the disasters which have been brought upon her by it. But the
subject is a dangerous one; the council have spies everywhere, and
to be denounced as one hostile to the established state of things
is to be lost."

"I know the danger," the young man said passionately. "I know that
hitherto all who have ventured to raise their voices against the
authority of these tyrants have died by torture -- that murmuring
has been stamped out in blood. Yet were the danger ten times
as great," and the speaker had risen now from his couch and was
walking up and down the tent, "I could not keep silent. What have
our tyrants brought us to? Their extravagance, their corruption,
have wasted the public funds and have paralyzed our arms. Sicily
and Sardinia have been lost; our allies in Africa have been goaded
by their exactions again and again into rebellion, and Carthage
has more than once lately been obliged to fight hard for her very
existence. The lower classes in the city are utterly disaffected;
their earnings are wrung from them by the tax gatherers. Justice
is denied them by the judges, who are the mere creatures of the
committee of five. The suffetes are mere puppets in their hands.
Our vessels lie unmanned in our harbours, because the funds which
should pay the sailors are appropriated by our tyrants to their
own purposes. How can a Carthaginian who loves his country remain
silent?"

"All you say is true, Giscon," the general said gravely, "though
I should be pressed to death were it whispered in Carthage that I
said so; but at present we can do nothing. Had the great Hamilcar
Barca lived I believe that he would have set himself to work to
clear out this Augean stable, a task greater than that accomplished