Salammbo

by

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apart.



They were found lying stretched in long lines, on their backs, with

their mouths open, and their lances beside them; or else they were

piled up pell-mell so that it was often necessary to dig out a whole

heap in order to discover those they were wanting. Then the torch

would be passed slowly over their faces. They had received complicated

wounds from hideous weapons. Greenish strips hung from their

foreheads; they were cut in pieces, crushed to the marrow, blue from

strangulation, or broadly cleft by the elephants' ivory. Although they

had died at almost the same time there existed differences between

their various states of corruption. The men of the North were puffed

up with livid swellings, while the more nervous Africans looked as

though they had been smoked, and were already drying up. The

Mercenaries might be recognised by the tattooing on their hands: the

old soldiers of Antiochus displayed a sparrow-hawk; those who had

served in Egypt, the head of the cynosephalus; those who had served

with the princes of Asia, a hatchet, a pomegranate, or a hammer; those

who had served in the Greek republics, the side-view of a citadel or

the name of an archon; and some were to be seen whose arms were

entirely covered with these multiplied symbols, which mingled with

their scars and their recent wounds.



Four great funeral piles were erected for the men of Latin race, the

Samnites, Etruscans, Campanians, and Bruttians.



The Greeks dug pits with the points of their swords. The Spartans

removed their red cloaks and wrapped them round the dead; the

Athenians laid them out with their faces towards the rising sun; the

Cantabrians buried them beneath a heap of pebbles; the Nasamonians

bent them double with ox-leather thongs, and the Garamantians went and

interred them on the shore so that they might be perpetually washed by

the waves. But the Latins were grieved that they could not collect the

ashes in urns; the Nomads regretted the heat of the sands in which

bodies were mummified, and the Celts, the three rude stones beneath a

rainy sky at the end of an islet-covered gulf.



Vociferations arose, followed by the lengthened silence. This was to

oblige the souls to return. Then the shouting was resumed persistently

at regular intervals.



They made excuses to the dead for their inability to honour them as

the rites prescribed: for, owing to this deprivation, they would pass

for infinite periods through all kinds of chances and metamorphoses;

they questioned them and asked them what they desired; others loaded

them with abuse for having allowed themselves to be conquered.



The bloodless faces lying back here and there on wrecks of armour

showed pale in the light of the great funeral-pile; tears provoked

tears, the sobs became shriller, the recognitions and embracings more

frantic. Women stretched themselves on the corpses, mouth to mouth and

brow to brow; it was necessary to beat them in order to make them

withdraw when the earth was being thrown in. They blackened their

cheeks; they cut off their hair; they drew their own blood and poured

it into the pits; they gashed themselves in imitation of the wounds

that disfigured the dead. Roarings burst forth through the crashings

of the cymbals. Some snatched off their amulets and spat upon them.

The dying rolled in the bloody mire biting their mutilated fists in

their rage; and forty-three Samnites, quite a "sacred spring," cut one

another's throats like gladiators. Soon wood for the funeral-piles

failed, the flames were extinguished, every spot was occupied; and

weary from shouting, weakened, tottering, they fell asleep close to

their dead brethren, those who still clung to life full of anxieties,

and the others desiring never to wake again.



In the greyness of the dawn some soldiers appeared on the outskirts of

the Barbarians, and filed past with their helmets raised on the points

of their pikes; they saluted the Mercenaries and asked them whether

they had no messages to send to their native lands.



Others approached, and the Barbarians recognised some of their former

companions.



The Suffet had proposed to all the captives that they should serve in

his troops. Several had fearlessly refused; and quite resolved neither

to support them nor to abandon them to the Great Council, he had sent

them away with injunctions to fight no more against Carthage. As to

those who had been rendered docile by the fear of tortures, they had

been furnished with the weapons taken from the enemy; and they were

now presenting themselves to the vanquished, not so much in order to

seduce them as out of an impulse of pride and curiosity.



At first they told of the good treatment which they had received from

the Suffet; the Barbarians listened to them with jealousy although

they despised them. Then at the first words of reproach the cowards

fell into a passion; they showed them from a distance their own swords

and cuirasses and invited them with abuse to come and take them. The

Barbarians picked up flints; all took to flght; and nothing more could

be seen on the summit of the mountain except the lance-points

projecting above the edge of the palisades.



Then the Barbarians were overwhelmed with a grief that was heavier

than the humiliation of the defeat. They thought of the emptiness of

their courage, and they stood with their eyes fixed and grinding their

teeth.



The same thought came to them all. They rushed tumultuously upon the

Carthaginian prisoners. It chanced that the Suffet's soldiers had been

unable to discover them, and as he had withdrawn from the field of

battle they were still in the deep pit.



They were ranged on the ground on a flattened spot. Sentries formed a

circle round them, and the women were allowed to enter thirty or forty

at a time. Wishing to profit by the short time that was allowed to

them, they ran from one to the other, uncertain and panting; then

bending over the poor bodies they struck them with all their might

like washerwomen beating linen; shrieking their husband's names they

tore them with their nails and put out their eyes with the bodkins of

their hair. The men came next and tortured them from their feet, which

they cut off at the ankles, to their foreheads, from which they took

crowns of skin to put upon their own heads. The Eaters of Uncleanness

were atrocious in their devices. They envenomed the wounds by pouring

into them dust, vinegar, and fragments of pottery; others waited

behind; blood flowed, and they rejoiced like vintagers round fuming

vats.



Matho, however, was seated on the ground, at the very place where he

had happened to be when the battle ended, his elbows on his knees, and

his temples in his hands; he saw nothing, heard nothing, and had

ceased to think.



At the shrieks of joy uttered by the crowd he raised his head. Before

him a strip of canvas caught on a flagpole, and trailing on the

ground, sheltered in confused fashion blankets, carpets, and a lion's

skin. He recognised his tent; and he riveted his eyes upon the ground

as though Hamilcar's daughter, when she disappeared, had sunk into the

earth.



The torn canvas flapped in the wind; the long rags of it sometimes

passed across his mouth, and he perceived a red mark like the print of

a hand. It was the hand of Narr' Havas, the token of their alliance.

Then Matho rose. He took a firebrand which was still smoking, and

threw it disdainfully upon the wrecks of his tent. Then with the toe

of his cothurn he pushed the things which fell out back towards the

flame so that nothing might be left.



Suddenly, without any one being able to guess from what point he had

sprung up, Spendius reappeared.



The former slave had fastened two fragments of a lance against his

thigh; he limped with a piteous look, breathing forth complaints the

while.



"Remove that," said Matho to him. "I know that you are a brave

fellow!" For he was so crushed by the injustice of the gods that he

had not strength enough to be indignant with men.



Spendius beckoned to him and led him to a hollow of the mountain,

where Zarxas and Autaritus were lying concealed.



They had fled like the slave, the one although he was cruel, and the

other in spite of his bravery. But who, said they, could have expected

the treachery of Narr' Havas, the burning of the camp of the Libyans,

the loss of the zaimph, the sudden attack by Hamilcar, and, above all,

his manoeuvres which forced them to return to the bottom of the

mountain beneath the instant blows of the Carthaginians? Spendius made

no acknowledgement of his terror, and persisted in maintaining that

his leg was broken.



At last the three chiefs and the schalischim asked one another what

decision should now be adopted.



Hamilcar closed the road to Carthage against them; they were caught

between his soldiers and the provinces belonging to Narr' Havas; the

Tyrian towns would join the conquerors; the Barbarians would find

themselves driven to the edge of the sea, and all those united forces

would crush them. This would infallibly happen.



Thus no means presented themselves of avoiding the war. Accordingly

they must prosecute it to the bitter end. But how were they to make

the necessity of an interminable battle understood by all these

disheartened people, who were still bleeding from their wounds.



"I will undertake that!" said Spendius.



Two hours afterwards a man who came from the direction of Hippo-

Zarytus climbed the mountain at a run. He waved some tablets at arm's

length, and as he shouted very loudly the Barbarians surrounded him.



The tablets had been despatched by the Greek soldiers in Sardinia.

They recommended their African comrades to watch over Gisco and the

other captives. A Samian trader, one Hipponax, coming from Carthage,

had informed them that a plot was being organised to promote their

escape, and the Barbarians were urged to take every precaution; the

Republic was powerful.



Spendius's stratagem did not succeed at first as he had hoped. This

assurance of the new peril, so far from exciting frenzy, raised fears;

and remembering Hamilcar's warning, lately thrown into their midst,

they expected something unlooked for and terrible. The night was spent

in great distress; several even got rid of their weapons, so as to

soften the Suffet when he presented himself.



But on the following day, at the third watch, a second runner

appeared, still more breathless, and blackened with dust. The Greek

snatched from his hand a roll of papyrus covered with Phoenician

writing. The Mercenaries were entreated not to be disheartened; the

brave men of Tunis were coming with large reinforcements.



Spendius first read the letter three times in succession; and held up

by two Cappadocians, who bore him seated on their shoulders, he had

himself conveyed from place to place and re-read it. For seven hours

he harangued.



He reminded the Mercenaries of the promises of the Great Council; the

Africans of the cruelties of the stewards, and all the Barbarians of

the injustice of Carthage. The Suffet's mildness was only a bait to

capture them; those who surrendered would be sold as slaves, and the

vanquished would perish under torture. As to flight, what routes could

they follow? Not a nation would receive them. Whereas by continuing

their efforts they would obtain at once freedom, vengeance, and money!

And they would not have long to wait, since the people of Tunis, the

whole of Libya, was rushing to relieve them. He showed the unrolled

papyrus: "Look at it! read! see their promises! I do not lie."



Dogs were straying about with their black muzzles all plastered with

red. The men's uncovered heads were growing hot in the burning sun. A

nauseous smell exhaled from the badly buried corpses. Some even

projected from the earth as far as the waist. Spendius called them to

witness what he was saying; then he raised his fists in the direction

of Hamilcar.



Matho, moreover, was watching him, and to cover his cowardice he

displayed an anger by which he gradually found himself carried away.

Devoting himself to the gods he heaped curses upon the Carthaginians.

The torture of the captives was child's play. Why spare them, and be

ever dragging this useless cattle after one? "No! we must put an end

to it! their designs are known! a single one might ruin us! no pity!

