how long it might be before they
would return.

While the others were sitting round the festive board, Adherbal and
Thyra strolled away among the groves in the garden.

"I do not think you care for me, Adherbal," she said reproachfully as he
was speaking of the probabilities of the campaign. "You know well
that this war may continue in Spain for years, and you seem perfectly
indifferent to the fact that we must be separated for that time."

"I should not be indifferent to it, Thyra, if I thought for a moment
that this was to be the case. I may remain, it is true, for years in
Spain; but I have not the most remote idea of remaining there alone. At
the end of the first campaign, when our army goes into winter quarters,
I shall return here and fetch you."

"That's all very well," the girl said, pouting; "but how do you know
that I shall be willing to give up all the delights of Carthage to go
among the savage Iberians, where they say the ground is all white in
winter and even the rivers stop in their courses?"

Adherbal laughed lightly. "Then it is not for you to talk about
indifference, Thyra; but it won't be so bad as you fear. At Carthagena
you will have all the luxuries of Carthage. I do not say that your villa
shall be equal to this; but as you will have me it should be a thousand
times dearer to you."

"Your conceit is superb, Adherbal," Thyra laughed. "You get worse
and worse. Had I ever dreamed of it I should never have consented
so submissively when my father ordered me to regard you as my future
husband."

"You ought to think yourself a fortunate girl, Thyra," Adherbal said,
smiling; "for your father might have taken it into his head to have
done as Hamilcar Barca did, and married his daughters to Massilian and
Numidian princes, to become queens of bands of nomad savages."

"Well, they were queens, that was something, even if only of nomads."

"I don't think that it would have suited you, Thyra--a seat on horseback
for a throne, and a rough tent for a palace, would not be in your way at
all. I think a snug villa on the slopes of the bay of Carthagena, will
suit you better, not to mention the fact that I shall make an infinitely
more pleasant and agreeable master than a Numidian chief would do."

"You are intolerable, Adherbal, with your conceit and your mastership.
However, I suppose when the time comes I shall have to obey my father.
What a pity it is we girls cannot choose our husbands for ourselves!