eat designs for the annihilation of the power of Rome. I
come not in secret. I passed in a ship from Italy to Corinth, and there
at once hired a vessel to convey me hither."

"As we are members of the senate," Hanno said, "you can deliver your
message to us."

"I fear that it will go no further," Malchus replied. "The fact that
I have been thus secretly seized and carried here, shows how far it is
your wish that the people of Carthage should know my message. Still, as
even in your breasts all patriotism may not yet be dead, and as my
words may move you yet to do something to enable Hannibal to save the
republic, I will give you the message he sent me to deliver to the
senate."

A murmur of angry surprise arose from the seven men at the bold words
and the defiant bearing of their prisoner.

"How dare you thus address your judges?" Hanno exclaimed.

"Judges!" Malchus repeated scornfully, "executioners, you should say.
Think you that I know not that my death is resolved on? Even if you
would you dare not free a noble of Carthage, a son of a general who has
lost his life in her service, a cousin of the great Hannibal, after you
have thus treacherously seized and thrown him into a dungeon. Cowed as
the people of Carthage are by your tyranny, corrupted as they are
by your gold, this lawless act of oppression would rouse them to
resistance. No, Hanno, it is because I know that my doom is sealed I
thus fearlessly defy you and your creatures."

Malchus then proceeded to deliver the message of Hannibal to the senate.
He showed the exact situation of affairs in Italy, urged that if the
reinforcements asked for were sent, the success of the arms of Carthage
and the final defeat and humiliation of Rome were assured; while, on the
other hand, if Hannibal were left unaided, his army must in time dwindle
away until too feeble to resist the assaults of the Romans and their
allies. He warned his hearers that if this catastrophe should come
about, Rome, flushed with victory, smarting under the defeats and
humiliation which Hannibal had inflicted upon them, would in turn become
the aggressor, and would inflict upon Carthage a blow similar to that
with which Rome had been menaced by Hannibal.

Hanno and his companions listened in silence. Malchus for a time forgot
his own position and the character of the men he addressed, and pleaded
with an earnestness and passion such as he would have used had he been
addressing the whole senate.