Those who are worthy will be known by the speed of their legs and the

force of their blows."



Then they turned again upon the captives. Several were still in the

last throes; they were finished by the thrust of a heel in the mouth

or a stab with the point of a javelin.



Then they thought of Gisco. Nowhere could he be seen; they were

disturbed with anxiety. They wished at once to convince themselves of

his death and to participate in it. At last three Samnite shepherds

discovered him at a distance of fifteen paces from the spot where

Matho's tent lately stood. They recognised him by his long beard and

they called the rest.



Stretched on his back, his arms against his hips, and his knees close

together, he looked like a dead man laid out for the tomb.

Nevertheless his wasted sides rose and fell, and his eyes, wide-opened

in his pallid face, gazed in a continuous and intolerable fashion.



The Barbarians looked at him at first with great astonishment. Since

he had been living in the pit he had been almost forgotten; rendered

uneasy by old memories they stood at a distance and did not venture to

raise their hands against him.



But those who were behind were murmuring and pressed forward when a

Garamantian passed through the crowd; he was brandishing a sickle; all

understood his thought; their faces purpled, and smitten with shame

they shrieked:



"Yes! yes!"



The man with the curved steel approached Gisco. He took his head, and,

resting it upon his knee, sawed it off with rapid strokes; it fell; to

great jets of blood made a hole in the dust. Zarxas leaped upon it,

and lighter than a leopard ran towards the Carthaginians.



Then when he had covered two thirds of the mountain he drew Gisco's

head from his breast by the beard, whirled his arm rapidly several

times,--and the mass, when thrown at last, described a long parabola

and disappeared behind the Punic entrenchments.



Soon at the edge of the palisades there rose two crossed standards,

the customary sign for claiming a corpse.



Then four heralds, chosen for their width of chest, went out with

great clarions, and speaking through the brass tubes declared that

henceforth there would be between Carthaginians and Barbarians neither

faith, pity, nor gods, that they refused all overtures beforehand, and

that envoys would be sent back with their hands cut off.



Immediately afterwards, Spendius was sent to Hippo-Zarytus to procure

provisions; the Tyrian city sent them some the same evening. They ate

greedily. Then when they were strengthened they speedily collected the

remains of their baggage and their broken arms; the women massed

themselves in the centre, and heedless of the wounded left weeping

behind them, they set out along the edge of the shore like a herd of

wolves taking its departure.



They were marching upon Hippo-Zarytus, resolved to take it, for they

had need of a town.



Hamilcar, as he perceived them at a distance, had a feeling of despair

in spite of the pride which he experienced in seeing them fly before

him. He ought to have attacked them immediately with fresh troops.

Another similar day and the war was over! If matters were protracted

they would return with greater strength; the Tyrian towns would join

them; his clemency towards the vanquished had been of no avail. He

resolved to be pitiless.



The same evening he sent the Great Council a dromedary laden with

bracelets collected from the dead, and with horrible threats ordered

another army to be despatched.



All had for a long time believed him lost; so that on learning his

victory they felt a stupefaction which was almost terror. The vaguely

announced return of the zaimph completed the wonder. Thus the gods and

the might of Carthage seemed now to belong to him.



None of his enemies ventured upon complaint or recrimination. Owing to

the enthusiasm of some and the pusillanimity of the rest, an army of

five thousand men was ready before the interval prescribed had

elapsed.



This army promptly made its way to Utica in order to support the

Suffet's rear, while three thousand of the most notable citizens

embarked in vessels which were to land them at Hippo-Zarytus, whence

they were to drive back the Barbarians.



Hanno had accepted the command; but he intrusted the army to his

lieutenant, Magdassin, so as to lead the troops which were to be

disembarked himself, for he could no longer endure the shaking of the

litter. His disease had eaten away his lips and nostrils, and had

hollowed out a large hole in his face; the back of his throat could be

seen at a distance of ten paces, and he knew himself to be so hideous

that he wore a veil over his head like a woman.



Hippo-Zarytus paid no attention to his summonings nor yet to those of

the Barbarians; but every morning the inhabitants lowered provisions

to the latter in baskets, and shouting from the tops of the towers

pleaded the exigencies of the Republic and conjured them to withdraw.

By means of signs they addressed the same protestations to the

Carthaginians, who were stationed on the sea.



Hanno contented himself with blockading the harbour without risking an

attack. However, he permitted the judges of Hippo-Zarytus to admit

three hundred soldiers. Then he departed to the Cape Grapes, and made

a long circuit so as to hem in the Barbarians, an inopportune and even

dangerous operation. His jealousy prevented him from relieving the

Suffet; he arrested his spies, impeded him in all his plans, and

compromised the success of the enterprise. At last Hamilcar wrote to

the Great Council to rid himself of Hanno, and the latter returned to

Carthage furious at the baseness of the Ancients and the madness of

his colleague. Hence, after so many hopes, the situation was now still

more deplorable; but there was an effort not to reflect upon it and

even not to talk about it.



As if all this were not sufficient misfortune at one time, news came

that the Sardinian Mercenaries had crucified their general, seized the

strongholds, and everywhere slaughtered those of Chanaanitish race.

The Roman people threatened the Republic with immediate hostilities

unless she gave twelve hundred talents with the whole of the island of

Sardinia. They had accepted the alliance of the Barbarians, and they

despatched to them flat-bottomed boats laden with meal and dried meat.

The Carthaginians pursued these, and captured five hundred men; but

three days afterwards a fleet coming from Byzacena, and conveying

provisions to Carthage, foundered in a storm. The gods were evidently

declaring against her.



Upon this the citizens of Hippo-Zarytus, under pretence of an alarm,

made Hanno's three hundred men ascend their walls; then coming behind

them they took them by the legs, and suddenly threw them over the

ramparts. Some who were not killed were pursued, and went and drowned

themselves in the sea.



Utica was enduring the presence of soldiers, for Magdassin had acted

like Hanno, and in accordance with his orders and deaf to Hamilcar's

prayers, was surrounding the town. As for these, they were given wine

mixed with mandrake, and were then slaughtered in their sleep. At the

same time the Barbarians arrived; Magdassin fled; the gates were

opened, and thenceforward the two Tyrian towns displayed an obstinate

devotion to their new friends and an inconceivable hatred to their

former allies.



This abandonment of the Punic cause was a counsel and a precedent.

Hopes of deliverance revived. Populations hitherto uncertain hesitated

no longer. Everywhere there was a stir. The Suffet learnt this, and he

had no assistance to look for! He was now irrevocably lost.



He immediately dismissed Narr' Havas, who was to guard the borders of

his kingdom. As for himself, he resolved to re-enter Carthage in order

to obtain soldiers and begin the war again.



The Barbarians posted at Hippo-Zarytus perceived his army as it

descended the mountain.



Where could the Carthaginians be going? Hunger, no doubt, was urging

them on; and, distracted by their sufferings, they were coming in

spite of their weakness to give battle. But they turned to the right:

they were fleeing. They might be overtaken and all be crushed. The

Barbarians dashed in pursuit of them.



The Carthaginians were checked by the river. It was wide this time and

the west wind had not been blowing. Some crossed by swimming, and the

rest on their shields. They resumed their march. Night fell. They were

out of sight.



The Barbarians did not stop; they went higher to find a narrower

place. The people of Tunis hastened thither, bringing those of Utica

along with them. Their numbers increased at every bush; and the

Carthaginians, as they lay on the ground, could hear the tramping of

their feet in the darkness. From time to time Barca had a volley of

arrows discharged behind him to check them, and several were killed.

When day broke they were in the Ariana Mountains, at the spot where

the road makes a bend.



Then Matho, who was marching at the head, thought that he could

distinguish something green on the horizon on the summit of an

eminence. Then the ground sank, and obelisks, domes, and houses

appeared! It was Carthage. He leaned against a tree to keep himself

from falling, so rapidly did his heart beat.



He thought of all that had come to pass in his existence since the

last time that he had passed that way! It was an infinite surprise, it

stunned him. Then he was transported with joy at the thought of seeing

Salammbo again. The reasons which he had for execrating her returned

to his recollection, but he very quickly rejected them. Quivering and

with straining eyeballs he gazed at the lofty terrace of a palace

above the palm trees beyond Eschmoun; a smile of ecstasy lighted his

face as if some great light had reached him; he opened his arms, and

sent kisses on the breeze, and murmured: "Come! come!" A sigh swelled

his breast, and two long tears like pearls fell upon his beard.



"What stays you?" cried Spendius. "Make haste! Forward! The Suffet is

going to escape us! But your knees are tottering, and you are looking

at me like a drunken man!"



He stamped with impatience and urged Matho, his eyes twinkling as at

the approach of an object long aimed at.



"Ah! we have reached it! We are there! I have them!"



He had so convinced and triumphant an air that Matho was surprised

from his torpor, and felt himself carried away by it. These words,

coming when his distress was at its height, drove his despair to

vengeance, and pointed to food for his wrath. He bounded upon one of

the camels that were among the baggage, snatched up its halter, and

with the long rope, struck the stragglers with all his might, running

right and left alternately, in the rear of the army, like a dog

driving a flock.



At this thundering voice the lines of men closed up; even the lame

hurried their steps; the intervening space lessened in the middle of

the isthmus. The foremost of the Barbarians were marching in the dust

raised by the Carthaginians. The two armies were coming close, and

were on the point of touching. But the Malqua gate, the Tagaste gate,

and the great gate of Khamon threw wide their leaves. The Punic square

divided; three columns were swallowed up, and eddied beneath the

porches. Soon the mass, being too tightly packed, could advance no

further; pikes clashed in the air, and the arrows of the Barbarians

were shivering against the walls.



Hamilcar was to be seen on the threshold of Khamon. He turned round

and shouted to his men to move aside. He dismounted from his horse;

and pricking it on the croup with the sword which he held, sent it

against the Barbarians.



It was a black stallion, which was fed on balls of meal, and would

bend its knees to allow its master to mount. Why was he sending it

away? Was this a sacrifice?



The noble horse galloped into the midst of the lances, knocked down

men, and, entangling its feet in its entrails, fell down, then rose

again with furious leaps; and while they were moving aside, trying to

stop it, or looking at it in surprise, the Carthaginians had united

again; they entered, and the enormous gate shut echoing behind them.



