"I could not sleep," she said with a voice languid and measured. "I spent the first part of the night dreaming horrible dreams. The Goddess Tanith will not guard my repose, and I have seen the shade of my father Iarbas announcing my approaching death." "Death!" exclaimed Hannibal, laughing. "Who thinks of death?" "Am I then immortal? Do I not fight like any one of your soldiers? I hurl myself impetuously through forests of lances; feathered shafts hiss around me like a trailing mantle of invisible birds; I scorn the phalarics with their streams of fire--but some day I shall die; my dreams foretell it." Asbyte, as if fearing to show too great melancholy in the presence of Hannibal, added bitterly: "Let death come when it will! It does not frighten me as it does the merchants of Carthage who hate you. If it disturbed my sleep it was because when I awoke I thought of you. I cannot explain to myself why I thought that you also might die, and to your death, Hannibal, I cannot be resigned. You should live long like a god. I knew that you sleep alone in your tent; that, to better conceal your movements you keep no guards to watch while you slumber, and I felt the need of doing something for you, of spending the night leaning on my lance near your couch to prevent the treachery of an enemy." "What madness!" exclaimed the African, laughing. "Hannibal," said the beautiful Amazon gravely, "remember Hasdrubal, the husband of your sister. The dagger of a slave was enough to put an end to him." "Hasdrubal was doomed to die," said the chieftain, with the conviction of fatalism. "The fate of Carthage demanded his death. It was necessary that Hasdrubal should succumb to make way for Hannibal. But Hannibal has no one to replace him, and he shall live even though he were to sleep surrounded by enemies. My sleep is light and my arm is sure; he who slips into the tent of Hannibal enters his tomb." Asbyte contemplated with loving admiration the young hero, who had flung down his bow, and while he spoke of his strength he raised his powerful arms, and the moon enlarged their shadow in such wise that as they moved he seemed to embrace the camp, the city, the whole valley, like a supernatural being. The Amazon drew near leaning her lance against the trunk of a tree. On laying down her weapon she seemed to throw off her warlike mien, and she approached Hannibal with feminine sweetness, gazing upon him with the moist, timid eyes of the antelopes that frisk about the oases of her native land.