If I understand this man right he says he could have got them over if they had been sent first instead of held till now."
"You know very well," said Hannibal severely, "that we cannot now dislodge the natives from either of the vantage points on the river, nor can we now work round either with the force we have left, and they are being reinforced hourly. No, we must cross here."
He turned to the force of orderlies.
"Scatter!" he ordered. "Find Hannibal at once!"
Hannibal the Scout, the namesake of the great commander, was the most hated and the most feared man in the army, reputed the crudest man alive and known for the most cool headed, boldest, most reckless, most calculating and most competent man in the whole corps of spies,, scouts and skirmishers which he commanded, He had been born in the lowest slums of Carthage on the night when all its rabble were feasting at the expense of Hamilcar Barca, who honored with lavish magnificence the birth-anniversary of his heir. After that heir of the great Admiral the slum baby had been named by its mother. Before it was three years old its parents died or abandoned it, and the waif grew up into an amazing precocity of vice. Brought by chance to the Admiral's notice, the street boy
