in our enterprise. No good fortune can be expected to attend our
efforts unless we have the help of the gods."

"The matter is easily mended, Giscon," Malchus said calmly. "So
far I have taken no step towards carrying out your plans, and have
but listened to what you said, therefore, no harm can yet have been
done. Strike my name off the list, and forget that I have been
with you. You have my oath that I will say nought of anything that
I have heard. You can well make some excuse to your comrades. Tell
them, for example, that though I fear not for myself, I thought
that, being the son of Hamilcar, I had no right to involve his name
and family in such an enterprise, unless by his orders."

"Yes, it were better so," Giscon said after a pause; "I dare not
continue the enterprise with one who condemns the gods among us;
it would be to court failure. I did not dream of this; who could
have thought that a lad of your age would have been a spurner of
the gods?"

"I am neither a condemner nor a spurner," Malchus said indignantly;
"I say only that I believe you worship them wrongfully, that you
do them injustice. I say it is impossible that the gods who rule
the world can have pleasure in the screams of dying infants or
the groans of slaughtered men."

Giscon placed his hand to his ears as if to shut out such blasphemy,
and hurried away, while Malchus, mounting his horse, rode out
slowly and thoughtfully to his father's villa. He was not at heart
sorry that he was freed from this association into which, without
knowing the measures by which it intended to carry out its aims,