It would not yield. The Barbarians came crushing against it;--and for

some minutes there was an oscillation throughout the army, which

became weaker and weaker, and at last ceased.



The Carthaginians had placed soldiers on the aqueduct, they began to

hurl stones, balls, and beams. Spendius represented that it would be

best not to persist. The Barbarians went and posted themselves further

off, all being quite resolved to lay siege to Carthage.



The rumour of the war, however, had passed beyond the confines of the

Punic empire; and from the pillars of Hercules to beyond Cyrene

shepherds mused on it as they kept their flocks, and caravans talked

about it in the light of the stars. This great Carthage, mistress of

the seas, splendid as the sun, and terrible as a god, actually found

men who were daring enough to attack her! Her fall even had been

asserted several times; and all had believed it for all wished it: the

subject populations, the tributary villages, the allied provinces, the

independent hordes, those who execrated her for her tyranny or were

jealous of her power, or coveted her wealth. The bravest had very

speedily joined the Mercenaries. The defeat at the Macaras had checked

all the rest. At last they had recovered confidence, had gradually

advanced and approached; and now the men of the eastern regions were

lying on the sandhills of Clypea on the other side of the gulf. As

soon as they perceived the Barbarians they showed themselves.



They were not Libyans from the neighbourhood of Carthage, who had long

composed the third army, but nomads from the tableland of Barca,

bandits from Cape Phiscus and the promontory of Dernah, from Phazzana

and Marmarica. They had crossed the desert, drinking at the brackish

wells walled in with camels' bones; the Zuaeces, with their covering

of ostrich feathers, had come on quadrigae; the Garamantians, masked

with black veils, rode behind on their painted mares; others were

mounted on asses, onagers, zebras, and buffaloes; while some dragged

after them the roofs of their sloop-shaped huts together with their

families and idols. There were Ammonians with limbs wrinkled by the

hot water of the springs; Atarantians, who curse the sun; Troglodytes,

who bury their dead with laughter beneath branches of trees; and the

hideous Auseans, who eat grass-hoppers; the Achyrmachidae, who eat

lice; and the vermilion-painted Gysantians, who eat apes.



All were ranged along the edge of the sea in a great straight line.

Afterwards they advanced like tornadoes of sand raised by the wind. In

the centre of the isthmus the throng stopped, the Mercenaries who were

posted in front of them, close to the walls, being unwilling to move.



Then from the direction of Ariana appeared the men of the West, the

people of the Numidians. In fact, Narr' Havas governed only the

Massylians; and, moreover, as they were permitted by custom to abandon

their king when reverses were sustained, they had assembled on the

Zainus, and then had crossed it at Hamilcar's first movement. First

were seen running up all the hunters from Malethut-Baal and Garaphos,

clad in lions' skins, and with the staves of their pikes driving small

lean horses with long manes; then marched the Gaetulians in cuirasses

of serpents' skin; then the Pharusians, wearing lofty crowns made of

wax and resin; and the Caunians, Macarians, and Tillabarians, each

holding two javelins and a round shield of hippopotamus leather. They

stopped at the foot of the Catacombs among the first pools of the

Lagoon.



But when the Libyans had moved away, the multitude of the Negroes

appeared like a cloud on a level with the ground, in the place which

the others had occupied. They were there from the White Harousch, the

Black Harousch, the desert of Augila, and even from the great country

of Agazymba, which is four months' journey south of the Garamantians,

and from regions further still! In spite of their red wooden jewels,

the filth of their black skin made them look like mulberries that had

been long rolling in the dust. They had bark-thread drawers, dried-

grass tunics, fallow-deer muzzles on their heads; they shook rods

furnished with rings, and brandished cows' tails at the end of sticks,

after the fashion of standards, howling the while like wolves.



Then behind the Numidians, Marusians, and Gaetulians pressed the

yellowish men, who are spread through the cedar forests beyond Taggir.

They had cat-skin quivers flapping against their shoulders, and they

led in leashes enormous dogs, which were as high as asses, and did not

bark.



Finally, as though Africa had not been sufficiently emptied, and it

had been necessary to seek further fury in the very dregs of the

races, men might be seen behind the rest, with beast-like profiles and

grinning with idiotic laughter--wretches ravaged by hideous diseases,

deformed pigmies, mulattoes of doubtful sex, albinos whose red eyes

blinked in the sun; stammering out unintelligible sounds, they put a

finger into their mouths to show that they were hungry.



The confusion of weapons was as great as that of garments and peoples.

There was not a deadly invention that was not present--from wooden

daggers, stone hatchets and ivory tridents, to long sabres toothed

like saws, slender, and formed of a yielding copper blade. They

handled cutlasses which were forked into several branches like

antelopes' horns, bills fastened to the ends of ropes, iron triangles,

clubs and bodkins. The Ethiopians from the Bambotus had little

poisoned darts hidden in their hair. Many had brought pebbles in bags.

Others, empty handed, chattered with their teeth.



This multitude was stirred with a ceaseless swell. Dromedaries,

smeared all over with tar-like streaks, knocked down the women, who

carried their children on their hips. The provisions in the baskets

were pouring out; in walking, pieces of salt, parcels of gum, rotten

dates, and gourou nuts were crushed underfoot; and sometimes on

vermin-covered bosoms there would hang a slender cord supporting a

diamond that the Satraps had sought, an almost fabulous stone,

sufficient to purchase an empire. Most of them did not even know what

they desired. They were impelled by fascination or curiosity; and

nomads who had never seen a town were frightened by the shadows of the

walls.



The isthmus was now hidden by men; and this long surface, whereon the

tents were like huts amid an inundation, stretched as far as the first

lines of the other Barbarians, which were streaming with steel and

were posted symmetrically upon both sides of the aqueduct.



The Carthaginians had not recovered from the terror caused by their

arrival when they perceived the siege-engines sent by the Tyrian towns

coming straight towards them like monsters and like buildings--with

their masts, arms, ropes, articulations, capitals and carapaces, sixty

carroballistas, eighty onagers, thirty scorpions, fifty tollenos,

twelve rams, and three gigantic catapults which hurled pieces of rock

of the weight of fifteen talents. Masses of men clinging to their

bases pushed them on; at every step a quivering shook them, and in

this way they arrived in front of the walls.



But several days were still needed to finish the preparations for the

siege. The Mercenaries, taught by their defeats, would not risk

themselves in useless engagements; and on both sides there was no

haste, for it was well known that a terrible action was about to open,

and that the result of it would be complete victory or complete

extermination.



Carthage might hold out for a long time; her broad walls presented a

series of re-entrant and projecting angles, an advantageous

arrangement for repelling assaults.



Nevertheless a portion had fallen down in the direction of the

Catacombs, and on dark nights lights could be seen in the dens of

Malqua through the disjointed blocks. These in some places overlooked

the top of the ramparts. It was here that the Mercenaries' wives, who

had been driven away by Matho, were living with their new husbands. On

seeing the men again their hearts could stand it no longer. They waved

their scarfs at a distance; then they came and chatted in the darkness

with the soldiers through the cleft in the wall, and one morning the

Great Council learned that they had all fled. Some had passed through

between the stones; others with greater intrepidity had let themselves

down with ropes.



At last Spendius resolved to accomplish his design.



The war, by keeping him at a distance, had hitherto prevented him; and

since the return to before Carthage, it seemed to him that the

inhabitants suspected his enterprise. But soon they diminished the

sentries on the aqueduct. There were not too many people for the

defence of the walls.



The former slave practised himself for some days in shooting arrows at

the flamingoes on the lake. Then one moonlight evening he begged Matho

to light a great fire of straw in the middle of the night, while all

his men were to shout at the same time; and taking Zarxas with him, he

went away along the edge of the gulf in the direction of Tunis.



When on a level with the last arches they returned straight towards

the aqueduct; the place was unprotected: they crawled to the base of

the pillars.



The sentries on the platform were walking quietly up and down.



Towering flames appeared; clarions rang; and the soldiers on vedette,

believing that there was an assault, rushed away in the direction of

Carthage.



One man had remained. He showed black against the background of the

sky. The moon was shining behind him, and his shadow, which was of

extravagant size, looked in the distance like an obelisk proceeding

across the plain.



They waited until he was in position just before them. Zarxas seized

his sling, but whether from prudence or from ferocity Spendius stopped

him. "No, the whiz of the bullet would make a noise! Let me!"



Then he bent his bow with all his strength, resting the lower end of

it against the great toe of his left foot; he took aim, and the arrow

went off.



The man did not fall. He disappeared.



"If he were wounded we should hear him!" said Spendius; and he mounted

quickly from story to story as he had done the first time, with the

assistance of a rope and a harpoon. Then when he had reached the top

and was beside the corpse, he let it fall again. The Balearian

fastened a pick and a mallet to it and turned back.



The trumpets sounded no longer. All was now quiet. Spendius had raised

one of the flag-stones and, entering the water, had closed it behind

him.



Calculating the distance by the number of his steps, he arrived at the

exact spot where he had noticed an oblique fissure; and for three

hours until morning he worked in continuous and furious fashion,

breathing with difficulty through the interstices in the upper flag-

tones, assailed with anguish, and twenty times believing that he was

going to die. At last a crack was heard, and a huge stone ricocheting

on the lower arches rolled to the ground,--and suddenly a cataract, an

entire river, fell from the skies onto the plain. The aqueduct, being

cut through in the centre, was emptying itself. It was death to

Carthage and victory for the Barbarians.



In an instant the awakened Carthaginians appeared on the walls, the

houses, and the temples. The Barbarians pressed forward with shouts.

They danced in delirium around the great waterfall, and came up and

wet their heads in it in the extravagance of their joy.



A man in a torn, brown tunic was perceived on the summit of the

aqueduct. He stood leaning over the very edge with both hands on his

hips, and was looking down below him as though astonished at his work.



Then he drew himself up. He surveyed the horizon with a haughty air

which seemed to say: "All that is now mine!" The applause of the

Barbarians burst forth, while the Carthaginians, comprehending their

disaster at last, shrieked with despair. Then he began to run about

the platform from one end to the other,--and like a chariot-driver

triumphant at the Olympic Games, Spendius, distraught with pride,

raised his arms aloft.







