FRIENDS MUST PART.
It was upon a beautiful summer’s morning that Mago embarked for
Carthage. The country all around the Carthaginian camp was, after a
shower on the previous night, looking its very best. The green leaves
of the vines, all bedewed with the raindrops, glistening in their
little hollows, dispensed a sweet odour in the clear, refreshing air.
The verdant cornfields, waving before the gentle sea-breeze, softly
rustled with a soothing sound, displaying, as they moved, the large
red poppies previously hidden beneath their bending stems. In the dim
distance, the peaks of the Apennines stood up purple and sharp to the
azure sky, while here and there a fleecy white cloud softly rested
upon some mountain crest, nestling around the hill-top, and embracing
it lovingly, as a pure maiden softly enfolding her lover in the
embrace of her snowy arms. Upon the groves of chestnut trees the
morning sun, striking upon one side and lighting them up vividly, made
all the more remarkable the contrast with the gloomy shades which
hovered in long, dark streaks along the branches where the sunbeams
had not yet fallen. Here and there from a belt of sweet-scented pine
trees could be heard the soft, trilling notes of Philomel, the
sad-voiced nightingale; while closer at hand, flowing past the fallen
tree trunk, upon which two warriors were seated, there rippled merrily
by a little streamlet, sparkling like silver in the morning rays.
At some distance in the foreground, as if to show that all in this
world is not peace, there stood line upon line of snow-white tents,
denoting the presence of an enormous camp, while behind the camp the
blue and scarcely ruffled waters of the Adriatic faded away in the far
distance into the blue of the sky, with which it seemed to merge its
waters. It was a morning made for love, for all that should be sweet
and delightful, a morning fit for heaven itself. But it was a morn
that was witness of a great sorrow--the parting of two lifelong
friends--who felt, they knew not why, that they were communing with
each other for the last time on earth.
Mago and Maharbal, each, although quite young, the hero of a hundred
bloody fights, sat upon the fallen tree, hand clasped in hand as
though they were but two young children. For long they sat in silence,
drinking in all the beauties of nature around, yet their hearts too
full to speak. So great was the sorrow they felt, that a kind of
awkwardness had fallen upon them both. They did not know what to say
to each other now that the time had come for parting. These two, who,
with bared sword and gleaming eye, so often had charged together side
by side into the very jaws of death, to issue on the other side of
some hostile squadron, with the warm blood dripping from their deadly
blades, were now speechless. At length Mago spoke, while gripping his
friend’s hand closer.
“I shall never forget it, Maharbal. I shall remember it all my life.”
“What?” said Maharbal, suddenly starting from his reverie, “remember
what, Mago?”
“How thou didst save me from that most blood-thirsty Gaul, at whose
mercy I was in that awful night of our second engagement on the Alps.
I can see thee now, in my mind’s eye, casting him and his horse
together over the precipice. By Moloch! but thou didst display a
terrible strength with this right hand of thine, snapping his hand at
the wrist like a carrot even as he was striking at me.”
“Tush, man! hold thy peace. I did not do one half for thee what thou
thyself didst for me before Saguntum--ay, and once again at the
Trebia, when three Romans had, owing to the slippery ground, unhorsed
me, and would have slain me but for thy killing two of them and
putting the third to flight. But him, thou wilt doubtless remember, I
pursued and slew myself. He was a terrible black-looking scoundrel,
but a very coward at heart, or he would not have fled when thou wast
but one to three, standing over my prostrate body. I killed him
easily.”
“Yea, I mind well the circumstance. But what shall we both do now when
we can do no more slaying together? I loved thee always as thine elder
brother, Maharbal, and feel inclined--laugh not at me, I pray--to weep
when I think that no longer thou and I shall be with the thundering
squadron in the thick of the same combat, oft times side by side. How
oft have I watched thy gigantic form from afar, cutting and slaying,
when thou knewest not that I was even observing thee.”
“And I too, Mago! How often have not I watched thy crimson and white
plume floating from thy silver helmet. To my dying day I never shall
forget the anxiety I felt on thy behalf that day of the fight on the
Ticinus, when, myself left behind in the oak trees, I saw thee a dozen
times in the clash of battle, surrounded by the enemy, but thank the
gods, invariably issuing the victor. Ay, we have had grand times
together! but now what shall I do without thee?”
“Hast thou not got Chœras?” asked Mago tentatively.
“Ay, I have Chœras,” answered Maharbal drily, “but is Chœras the
Mago whom I have loved from boyhood?”
There was a silence again after this, for the last remark was one that
admitted of no reply. Then Mago spoke again.
“Thou wilt succeed to the command of all the cavalry when I am gone,
Maharbal; be careful of the Gallic horsemen; their chief,
Vridomarchus, is not to be relied on--watch thou him well.”
“Ay, I will watch him, and slay him too, for thy sake, if he hath
offended thee in aught.”
“Nay, slay him not, at least not yet, but rule him with a hand of
iron; make him fear thee, and all will go well. Treat him ever like a
dog, for kindness he doth not understand, and he is verily like the
dog that biteth the hand that feeds him.”
“I thank thee, Mago, but I think I will slay him; he will be far less
trouble that way.”
Another pause ensued, and then, looking his comrade straight in the
face, the young General Mago asked the question that Maharbal had been
expecting.
“And what about my niece Elissa? shall I tell her or no that Hannibal
offered unto thee the chance of going to Carthage and then to Spain
instead of me, or rather before me?”
“Ay, tell her, Mago--she may as well know me as I am. I love her
deeply, ’tis true, but I love my duty to my country and to Hannibal
more than all else.”
“And what about Eugenia? shall I mention that circumstance? I think,
for mine own sake, ’twere wiser not, but ’twould vastly raise thee in
Elissa’s esteem to know how thou hadst scorned another for her love’s
sake.”
Maharbal sprung to his feet and covered his eyes with his hands as the
remembrance of the dreadful tragedy with Eugenia flashed vividly
across his mind. He turned and faced Mago.
“I would rather, oh my friend, my more than brother, that thou
shouldst say nought of that matter. It is not that I fear that she
should know that I have slain a woman, but I would not have her think
that I seek or have sought to glorify myself by assuming for her sake
a virtue that I have not felt. For, by the holy gods, Mago, it was, I
truly believe, chiefly for thine own sake that I acted as I did. But
thine honour and mine honour were at stake, Eugenia’s honour likewise.
In truth I know not rightly whether I thought of Elissa or no, the
whole affair hath been so horrible unto me. Therefore, Mago, while in
no wise binding thee, I think that I would rather that that matter
remained secret.”
“Ay, secret it shall be, but now tell me this; hast thou not a letter
for Elissa? if so, let me have it now. I shall see her within the
year.”
“Yea, I have a letter ready, and here it is. But stay a moment, I see
a wild rose climbing yonder, I would enclose a blossom or two and a
few leaves of the sweet briar within the folds. Tell her that I have
pressed them to my lips, and send them to her with all my love. I have
no other message to send; but I may never see her again, therefore
tell her simply this, that I am faithful still.”
Maharbal plucked the wild roses and enclosed them within his scroll,
which he gave to Mago. Then the two warriors and friends, who had seen
so many bloody fields together, clasped each other in their brawny
arms, all armour-clad as they were, even as they had been two weak,
foolish girls. After this they descended the hill almost in silence to
the camp.
Here there was great pomp and parade, and the great General Mago was
escorted to his ship with much ceremony by a large guard of honour
composed of men who had served under him in many a sanguinary
conflict.
And now, with the departure of Mago, it is time that we turned our
attention for awhile to what had been going on elsewhere.