When he got to Rome, instead of urging them to make peace, he told his
countrymen to go on with the war.
The Roman Government were inclined to do this, but at the same time
they saw that if they did, Regulus would probably be put to death by
the Carthaginians for not having procured peace, so they did not know
what to do.
Regulus, seeing their difficulty, told them that he was an old man and
his life did not matter, and he pretended that he had already taken
slow poison. So the Romans resolved to continue the war, and Regulus
went back to Carthage, according to his promise, and gave himself up
to the Carthaginians.
[Illustration: AN ARAB BOY AND HIS "MOKE."]
You might think that they would have admired him for his courage and
sense of honour, but the Carthaginians, as I told you, were a cowardly
lot; they hired soldiers to do their fighting for them, and, like all
cowards, they were cruel, too; so instead of respecting this plucky
old Roman, they punished him by shutting him into a box lined with
sharp spikes, so that he could get no rest nor sleep.
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