CHAPTER XIII



MOLOCH



The Barbarians had no need of a circumvallation on the side of Africa,

for it was theirs. But to facilitate the approach to the walls, the

entrenchments bordering the ditch were thrown down. Matho next divided

the army into great semicircles so as to encompass Carthage the

better. The hoplites of the Mercenaries were placed in the first rank,

and behind them the slingers and horsemen; quite at the back were the

baggage, chariots, and horses; and the engines bristled in front of

this throng at a distance of three hundred paces from the towers.



Amid the infinite variety of their nomenclature (which changed several

times in the course of the centuries) these machines might be reduced

to two systems: some acted like slings, and the rest like bows.



The first, which were the catapults, was composed of a square frame

with two vertical uprights and a horizontal bar. In its anterior

portion was a cylinder, furnished with cables, which held back a great

beam bearing a spoon for the reception of projectiles; its base was

caught in a skein of twisted thread, and when the ropes were let go it

sprang up and struck against the bar, which, checking it with a shock,

multiplied its power.



The second presented a more complicated mechanism. A cross-bar had its

centre fixed on a little pillar, and from this point of junction there

branched off at right angles a short of channel; two caps containing

twists of horse-hair stood at the extremities of the cross-bar; two

small beams were fastened to them to hold the extremities of a rope

which was brought to the bottom of the channel upon a tablet of

bronze. This metal plate was released by a spring, and sliding in

grooves impelled the arrows.



The catapults were likewise called onagers, after the wild asses which

fling up stones with their feet, and the ballistas scorpions, on

account of a hook which stood upon the tablet, and being lowered by a

blow of the fist, released the spring.



Their construction required learned calculations; the wood selected

had to be of the hardest substance, and their gearing all of brass;

they were stretched with levers, tackle-blocks, capstans or tympanums;

the direction of the shooting was changed by means of strong pivots;

they were moved forward on cylinders, and the most considerable of

them, which were brought piece by piece, were set up in front of the

enemy.



Spendius arranged three great catapults opposite the three principle

angles; he placed a ram before every gate, a ballista before every

tower, while carroballistas were to move about in the rear. But it was

necessary to protect them against the fire thrown by the besieged, and

first of all to fill up the trench which separated them from the

walls.



They pushed forward galleries formed of hurdles of green reeds, and

oaken semicircles like enormous shields gliding on three wheels; the

workers were sheltered in little huts covered with raw hides and

stuffed with wrack; the catapults and ballistas were protected by rope

curtains which had been steeped in vinegar to render them

incombustible. The women and children went to procure stones on the

strand, and gathered earth with their hands and brought it to the

soldiers.



The Carthaginians also made preparations.



Hamilcar had speedily reassured them by declaring that there was

enough water left in the cisterns for one hundred and twenty-three

days. This assertion, together with his presence, and above all that

of the zaimph among them, gave them good hopes. Carthage recovered

from its dejection; those who were not of Chanaanitish origin were

carried away by the passion of the rest.



The slaves were armed, the arsenals were emptied, and every citizen

had his own post and his own employment. Twelve hundred of the

fugitives had survived, and the Suffet made them all captains; and

carpenters, armourers, blacksmiths, and goldsmiths were intrusted with

the engines. The Carthaginians had kept a few in spite of the

conditions of the peace with Rome. These were repaired. They

understood such work.



The two northern and eastern sides, being protected by the sea and the

gulf, remained inaccessible. On the wall fronting the Barbarians they

collected tree-trunks, mill-stones, vases filled with sulphur, and

vats filled with oil, and built furnaces. Stones were heaped up on the

platforms of the towers, and the houses bordering immediately on the

rampart were crammed with sand in order to strengthen it and increase

its thickness.



The Barbarians grew angry at the sight of these preparations. They

wished to fight at once. The weights which they put into the catapults

were so extravagantly heavy that the beams broke, and the attack was

delayed.



At last on the thirteenth day of the month of Schabar,--at sunrise,--a

great blow was heard at the gate of Khamon.



Seventy-five soldiers were pulling at ropes arranged at the base of a

gigantic beam which was suspended horizontally by chains hanging from

a framework, and which terminated in a ram's head of pure brass. It

had been swathed in ox-hides; it was bound at intervals with iron

bracelets; it was thrice as thick as a man's body, one hundred and

twenty cubits long, and under the crowd of naked arms pushing it

forward and drawing it back, it moved to and fro with a regular

oscillation.



The other rams before the other gates began to be in motion. Men might

be seen mounting from step to step in the hollow wheels of the

tympanums. The pulleys and caps grated, the rope curtains were

lowered, and showers of stones and showers of arrows poured forth

simultaneously; all the scattered slingers ran up. Some approached the

rampart hiding pots of resin under their shields; then they would hurl

these with all their might. This hail of bullets, darts, and flames

passed above the first ranks in the form of a curve which fell behind

the walls. But long cranes, used for masting vessels, were reared on

the summit of the ramparts; and from them there descended some of

those enormous pincers which terminated in two semicircles toothed on

the inside. They bit the rams. The soldiers clung to the beam and drew

it back. The Carthaginians hauled in order to pull it up; and the

action was prolonged until the evening.



When the Mercenaries resumed their task on the following day, the tops

of the walls were completely carpeted with bales of cotton, sails, and

cushions; the battlements were stopped up with mats; and a line of

forks and blades, fixed upon sticks, might be distinguished among the

cranes on the rampart. A furious resistance immediately began.



Trunks of trees fastened to cables fell and rose alternately and

battered the rams; cramps hurled by the ballistas tore away the roofs

of the huts; and streams of flints and pebbles poured from the

platforms of the towers.



At last the rams broke the gates of Khamon and Tagaste. But the

Carthaginians had piled up such an abundance of materials on the

inside that the leaves did not open. They remained standing.



Then they drove augers against the walls; these were applied to the

joints of the blocks, so as to detach the latter. The engines were

better managed, the men serving them were divided into squads, and

they were worked from morning till evening without interruption and

with the monotonous precision of a weaver's loom.



Spendius returned to them untiringly. It was he who stretched the

skeins of the ballistas. In order that the twin tensions might

completely correspond, the ropes as they were tightened were struck on

the right and left alternately until both sides gave out an equal

sound. Spendius would mount upon the timbers. He would strike the

ropes softly with the extremity of his foot, and strain his ears like

a musician tuning a lyre. Then when the beam of the catapult rose,

when the pillar of the ballista trembled with the shock of the spring,

when the stones were shooting in rays, and the darts pouring in

streams, he would incline his whole body and fling his arms into the

air as though to follow them.



The soldiers admired his skill and executed his commands. In the

gaiety of their work they gave utterance to jests on the names of the

machines. Thus the plyers for seizing the rams were called "wolves,"

and the galleries were covered with "vines"; they were lambs, or they

were going to gather the grapes; and as they loaded their pieces they

would say to the onagers: "Come, pick well!" and to the scorpions:

"Pierce them to the heart!" These jokes, which were ever the same,

kept up their courage.



Nevertheless the machines did not demolish the rampart. It was formed

of two walls and was completely filled with earth. The upper portions

were beaten down, but each time the besieged raised them again. Matho

ordered the construction of wooden towers which should be as high as

the towers of stone. They cast turf, stakes, pebbles and chariots with

their wheels into the trench so as to fill it up the more quickly; but

before this was accomplished the immense throng of the Barbarians

undulated over the plain with a single movement and came beating

against the foot of the walls like an overflowing sea.



They moved forward the rope ladders, straight ladders, and sambucas,

the latter consisting of two poles from which a series of bamboos

terminating in a moveable bridge were lowered by means of tackling.

They formed numerous straight lines resting against the wall, and the

Mercenaries mounted them in files, holding their weapons in their

hands. Not a Carthaginian showed himself; already two thirds of the

rampart had been covered. Then the battlements opened, vomiting flames

and smoke like dragon jaws; the sand scattered and entered the joints

of their armour; the petroleum fastened on their garments; the liquid

lead hopped on their helmets and made holes in their flesh; a rain of

sparks splashed against their faces, and eyeless orbits seemed to weep

tears as big as almonds. There were men all yellow with oil, with

their hair in flames. They began to run and set fire to the rest. They

were extinguished in mantles steeped in blood, which were thrown from

a distance over their faces. Some who had no wounds remained

motionless, stiffer than stakes, their mouths open and their arms

outspread.



The assault was renewed for several days in succession, the

Mercenaries hoping to triumph by extraordinary energy and audacity.



Sometimes a man raised on the shoulders of another would drive a pin

between the stones, and then making use of it as a step to reach

further, would place a second and a third; and, protected by the edge

of the battlements, which stood out from the wall, they would

gradually raise themselves in this way; but on reaching a certain

height they always fell back again. The great trench was full to

overflowing; the wounded were massed pell-mell with the dead and dying

beneath the footsteps of the living. Calcined trunks formed black

spots amid opened entrails, scattered brains, and pools of blood; and

arms and legs projecting half way out of a heap, would stand straight

up like props in a burning vineyard.



The ladders proving insufficient the tollenos were brought into

requisition,--instruments consisting of a long beam set transversely

upon another, and bearing at its extremity a quadrangular basket which

would hold thirty foot-soldiers with their weapons.



Matho wished to ascend in the first that was ready. Spendius stopped

him.



Some men bent over a capstan; the great beam rose, became horizontal,

reared itself almost vertically, and being overweighted at the end,

bent like a huge reed. The soldiers, who were crowded together, were

hidden up to their chins; only their helmet-plumes could be seen. At

last when it was twenty cubits high in the air it turned several times

to the right and to the left, and then was depressed; and like a giant

arm holding a cohort of pigmies in its hand, it laid the basketful of

men upon the edge of the wall. They leaped into the crowd and never

returned.



All the other tollenos were speedily made ready. But a hundred times

as many would have been needed for the capture of the town. They were

utilised in a murderous fashion: Ethiopian archers were placed in the

baskets; then, the cables having been fastened, they remained

suspended and shot poisoned arrows. The fifty tollenos commanding the

battlements thus surrounded Carthage like monstrous vultures; and the

Negroes laughed to see the guards on the rampart dying in grievous

convulsions.



Hamilcar sent hoplites to these posts, and every morning made them

drink the juice of certain herbs which protected them against the

poison.



