erself in helping him, was as pale
as he. The child, dazzled by such splendour, smiled and, growing bold
even, was beginning to clap his hands and jump, when Hamilcar took him
away.

He held him firmly by the arm as though he were afraid of losing him,
and the child, who was hurt, wept a little as he ran beside him.

When on a level with the ergastulum, under a palm tree, a voice was
raised, a mournful and supplicant voice. It murmured: "Master! oh!
master!"

Hamilcar turned and beside him perceived a man of abject appearance, one
of the wretches who led a haphazard existence in the household.

"What do you want?" said the Suffet.

The slave, who trembled horribly, stammered:

"I am his father!"

Hamilcar walked on; the other followed him with stooping loins, bent
hams, and head thrust forward. His face was convulsed with unspeakable
anguish, and he was choking with suppressed sobs, so eager was he at
once to question him, and to cry: "Mercy!"

At last he ventured to touch him lightly with one finger on the elbow.

"Are you going to--?" He had not the strength to finish, and Hamilcar
stopped quite amazed at such grief.

He had never thought--so immense was the abyss separating them from
each other--that there could be anything in common between them. It
even appeared to him a sort of outrage, an encroachment upon his
own privileges. He replied with a look colder and heavier than an
executioner's axe; the slave swooned and fell in the dust at his feet.
Hamilcar strode across him.

The three black-robed men were waiting in the great hall, and standing
against the stone disc. Immediately he tore his garments, and rolled
upon the pavement uttering piercing cries.

"Ah! poor little Hannibal! Oh! my son! my consolation! my hope! my life!
Kill me also! take me away! Woe! Woe!" He ploughed his face with his
nails, tore out his hair, and shrieked like the women who lament at
funerals. "Take him away then! my suffering is too great! begone! kill
me like him!" The servants of Moloch were astonished that the great
Hamilcar was so weak-spirited. They were almost moved by it.

A noise of naked feet became audible, with a broken throat-rattling like
the breathing of a wild beast speeding along, and a man, pale, terrible,
and with outspread arms appeared on the threshold of the third gallery,
between the ivory pots; he exclaimed:

"My child!"

Hamilcar threw himself with a bound upon the slave, and covering the
man'