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.