One evening when it was dark he embarked the best of his soldiers on

lighters and planks, and turning to the right of the harbour,

disembarked on the Taenia. Then he advanced to the first lines of the

Barbarians, and taking them in flank, made a great slaughter. Men

hanging to ropes would descend at night from the top of the wall with

torches in their hands, burn the works of the Mercenaries, and then

mount up again.



Matho was exasperated; every obstacle strengthened his wrath, which

led him into terrible extravagances. He mentally summoned Salammbo to

an interview; then he waited. She did not come; this seemed to him

like a fresh piece of treachery,--and henceforth he execrated her. If

he had seen her corpse he would perhaps have gone away. He doubled the

outposts, he planted forks at the foot of the rampart, he drove

caltrops into the ground, and he commanded the Libyans to bring him a

whole forest that he might set it on fire and burn Carthage like a den

of foxes.



Spendius went on obstinately with the siege. He sought to invent

terrible machines such as had never before been constructed.



The other Barbarians, encamped at a distance on the isthmus, were

amazed at these delays; they murmured, and they were let loose.



Then they rushed with their cutlasses and javelins, and beat against

the gates with them. But the nakedness of their bodies facilitating

the infliction of wounds, the Carthaginians massacred them freely; and

the Mercenaries rejoiced at it, no doubt through jealousy about the

plunder. Hence there resulted quarrels and combats between them. Then,

the country having been ravaged, provisions were soon scarce. They

grew disheartened. Numerous hordes went away, but the crowd was so

great that the loss was not apparent.



The best of them tried to dig mines, but the earth, being badly

supported, fell in. They began again in other places, but Hamilcar

always guessed the direction that they were taking by holding his ear

against a bronze shield. He bored counter-mines beneath the path along

which the wooden towers were to move, and when they were pushed

forward they sank into the holes.



At last all recognised that the town was impregnable, unless a long

terrace was raised to the same height as the walls, so as to enable

them to fight on the same level. The top of it should be paved so that

the machines might be rolled along. Then Carthage would find it quite

impossible to resist.



The town was beginning to suffer from thirst. The water which was

worth two kesitahs the bath at the opening of the siege was now sold

for a shekel of silver; the stores of meat and corn were also becoming

exhausted; there was a dread of famine, and some even began to speak

of useless mouths, which terrified every one.



From the square of Khamon to the temple of Melkarth the streets were

cumbered with corpses; and, as it was the end of the summer, the

combatants were annoyed by great black flies. Old men carried off the

wounded, and the devout continued the fictitious funerals for their

relatives and friends who had died far away during the war. Waxen

statues with clothes and hair were displayed across the gates. They

melted in the heat of the tapers burning beside them; the paint flowed

down upon their shoulders, and tears streamed over the faces of the

living, as they chanted mournful songs beside them. The crowd

meanwhile ran to and fro; armed bands passed; captains shouted orders,

while the shock of the rams beating against the rampart was constantly

heard.



The temperature became so heavy that the bodies swelled and would no

longer fit into the coffins. They were burned in the centre of the

courts. But the fires, being too much confined, kindled the

neighbouring walls, and long flames suddenly burst from the houses

like blood spurting from an artery. Thus Moloch was in possession of

Carthage; he clasped the ramparts, he rolled through the streets, he

devoured the very corpses.



Men wearing cloaks made of collected rags in token of despair,

stationed themselves at the corners of the cross-ways. They declaimed

against the Ancients and against Hamilcar, predicted complete ruin to

the people, and invited them to universal destruction and license. The

most dangerous were the henbane-drinkers; in their crisis they

believed themselves wild beasts, and leaped upon the passers-by to

rend them. Mobs formed around them, and the defence of Carthage was

forgotten. The Suffet devised the payment of others to support his

policy.



In order to retain the genius of the gods within the town their images

had been covered with chains. Black veils were placed upon the Pataec

gods, and hair-cloths around the altars; and attempts were made to

excite the pride and jealousy of the Baals by singing in their ears:

"Thou art about to suffer thyself to be vanquished! Are the others

perchance more strong? Show thyself! aid us! that the peoples may not

say: 'Where are now their gods?'"



The colleges of the pontiffs were agitated by unceasing anxiety. Those

of Rabbetna were especially afraid--the restoration of the zaimph

having been of no avail. They kept themselves shut up in the third

enclosure which was as impregnable as a fortress. Only one among them,

the high priest Schahabarim, ventured to go out.



He used to visit Salammbo. But he would either remain perfectly

silent, gazing at her with fixed eyeballs, or else would be lavish of

words, and the reproaches that he uttered were harder than ever.



With inconceivable inconsistency he could not forgive the young girl

for carrying out his commands; Schahabarim had guessed all, and this

haunting thought revived the jealousies of his impotence. He accused

her of being the cause of the war. Matho, according to him, was

besieging Carthage to recover the zaimph; and he poured out

imprecations and sarcasms upon this Barbarian who pretended to the

possession of holy things. Yet it was not this that the priest wished

to say.



But just now Salammbo felt no terror of him. The anguish which she

used formerly to suffer had left her. A strange peacefulness possessed

her. Her gaze was less wandering, and shone with limpid fire.



Meanwhile the python had become ill again; and as Salammbo, on the

contrary, appeared to be recovering, old Taanach rejoiced in the

conviction that by its decline it was taking away the languor of her

mistress.



One morning she found it coiled up behind the bed of ox-hides, colder

than marble, and with its head hidden by a heap of worms. Her cries

brought Salammbo to the spot. She turned it over for a while with the

tip of her sandal, and the slave was amazed at her insensibility.



Hamilcar's daughter no longer prolonged her fasts with so much

fervour. She passed whole days on the top of her terrace, leaning her

elbows against the balustrade, and amusing herself by looking out

before her. The summits of the walls at the end of the town cut uneven

zigzags upon the sky, and the lances of the sentries formed what was

like a border of corn-ears throughout their length. Further away she

could see the manoeuvres of the Barbarians between the towers; on days

when the siege was interrupted she could even distinguish their

occupations. They mended their weapons, greased their hair, and washed

their bloodstained arms in the sea; the tents were closed; the beasts

of burden were feeding; and in the distance the scythes of the

chariots, which were all ranged in a semicircle, looked like a silver

scimitar lying at the base of the mountains. Schahabarim's talk

recurred to her memory. She was waiting for Narr' Havas, her

betrothed. In spite of her hatred she would have liked to see Matho

again. Of all the Carthaginians she was perhaps the only one who would

have spoken to him without fear.



Her father often came into her room. He would sit down panting on the

cushions, and gaze at her with an almost tender look, as if he found

some rest from her fatigues in the sight of her. He sometimes

questioned her about her journey to the camp of the Mercenaries. He

even asked her whether any one had urged her to it; and with a shake

of the head she answered, No,--so proud was Salammbo of having saved

the zaimph.



But the Suffet always came back to Matho under pretence of making

military inquiries. He could not understand how the hours which she

had spent in the tent had been employed. Salammbo, in fact, said

nothing about Gisco; for as words had an effective power in

themselves, curses, if reported to any one, might be turned against

him; and she was silent about her wish to assassinate, lest she should

be blamed for not having yielded to it. She said that the schalischim

appeared furious, that he had shouted a great deal, and that he had

then fallen asleep. Salammbo told no more, through shame perhaps, or

else because she was led by her extreme ingenuousness to attach but

little importance to the soldier's kisses. Moreover, it all floated

through her head in a melancholy and misty fashion, like the

recollection of a depressing dream; and she would not have known in

what way or in what words to express it.



One evening when they were thus face to face with each other, Taanach

came in looking quite scared. An old man with a child was yonder in

the courts, and wished to see the Suffet.



Hamilcar turned pale, and then quickly replied:



"Let him come up!"



Iddibal entered without prostrating himself. He held a young boy,

covered with a goat's-hair cloak, by the hand, and at once raised the

hood which screened his face.



"Here he is, Master! Take him!"



The Suffet and the slave went into a corner of the room.



The child remained in the centre standing upright, and with a gaze of

attention rather than of astonishment he surveyed the ceiling, the

furniture, the pearl necklaces trailing on the purple draperies, and

the majestic maiden who was bending over towards him.



He was perhaps ten years old, and was not taller than a Roman sword.

His curly hair shaded his swelling forehead. His eyeballs looked as if

they were seeking for space. The nostrils of his delicate nose were

broad and palpitating, and upon his whole person was displayed the

indefinable splendour of those who are destined to great enterprises.

When he had cast aside his extremely heavy cloak, he remained clad in

a lynx skin, which was fastened about his waist, and he rested his

little naked feet, which were all white with dust, resolutely upon the

pavement. But he no doubt divined that important matters were under

discussion, for he stood motionless, with one hand behind his back,

his chin lowered, and a finger in his mouth.



At last Hamilcar attracted Salammbo with a sign and said to her in a

low voice:



"You will keep him with you, you understand! No one, even though

belonging to the house, must know of his existence!"



Then, behind the door, he again asked Iddibal whether he was quite

sure that they had not been noticed.



"No!" said the slave, "the streets were empty."



As the war filled all the provinces he had feared for his master's

son. Then, not knowing where to hide him, he had come along the coasts

in a sloop, and for three days Iddibal had been tacking about in the

gulf and watching the ramparts. At last, that evening, as the environs

of Khamon seemed to be deserted, he had passed briskly through the

channel and landed near the arsenal, the entrance to the harbour being

free.



But soon the Barbarians posted an immense raft in front of it in order

to prevent the Carthaginians from coming out. They were again rearing

the wooden towers, and the terrace was rising at the same time.



Outside communications were cut off and an intolerable famine set in.



The besieged killed all the dogs, all the mules, all the asses, and

then the fifteen elephants which the Suffet had brought back. The

lions of the temple of Moloch had become ferocious, and the hierodules

no longer durst approach them. They were fed at first with the wounded

Barbarians; then they were thrown corpses that were still warm; they

refused them, and they all died. People wandered in the twilight along

the old enclosures, and gathered grass and flowers among the stones to

boil them in wine, wine being cheaper than water. Others crept as far

as the enemy's outposts, and entered the tents to steal food, and the

stupefied Barbarians sometimes allowed them to return. At last a day

arrived when the Ancients resolved to slaughter the horses of Eschmoun

privately. They were holy animals whose manes were plaited by the

pontiffs with gold ribbons, and whose existence denoted the motion of

the sun--the idea of fire in its most exalted form. Their flesh was

cut into equal portions and buried behind the altar. Then every

evening the Ancients, alleging some act of devotion, would go up to

the temple and regale themselves in secret, and each would take away a

piece beneath his tunic for his children. In the deserted quarters

remote from the walls, the inhabitants, whose misery was not so great,

had barricaded themselves through fear of the rest.



