f Greek theology--only,
in the Asian races, religious feeling was not religious thought, did
not arise from the mind or change, like the cults of Europe, as the
mind that evolved or adopted them developed and outgrew its offspring.

So it was that, while Marcia, but for her instinctive realization of
the truth, might have been utterly unable to credit the sincerity of
such prodigious wickedness, yet, armed with this intuition as a
starting-point, she sought for and found reasons to support it. The
purity of her own faith came to her aid. Perhaps the Punic gods were
mere demons, as they seemed to be, and Iddilcar knew it and relied for
protection upon the mightier gods of Rome. In a sense, she reasoned on
false premises, but her conclusion was, none the less, more accurate
than would have been that of either Paullus or Sergius. For the time,
at least, Iddilcar was entirely sincere. To be sure, if he could gain
his end by mere promises, he preferred to deceive Marcia rather than
Melkarth, but his plotting had not gotten so far as that yet. Now, his
fierce, Oriental nature was consuming with that passion which, in it,
took the place of all love. This Roman woman had aroused desires that
he had never known in the gardens of Ashera; her face was to the faces
of the courtesans who thronged the sacred woods on feast days, as the
glory of the crescent moon was to the sputter of the rancid oil in the
lamp that illumined the cell of Fancula Cluvia. Cunning beyond his
race, learned in the strange learning of the East that had come to a
few in Egypt and to fewer yet in Phoenicia, Iddilcar read the struggle
that was taking place in the girl's mind.

"What do I care for Hannibal!" he cried; "for the Great Council! for
Carthage! I would give them all to you for one kiss. To him who has
learned all secret knowledge, the mind alone is God and city and home
and friends,--everything, everything save love," and his voice, harsh,
and strident, sank to a whisper in which was compassed all the
fierceness of ungoverned and ungovernable desire.

Marcia knew, now, that he was speaking the truth; that he would indeed
stop at nothing; and, with the certainty, there came to her a strange
mingling of exultation, terror, and calm. She saw this man, powerful
with the power of the conqueror, learned with the learning of the
student and of the ascetic, grovelling here at her feet--slave to a
force against which no power, no philosophy could