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 u