The stones from the catapults, and the demolitions commanded for

purposes of defence, had accumulated heaps of ruins in the middle of

the streets. At the quietest times masses of people would suddenly

rush along with shouts; and from the top of the Acropolis the

conflagrations were like purple rags scattered upon the terraces and

twisted by the wind.



The three great catapults did not stop in spite of all these works.

Their ravages were extraordinary: thus a man's head rebounded from the

pediment of the Syssitia; a woman who was being confined in the street

of Kinisdo was crushed by a block of marble, and her child was carried

with the bed as far as the crossways of Cinasyn, where the coverlet

was found.



The most annoying were the bullets of the slingers. They fell upon the

roofs, and in the gardens, and in the middle of the courts, while

people were at table before a slender meal with their hearts big with

sighs. These cruel projectiles bore engraved letters which stamped

themselves upon the flesh;--and insults might be read on corpses such

as "pig," "jackal," "vermin," and sometimes jests: "Catch it!" or "I

have well deserved it!"



The portion of the rampart which extended from the corner of the

harbours to the height of the cisterns was broken down. Then the

people of Malqua found themselves caught between the old enclosure of

Byrsa behind, and the Barbarians in front. But there was enough to be

done in thickening the wall and making it as high as possible without

troubling about them; they were abandoned; all perished; and although

they were generally hated, Hamilcar came to be greatly abhorred.



On the morrow he opened the pits in which he kept stores of corn, and

his stewards gave it to the people. For three days they gorged

themselves.



Their thirst, however, only became the more intolerable, and they

could constantly see before them the long cascade formed by the clear

falling water of the aqueduct. A thin vapour, with a rainbow beside

it, went up from its base, beneath the rays of the sun, and a little

stream curving through the plain fell into the gulf.



Hamilcar did not give way. He was reckoning upon an event, upon

something decisive and extraordinary.



His own slaves tore off the silver plates from the temple of Melkarth;

four long boats were drawn out of the harbour, they were brought by

means of capstans to the foot of the Mappalian quarter, the wall

facing the shore was bored, and they set out for the Gauls to buy

Mercenaries there at no matter what price. Nevertheless, Hamilcar was

distressed at his inability to communicate with the king of the

Numidians, for he knew that he was behind the Barbarians, and ready to

fall upon them. But Narr' Havas, being too weak, was not going to make

any venture alone; and the Suffet had the rampart raised twelve palms

higher, all the material in the arsenals piled up in the Acropolis,

and the machines repaired once more.



Sinews taken from bulls' necks, or else stags' hamstrings, were

commonly employed for the twists of the catapults. However, neither

stags nor bulls were in existence in Carthage. Hamilcar asked the

Ancients for the hair of their wives; all sacrificed it, but the

quantity was not sufficient. In the buildings of the Syssitia there

were twelve hundred marriageable slaves destined for prostitution in

Greece and Italy, and their hair, having been rendered elastic by the

use of unguents, was wonderfully well adapted for engines of war. But

the subsequent loss would be too great. Accordingly it was decided

that a choice should be made of the finest heads of hair among the

wives of the plebeians. Careless of their country's needs, they

shrieked in despair when the servants of the Hundred came with

scissors to lay hands upon them.



The Barbarians were animated with increased fury. They could be seen

in the distance taking fat from the dead to grease their machines,

while others pulled out the nails and stitched them end to end to make

cuirasses. They devised a plan of putting into the catapults vessels

filled with serpents which had been brought by the Negroes; the clay

pots broke on the flag-stones, the serpents ran about, seemed to

multiply, and, so numerous were they, to issue naturally from the

walls. Then the Barbarians, not satisfied with their invention,

improved upon it; they hurled all kinds of filth, human excrements,

pieces of carrion, corpses. The plague reappeared. The teeth of the

Carthaginians fell out of their mouths, and their gums were

discoloured like those of camels after too long a journey.



The machines were set up on the terrace, although the latter did not

as yet reach everywhere to the height of the rampart. Before the

twenty-three towers on the fortification stood twenty-three others of

wood. All the tollenos were mounted again, and in the centre, a little

further back, appeared the formidable helepolis of Demetrius

Poliorcetes, which Spendius had at last reconstructed. Of pyramidical

shape, like the pharos of Alexandria, it was one hundred and thirty

cubits high and twenty-three wide, with nine stories, diminishing as

they approached the summit, and protected by scales of brass; they

were pierced with numerous doors and were filled with soldiers, and on

the upper platform there stood a catapult flanked by two ballistas.



Then Hamilcar planted crosses for those who should speak of surrender,

and even the women were brigaded. The people lay in the streets and

waited full of distress.



Then one morning before sunrise (it was the seventh day of the month

of Nyssan) they heard a great shout uttered by all the Barbarians

simultaneously; the leaden-tubed trumpets pealed, and the great

Paphlagonian horns bellowed like bulls. All rose and ran to the

rampart.



A forest of lances, pikes, and swords bristled at its base. It leaped

against the wall, the ladders grappled them; and Barbarians' heads

appeared in the intervals of the battlements.



Beams supported by long files of men were battering at the gates; and,

in order to demolish the wall at places where the terrace was wanting,

the Mercenaries came up in serried cohorts, the first line crawling,

the second bending their hams, and the others rising in succession to

the last who stood upright; while elsewhere, in order to climb up, the

tallest advanced in front and the lowest in the rear, and all rested

their shields upon their helmets with their left arms, joining them

together at the edges so tightly that they might have been taken for

an assemblage of large tortoises. The projectiles slid over these

oblique masses.



The Carthaginians threw down mill-stones, pestles, vats, casks, beds,

everything that could serve as a weight and could knock down. Some

watched at the embrasures with fisherman's nets, and when the

Barbarian arrived he found himself caught in the meshes, and struggled

like a fish. They demolished their own battlements; portions of wall

fell down raising a great dust; and as the catapults on the terrace

were shooting over against one another, the stones would strike

together and shiver into a thousand pieces, making a copious shower

upon the combatants.



Soon the two crowds formed but one great chain of human bodies; it

overflowed into the intervals in the terrace, and, somewhat looser at

the two extremities, swayed perpetually without advancing. They

clasped one another, lying flat on the ground like wrestlers. They

crushed one another. The women leaned over the battlements and

shrieked. They were dragged away by their veils, and the whiteness of

their suddenly uncovered sides shone in the arms of the Negroes as the

latter buried their daggers in them. Some corpses did not fall, being

too much pressed by the crowd, and, supported by the shoulders of

their companions, advanced for some minutes quite upright and with

staring eyes. Some who had both temples pierced by a javelin swayed

their heads about like bears. Mouths, opened to shout, remained

gaping; severed hands flew through the air. Mighty blows were dealt,

which were long talked of by the survivors.



Meanwhile arrows darted from the towers of wood and stone. The

tollenos moved their long yards rapidly; and as the Barbarians had

sacked the old cemetery of the aborigines beneath the Catacombs, they

hurled the tombstones against the Carthaginians. Sometimes the cables

broke under the weight of too heavy baskets, and masses of men, all

with uplifted arms, would fall from the sky.



Up to the middle of the day the veterans had attacked the Taenia

fiercely in order to penetrate into the harbour and destroy the fleet.

Hamilcar had a fire of damp straw lit upon the roofing of Khamon, and

as the smoke blinded them they fell back to left, and came to swell

the horrible rout which was pressing forward in Malqua. Some

syntagmata composed of sturdy men, chosen expressly for the purpose,

had broken in three gates. They were checked by lofty barriers made of

planks studded with nails, but a fourth yielded easily; they dashed

over it at a run and rolled into a pit in which there were hidden

snares. At the south-west gate Autaritus and his men broke down the

rampart, the fissure in which had been stopped up with bricks. The

ground behind rose, and they climbed it nimbly. But on the top they

found a second wall composed of stones and long beams lying quite flat

and alternating like the squares on a chess-board. It was a Gaulish

fashion, and had been adapted by the Suffet to the requirements of the

situation; the Gauls imagined themselves before a town in their own

country. Their attack was weak, and they were repulsed.



All the roundway, from the street of Khamon as far as the Green

Market, now belonged to the Barbarians, and the Samnites were

finishing off the dying with blows of stakes; or else with one foot on

the wall were gazing down at the smoking ruins beneath them, and the

battle which was beginning again in the distance.



The slingers, who were distributed through the rear, were still

shooting. But the springs of the Acarnanian slings had broken from

use, and many were throwing stones with the hand like shepherds; the

rest hurled leaden bullets with the handle of a whip. Zarxas, his

shoulders covered with his long black hair, went about everywhere, and

led on the Barbarians. Two pouches hung at his hips; he thrust his

left hand into them continually, while his right arm whirled round

like a chariot-wheel.



Matho had at first refrained from fighting, the better to command the

Barbarians all at once. He had been seen along the gulf with the

Mercenaries, near the lagoon with the Numidians, and on the shores of

the lake among the Negroes, and from the back part of the plain he

urged forward masses of soldiers who came ceaselessly against the

ramparts. By degrees he had drawn near; the smell of blood, the sight

of carnage, and the tumult of clarions had at last made his heart

leap. Then he had gone back into his tent, and throwing off his

cuirass had taken his lion's skin as being more convenient for battle.

The snout fitted upon his head, bordering his face with a circle of

fangs; the two fore-paws were crossed upon his breast, and the claws

of the hinder ones fell beneath his knees.



