"Be calm!" said Actæon in a low voice. "If I stop you it is to say that I have recognized you. You are Hannibal, the son of the great Hamilcar! Your disguise may serve you among the Saguntines, but your boyhood friend knows you." The African bent his head forward with its bushy mass of hair, and his imperious eyes made out the Greek in the dim light. "Is it you, Actæon? When I met you so many times yesterday I knew that you would finally recognize me. What are you doing here?" "I am living in the house of Sónnica the rich." "I have heard of her, a Greek as famous for her beauty and her talent as the courtesans of Athens. I was also desirous of knowing her, and I think I should have loved her if it were a man's mission to chase after women. And are you doing nothing else?" "I am a soldier in the pay of the city." "You, the son of Lysias, the confidential captain of Hamilcar! You, a man educated in the Prytaneum of Athens, in the service of a city of barbarians and merchants!" Hannibal was silent for a moment as if wondering at the conduct of the Greek. At last he added resolutely: "Mount behind me on my horse! Come with me! In the port a Carthaginian ship, loading with silver, is waiting for me. I go to New Carthage to place myself at the head of my troops. Days of glory are coming, an immense and sublime enterprise, like that of the giants when, heaping mountain on mountain, they scaled your Olympus. Come! You are the friend of my childhood; I knew you before Hasdrubal and Mago, those sons of Hamilcar, whom the glorious captain gave me for brothers, calling all three of us 'my lion's brood.' I know you. You are astute and brave like your father; at my side you will conquer riches. Who knows but that you may reign as king in some fair land when, imitating Alexander, I divide my conquests among my captains!" "No, Carthaginian," said Actæon gravely. "I do not hate you; I remember our early years with pleasure; but I will never go with you. Your lineage prevents it, the past record of your nation, and the bloody shade of my father." "Nationality is but a fiction; 'the people' a pretext for making war. What matters it to you whether you serve Carthage or any other republic, since you are a Greek? If my own people should abandon me I would fight for any country. We are men of war; we fight for glory, power, and riches; the needs of our people only serve to justify our victory and our despoiling of the enemy. I hate the merchants of Carthage, pacific and stuck to their shops, as much as I hate the proud Romans. Come, Actæon, since we have met, follow me! Fortune goes with me." "No, Hannibal; here shall I remain. Seeing your African soldiers I should remember the mob that crucified Lysias." "That was an unavoidable crime, a mad deed of that truceless war to which the mercenaries impelled us. My father lamented it a thousand times, remembering his faithful Lysias. With my protection I will make amends for that injustice of Carthage."