she looked, so thought Scipio, as she approached, like some delicate youth of sixteen. Her colouring was perfect, for, owing to the fresh air in which she daily lived, Elissa was at this time in the very perfection of feminine health and beauty.

Scipio was waiting in a group of palm trees, to which, having left his staff officers at a distance, Hannibal advanced with Elissa. Scipio sent all his own attendants to the rear as he saw Hannibal and his daughter approaching. He dismounted, and giving his horse to a gorgeously-attired slave, sent the man with the charger back out of earshot. Then saluting the great Carthaginian conqueror and his daughter most courteously, the great Roman conqueror advanced, and giving his hand to Elissa, assisted her to alight.

And what an appealing look was there in that noble face as it looked upwards into the beautiful eyes above him!

As Elissa involuntarily returned the pressure of the hand that held hers, she could feel the pulses beating rapidly in its veins, while she felt her heart throbbing painfully. She turned pale as she met that fervent glance.

“Elissa, I have ever loved thee.”

“Scipio, thou hast been ever in my prayers.”

Unheard by Hannibal, whom a slave was helping to dismount, these two short sentences were hurriedly whispered between them out there in the grove, in the middle of the plain, whereon only a few scattered date palms intercepted the view from the two enormous camps of armed men on the one side and the other. There was no time for more, but in that one glance from the eagle eye of the Roman, in that one whispered word, Elissa recognised how true and devoted he had been to her through all these years. She realised something more, and realised it with a terrible fear at her heart, namely, that she herself loved him still.

Scipio had only just time to note the piteous look upon his beloved’s face when the situation was interrupted by Hannibal. He, advancing, and waiving the services of Elissa as interpreter, spoke in Latin, and spoke somewhat jocularly to begin with, for he seemed quite in one of his old merry moods.

“I salute thee, Scipio, and right pleased am I at last to behold the gallant young cockerel who hath sworn to clip for him the wings of the old cock of the farmyard. Give me thy hand, for whatever the upshot of this interview betwixt us may be, ’twill be historical, and it shall not be said that two such warriors as Scipio and Hannibal could meet and not take each other by the hand.”

“I salute thee, and gladly take thy hand, oh Hannibal, and greatly doth the young cockerel appreciate such condescension on the part of the eagle.”

And Scipio putting forth his hand, the two warriors clasped each other warmly with mutual respect.

“Now would I salute the lady Elissa,” quoth Scipio, looking at Hannibal as for permission.

“Ay, salute her by all means--embrace her an thou wilt--there is no harm in it this once, her father being present, for ’tis the only chance that ever thou shalt have, my gallant young friend, to embrace her whom thou didst so nearly succeed in making thy bride. It would, indeed, have been strange had I now been speaking with mine own son-in-law. Embrace her, I say, an she will permit it, and I, her father, do thank thee for all the most noble courtesies that thou didst show unto her whom the fortune of war had made thy prisoner, and further, for rescuing her from that scoundrel Philip. I would that thou wert a Carthaginian, Scipio, by all the gods I do.”

But Scipio was not listening to Hannibal. He had thrown his arm around Elissa and was embracing her tenderly. She felt her knees trembling so that she could not have stood had it not been for his support. And once, once only, she returned his embrace ardently full on the lips. She knew it was a want of faith to Maharbal, but it could not be so very sinful, she thought, since her father, the sole witness of the action, permitted it, nay, encouraged it. Moreover, she felt that she owed Scipio something, ay, much indeed, and a kiss was little enough to give him after all that he had done for her.

Now, however, she sought to extricate herself from his embrace, while Hannibal looked on amused. Gently restraining her still, Scipio addressed her father.

“My lord Hannibal, thou hast said but now that I might have been thy son-in-law--give me but this dear lady in mine arms and we will make peace, a peace upon far less onerous terms than those that have been already proposed to the Carthaginian Senate.”

“Nay, nay!” answered Hannibal, frowning. “I cannot make peace unless I fight thee first, or unless thou wilt own that thou darest not fight me lest thou should be beaten. I cannot give thee my daughter unless thou wilt agree to that, and to withdraw with all thy forces beyond the sea at once. Then thou canst go and take her with thee if thou wilt, but thou shalt not claim a single one of our ships, nor a single talent of our silver, but go recognising thyself in an inferiority. If thou dost love my daughter so greatly thou canst well do that, Scipio.”

The young Roman’s face flushed angrily as his arm fell from Elissa’s waist, although he still clasped her hand.

“And what of the satisfaction to be given for the transports, which came ashore and were seized in time of truce? and what of the treacherous attack made upon the Roman ambassadors returning unsuspectingly from Carthage by sea to mine own camp near Utica? Is there to be no return, no punishment for those two great crimes against international law, against every law of honour? How couldst thou expect me, Hannibal, to go back to the Roman Senate with terms like these? They are impossible, and thou dost know it, and thou thyself wouldst despise me did I accept them.”

“Ay,” replied Hannibal, smiling grimly, “they are, perhaps, almost impossible, and I might possibly despise thee, yet that would not hurt thee much; but they are the only terms upon which I will give thee my daughter; it all depends upon how much thou dost desire her, young man.”

“Then we must fight,” cried Scipio, “and I must resign Elissa!”

He looked imploringly and sadly at her as he dropped her hand and faced her.

“Ay, we must fight, Scipio,” replied Hannibal, “although, since great hath already been thy success in Spain, thou wouldst do better not to fight. For thy fame is now assured--it will be no greater shouldst thou win this battle; while shouldst thou be defeated all will be lost to thee. Look at me, see what an example I am of the reverses of fortune, and such reverses may be thine own to-morrow. Better, therefore, for thee to hearken unto my words. Leave Carthaginian soil and do not fight, and if thou leave at once thou canst take Elissa with thee.”

“It cannot be,” said Scipio sadly; “so fare thee well, dear Elissa.” He kissed her hand gently, while her eyes were suffused with tears. Scipio continued: “Hannibal, I salute thee; to-morrow we will meet in mortal combat upon this plain, for, far from my submitting, thou it is who must submit to me unconditionally, or conquer me in the field.”

“Farewell, Scipio, farewell, for to-morrow be it then; but thou art a headstrong young man, and mayst live to regret it. But I wish thee no ill, thou art a great general for one so young.”

Turning, they left the palm grove upon opposite sides. Hannibal and Elissa, having regained their horses, rode back in silence. For the daughter had not at all been able to understand the father’s line of conduct during the interview, and he did not vouchsafe any information on the subject.

One point, however, she had grasped from his behaviour. It was that, so long as any object affecting the honour or advantage of Carthage was at stake, Hannibal had been perfectly ready to ride rough-shod over not only his own old prejudices against all and everything Roman, but also ready utterly to disregard Maharbal’s happiness and possibly her own also. For that he had not during the late interview considered in the least his life-long friend Maharbal, to whom he yet was absolutely devoted, would have been patent to the simplest mind, among which class that of Elissa could hardly be reckoned.

But Hannibal had only been acting up to his own old theory and practice. The State before everything!