He had kept on his strong waist-belt, wherein gleamed a two-edged axe,

and with his great sword in both hands he had dashed impetuously

through the breach. Like a pruner cutting willow-branches and trying

to strike off as much as possible so as to make the more money, he

marched along mowing down the Carthaginians around him. Those who

tried to seize him in flank he knocked down with blows of the pommel;

when they attacked him in front he ran them through; if they fled he

clove them. Two men leaped together upon his back; he bounded

backwards against a gate and crushed them. His sword fell and rose. It

shivered on the angle of a wall. Then he took his heavy axe, and front

and rear he ripped up the Carthaginians like a flock of sheep. They

scattered more and more, and he was quite alone when he reached the

second enclosure at the foot of the Acropolis. The materials which had

been flung from the summit cumbered the steps and were heaped up

higher than the wall. Matho turned back amid the ruins to summons his

companions.



He perceived their crests scattered over the multitude; they were

sinking and their wearers were about to perish; he dashed towards

them; then the vast wreath of red plumes closed in, and they soon

rejoined him and surrounded him. But an enormous crowd was discharging

from the side streets. He was caught by the hips, lifted up and

carried away outside the ramparts to a spot where the terrace was

high.



Matho shouted a command and all the shields sank upon the helmets; he

leaped upon them in order to catch hold somewhere so as to re-enter

Carthage; and, flourishing his terrible axe, ran over the shields,

which resembled waves of bronze, like a marine god, with brandished

trident, over his billows.



However, a man in a white robe was walking along the edge of the

rampart, impassible, and indifferent to the death which surrounded

him. Sometimes he would spread out his right hand above his eyes in

order to find out some one. Matho happened to pass beneath him.

Suddenly his eyeballs flamed, his livid face contracted; and raising

both his lean arms he shouted out abuse at him.



Matho did not hear it; but he felt so furious and cruel a look

entering his heart that he uttered a roar. He hurled his long axe at

him; some people threw themselves upon Schahabarim; and Matho seeing

him no more fell back exhausted.



A terrible creaking drew near, mingled with the rhythm of hoarse

voices singing together.



It was the great helepolis surrounded by a crowd of soldiers. They

were dragging it with both hands, hauling it with ropes, and pushing

it with their shoulders,--for the slope rising from the plain to the

terrace, although extremely gentle, was found impracticable for

machines of such prodigious weight. However, it had eight wheels

banded with iron, and it had been advancing slowly in this way since

the morning, like a mountain raised upon another. Then there appeared

an immense ram issuing from its base. The doors along the three fronts

which faced the town fell down, and cuirassed soldiers appeared in the

interior like pillars of iron. Some might be seen climbing and

descending the two staircases which crossed the stories. Some were

waiting to dart out as soon as the cramps of the doors touched the

walls; in the middle of the upper platform the skeins of the ballistas

were turning, and the great beam of the catapult was being lowered.



Hamilcar was at that moment standing upright on the roof of Melkarth.

He had calculated that it would come directly towards him, against

what was the most invulnerable place in the wall, which was for that

very reason denuded of sentries. His slaves had for a long time been

bringing leathern bottles along the roundway, where they had raised

with clay two transverse partitions forming a sort of basin. The water

was flowing insensibly along the terrace, and strange to say, it

seemed to cause Hamilcar no anxiety.



But when the helepolis was thirty paces off, he commanded planks to be

placed over the streets between the houses from the cisterns to the

rampart; and a file of people passed from hand to hand helmets and

amphoras, which were emptied continually. The Carthaginians, however,

grew indignant at this waste of water. The ram was demolishing the

wall, when suddenly a fountain sprang forth from the disjointed

stones. Then the lofty brazen mass, nine stories high, which contained

and engaged more than three thousand soldiers, began to rock gently

like a ship. In fact, the water, which had penetrated the terrace, had

broken up the path before it; its wheels stuck in the mire; the head

of Spendius, with distended cheeks blowing an ivory cornet, appeared

between leathern curtains on the first story. The great machine, as

though convulsively upheaved, advanced perhaps ten paces; but the

ground softened more and more, the mire reached to the axles, and the

helepolis stopped, leaning over frightfully to one side. The catapult

rolled to the edge of the platform, and carried away by the weight of

its beam, fell, shattering the lower stories beneath it. The soldiers

who were standing on the doors slipped into the abyss, or else held on

to the extremities of the long beams, and by their weight increased

the inclination of the helepolis, which was going to pieces with

creakings in all its joints.



The other Barbarians rushed up to help them, massing themselves into a

compact crowd. The Carthaginians descended from the rampart, and,

assailing them in the rear, killed them at leisure. But the chariots

furnished with sickles hastened up, and galloped round the outskirts

of the multitude. The latter ascended the wall again; night came on;

and the Barbarians gradually retired.



Nothing could now be seen on the plain but a sort of perfectly black,

swarming mass, which extended from the bluish gulf to the purely white

lagoon; and the lake, which had received streams of blood, stretched

further away like a great purple pool.



The terrace was now so laden with corpses that it looked as though it

had been constructed of human bodies. In the centre stood the

helepolis covered with armour; and from time to time huge fragments

broke off from it, like stones from a crumbling pyramid. Broad tracks

made by the streams of lead might be distinguished on the walls. A

broken-down wooden tower burned here and there, and the houses showed

dimly like the stages of a ruined ampitheatre. Heavy fumes of smoke

were rising, and rolling with them sparks which were lost in the dark

sky.



The Carthaginians, however, who were consumed by thirst, had rushed to

the cisterns. They broke open the doors. A miry swamp stretched at the

bottom.



What was to be done now? Moreover, the Barbarians were countless, and

when their fatigue was over they would begin again.



The people deliberated all night in groups at the corners of the

streets. Some said that they ought to send away the women, the sick,

and the old men; others proposed to abandon the town, and found a

colony far away. But vessels were lacking, and when the sun appeared

no decision had been made.



There was no fighting that day, all being too much exhausted. The

sleepers looked like corpses.



Then the Carthaginians, reflecting upon the cause of their disasters,

remembered that they had not dispatched to Phoenicia the annual

offering due to Tyrian Melkarth, and a great terror came upon them.

The gods were indignant with the Republic, and were, no doubt, about

to prosecute their vengeance.



They were considered as cruel masters, who were appeased with

supplications and allowed themselves to be bribed with presents. All

were feeble in comparison with Moloch the Devourer. The existence, the

very flesh of men, belonged to him; and hence in order to preserve it,

the Carthaginians used to offer up a portion of it to him, which

calmed his fury. Children were burned on the forehead, or on the nape

of the neck, with woollen wicks; and as this mode of satisfying Baal

brought in much money to the priests, they failed not to recommend it

as being easier and more pleasant.



This time, however, the Republic itself was at stake. But as every

profit must be purchased by some loss, and as every transaction was

regulated according to the needs of the weaker and the demands of the

stronger, there was no pain great enough for the god, since he

delighted in such as was of the most horrible description, and all

were now at his mercy. He must accordingly be fully gratified.

Precedents showed that in this way the scourge would be made to

disappear. Moreover, it was believed that an immolation by fire would

purify Carthage. The ferocity of the people was predisposed towards

it. The choice, too, must fall exclusively upon the families of the

great.



The Ancients assembled. The sitting was a long one. Hanno had come to

it. As he was now unable to sit he remained lying down near the door,

half hidden among the fringes of the lofty tapestry; and when the

pontiff of Moloch asked them whether they would consent to surrender

their children, his voice suddenly broke forth from the shadow like

the roaring of a genius in the depths of a cavern. He regretted, he

said, that he had none of his own blood to give; and he gazed at

Hamilcar, who faced him at the other end of the hall. The Suffet was

so much disconcerted by this look that it made him lower his eyes. All

successively bent their heads in approval; and in accordance with the

rites he had to reply to the high priest: "Yes; be it so." Then the

Ancients decreed the sacrifice in traditional circumlocution,--because

there are things more troublesome to say than to perform.



The decision was almost immediately known in Carthage, and

lamentations resounded. The cries of women might everywhere be heard;

their husbands consoled them, or railed at them with remonstrances.



But three hours afterwards extraordinary tidings were spread abroad:

the Suffet had discovered springs at the foot of the cliff. There was

a rush to the place. Water might be seen in holes dug in the sand, and

some were already lying flat on the ground and drinking.



Hamilcar did not himself know whether it was by the determination of

the gods or through the vague recollection of a revelation which his

father had once made to him; but on leaving the Ancients he had gone

down to the shore and had begun to dig the gravel with his slaves.



He gave clothing, boots, and wine. He gave all the rest of the corn

that he was keeping by him. He even let the crowd enter his palace,

and he opened kitchens, stores, and all the rooms,--Salammbo's alone

excepted. He announced that six thousand Gaulish Mercenaries were

coming, and that the king of Macedonia was sending soldiers.



But on the second day the springs diminished, and on the evening of

the third they were completely dried up. Then the decree of the

Ancients passed everywhere from lip to lip, and the priests of Moloch

began their task.



Men in black robes presented themselves in the houses. In many

instances the owners had deserted them under pretence of some

business, or of some dainty that they were going to buy; and the

servants of Moloch came and took the children away. Others themselves

surrendered them stupidly. Then they were brought to the temple of

Tanith, where the priestesses were charged with their amusement and

support until the solemn day.



They visited Hamilcar suddenly and found him in his gardens.



"Barca! we come for that that you know of--your son!" They added that

some people had met him one evening during the previous moon in the

centre of the Mappalian district being led by an old man.



He was as though suffocated at first. But speedily understanding that

any denial would be in vain, Hamilcar bowed; and he brought them into

the commercial house. Some slaves who had run up at a sign kept watch

all round about it.



He entered Salammbo's room in a state of distraction. He seized

Hannibal with one hand, snatched up the cord of a trailing garment

with the other, tied his feet and hands with it, thrust the end into

his mouth to form a gag, and hid him under the bed of the ox-hides by

letting an ample drapery fall to the ground.



Afterwards he walked about from right to left, raised his arms,

wheeled round, bit his lips. Then he stood still with staring eyelids,

and panted as though he were about to die.



But he clapped his hands three times. Giddenem appeared.



"Listen!" he said, "go and take from among the slaves a male child

from eight to nine years of age, with black hair and swelling

forehead! Bring him here! make haste!"



Giddenem soon entered again, bringing forward a young boy.



He was a miserable child, at once lean and bloated; his skin looked

greyish, like the infected rag hanging to his sides; his head was sunk

between his shoulders, and with the back of his hand he was rubbing

his eyes, which were filled with flies.



How could he ever be confounded with Hannibal! and there was no time

to choose another. Hamilcar looked at Giddenem; he felt inclined to

strangle him.



"Begone!" he cried; and the master of the slaves fled.



The misfortune which he had so long dreaded was therefore come, and

with extravagant efforts he strove to discover whether there was not

some mode, some means to escape it.



Abdalonim suddenly spoke from behind the door. The Suffet was being

asked for. The servants of Moloch were growing impatient.



Hamilcar repressed a cry as though a red hot iron had burnt him; and

he began anew to pace the room like one distraught. Then he sank down

beside the balustrade, and, with his elbows on his knees, pressed his

forehead into his shut fists.



The porphyry basin still contained a little clear water for Salammbo's

ablutions. In spite of his repugnance and all his pride, the Suffet

dipped the child into it, and, like a slave merchant, began to wash

him and rub him with strigils and red earth. Then he took two purple

squares from the receptacles round the wall, placed one on his breast

and the other on his back, and joined them together on the collar

bones with two diamond clasps. He poured perfume upon his head, passed

an electrum necklace around his neck, and put on him sandals with

heels of pearl,--sandals belonging to his own daughter! But he stamped

with shame and vexation; Salammbo, who busied herself in helping him,

was as pale as he. The child, dazzled by such splendour, smiled and,

growing bold even, was beginning to clap his hands and jump, when

Hamilcar took him away.



He held him firmly by the arm as though he were afraid of losing him,

and the child, who was hurt, wept a little as he ran beside him.



When on a level with the ergastulum, under a palm tree, a voice was

raised, a mournful and supplicant voice. It murmured: "Master! oh!

master!"



Hamilcar turned and beside him perceived a man of abject appearance,

one of the wretches who led a haphazard existence in the household.



"What do you want?" said the Suffet.



The slave, who trembled horribly, stammered:



"I am his father!"



Hamilcar walked on; the other followed him with stooping loins, bent

hams, and head thrust forward. His face was convulsed with unspeakable

anguish, and he was choking with suppressed sobs, so eager was he at

once to question him, and to cry: "Mercy!"



At last he ventured to touch him lightly with one finger on the elbow.



"Are you going to--?" He had not the strength to finish, and Hamilcar

stopped quite amazed at such grief.



He had never thought--so immense was the abyss separating them from

each other--that there could be anything in common between them. It

even appeared to him a sort of outrage, an encroachment upon his own

privileges. He replied with a look colder and heavier than an

executioner's axe; the slave swooned and fell in the dust at his feet.

Hamilcar strode across him.



The three black-robed men were waiting in the great hall, and standing

against the stone disc. Immediately he tore his garments, and rolled

upon the pavement uttering piercing cries.



"Ah! poor little Hannibal! Oh! my son! my consolation! my hope! my

life! Kill me also! take me away! Woe! Woe!" He ploughed his face with

his nails, tore out his hair, and shrieked like the women who lament

at funerals. "Take him away then! my suffering is too great! begone!

kill me like him!" The servants of Moloch were astonished that the

great Hamilcar was so weak-spirited. They were almost moved by it.



A noise of naked feet became audible, with a broken throat-rattling

like the breathing of a wild beast speeding along, and a man, pale,

terrible, and with outspread arms appeared on the threshold of the

third gallery, between the ivory pots; he exclaimed:



"My child!"



Hamilcar threw himself with a bound upon the slave, and covering the

man's mouth with his hand exclaimed still more loudly:



"It is the old man who reared him! he calls him 'my child!' it will

make him mad! enough! enough!" And hustling away the three priests and

their victim he went out with them and with a great kick shut the door

behind him.



Hamilcar strained his ears for some minutes in constant fear of seeing

them return. He then thought of getting rid of the slave in order to

be quite sure that he would see nothing; but the peril had not wholly

disappeared, and, if the gods were provoked at the man's death, it

might be turned against his son. Then, changing his intention, he sent

him by Taanach the best from his kitchens--a quarter of a goat, beans,

and preserved pomegranates. The slave, who had eaten nothing for a

long time, rushed upon them; his tears fell into the dishes.



Hamilcar at last returned to Salammbo, and unfastened Hannibal's

cords. The child in exasperation bit his hand until the blood came. He

repelled him with a caress.



To make him remain quiet Salammbo tried to frighten him with Lamia, a

Cyrenian ogress.



"But where is she?" he asked.



He was told that brigands were coming to put him into prison. "Let

them come," he rejoined, "and I will kill them!"



Then Hamilcar told him the frightful truth. But he fell into a passion

with his father, contending that he was quite able to annihilate the

whole people, since he was the master of Carthage.



At last, exhausted by his exertions and anger, he fell into a wild

sleep. He spoke in his dreams, his back leaning against a scarlet

cushion; his head was thrown back somewhat, and his little arm,

outstretched from his body, lay quite straight in an attitude of

command.



When the night had grown dark Hamilcar lifted him up gently, and,

without a torch, went down the galley staircase. As he passed through

the mercantile house he took up a basket of grapes and a flagon of

pure water; the child awoke before the statue of Aletes in the vault

of gems, and he smiled--like the other--on his father's arm at the

brilliant lights which surrounded him.



Hamilcar felt quite sure that his son could not be taken from him. It

was an impenetrable spot communicating with the beach by a

subterranean passage which he alone knew, and casting his eyes around

he inhaled a great draught of air. Then he set him down upon a stool

beside some golden shields. No one at present could see him; he had no

further need for watching; and he relieved his feelings. Like a mother

finding her first-born that was lost, he threw himself upon his son;

he clasped him to his breast, he laughed and wept at the same time, he

called him by the fondest names and covered him with kisses; little

Hannibal was frightened by this terrible tenderness and was silent

now.



Hamilcar returned with silent steps, feeling the walls around him, and

came into the great hall where the moonlight entered through one of

the apertures in the dome; in the centre the slave lay sleeping after

his repast, stretched at full length upon the marble pavement. He

looked at him and was moved with a sort of pity. With the tip of his

cothurn he pushed forward a carpet beneath his head. Then he raised

his eyes and gazed at Tanith, whose slender crescent was shining in

the sky, and felt himself stronger than the Baals and full of contempt

for them.



The arrangements for the sacrifice were already begun.



Part of a wall in the temple of Moloch was thrown down in order to

draw out the brazen god without touching the ashes of the altar. Then

as soon as the sun appeared the hierodules pushed it towards the

square of Khamon.



It moved backwards sliding upon cylinders; its shoulders overlapped

the walls. No sooner did the Carthaginians perceive it in the distance

than they speedily took to flight, for the Baal could be looked upon

with impunity only when exercising his wrath.



A smell of aromatics spread through the streets. All the temples had

just been opened simultaneously, and from them there came forth

tabernacles borne upon chariots, or upon litters carried by the

pontiffs. Great plumes swayed at the corners of them, and rays were

emitted from their slender pinnacles which terminated in balls of

crystal, gold, silver or copper.



These were the Chanaanitish Baalim, offshoots of the supreme Baal, who

were returning to their first cause to humble themselves before his

might and annihilate themselves in his splendour.



Melkarth's pavilion, which was of fine purple, sheltered a petroleum

flare; on Khamon's, which was of hyacinth colour, there rose an ivory

phallus bordered with a circle of gems; between Eschmoun's curtains,

which were as blue as the ether, a sleeping python formed a circle

with his tail, and the Pataec gods, held in the arms of their priests,

looked like great infants in swaddling clothes with their heels

touching the ground.



Then came all the inferior forms of the Divinity: Baal-Samin, god of

celestial space; Baal-Peor, god of the sacred mountains; Baal-Zeboub,

god of corruption, with those of the neighbouring countries and

congenerous races: the Iarbal of Libya, the Adramelech of Chaldaea,

the Kijun of the Syrians; Derceto, with her virgin's face, crept on

her fins, and the corpse of Tammouz was drawn along in the midst of a

catafalque among torches and heads of hair. In order to subdue the

kings of the firmament to the Sun, and prevent their particular

influences from disturbing his, diversely coloured metal stars were

brandished at the end of long poles; and all were there, from the dark

Neblo, the genius of Mercury, to the hideous Rahab, which is the

constellation of the Crocodile. The Abbadirs, stones which had fallen

from the moon, were whirling in slings of silver thread; little

loaves, representing the female form, were born on baskets by the

priests of Ceres; others brought their fetishes and amulets; forgotten

idols reappeared, while the mystic symbols had been taken from the

very ships as though Carthage wished to concentrate herself wholly

upon a single thought of death and desolation.



Before each tabernacle a man balanced a large vase of smoking incense

on his head. Clouds hovered here and there, and the hangings,

pendants, and embroideries of the sacred pavilions might be

distinguished amid the thick vapours. These advanced slowly owing to

their enormous weight. Sometimes the axles became fast in the streets;

then the pious took advantage of the opportunity to touch the Baalim

with their garments, which they preserved afterwards as holy things.



The brazen statue continued to advance towards the square of Khamon.

The rich, carrying sceptres with emerald balls, set out from the

bottom of Megara; the Ancients, with diadems on their heads, had

assembled in Kinisdo, and masters of the finances, governors of

provinces, sailors, and the numerous horde employed at funerals, all

with the insignia of their magistracies or the instruments of their

calling, were making their way towards the tabernacles which were

descending from the Acropolis between the colleges of the pontiffs.



Out of deference to Moloch they had adorned themselves with the most

splendid jewels. Diamonds sparkled on their black garments; but their

rings were too large and fell from their wasted hands,--nor could

there have been anything so mournful as this silent crowd where

earrings tapped against pale faces, and gold tiaras clasped brows

contracted with stern despair.



At last the Baal arrived exactly in the centre of the square. His

pontiffs arranged an enclosure with trellis-work to keep off the

multitude, and remained around him at his feet.



The priests of Khamon, in tawny woollen robes, formed a line before

their temple beneath the columns of the portico; those of Eschmoun, in

linen mantles with necklaces of koukouphas' heads and pointed tiaras,

posted themselves on the steps of the Acropolis; the priests of

Melkarth, in violet tunics, took the western side; the priests of the

Abbadirs, clasped with bands of Phrygian stuffs, placed themselves on

the east, while towards the south, with the necromancers all covere