syntagmata, killed one another with knives in a dispute about a rat.
All regretted their families, and their houses; the poor their hive-

shaped huts, with the shells on the threshold and the hanging net, and
the patricians their large halls filled with bluish shadows, where at

the most indolent hour of the day they used to rest listening to the
vague noise of the streets mingled with the rustling of the leaves as

they stirred in their gardens;--to go deeper into the thought of this,
and to enjoy it more, they would half close their eyelids, only to be

roused by the shock of a wound. Every minute there was some
engagement, some fresh alarm; the towers were burning, the Eaters of

Uncleanness were leaping across the palisades; their hands would be
struck off with axes; others would hasten up; an iron hail would fall

upon the tents. Galleries of rushen hurdles were raised as a
protection against the projectiles. The Carthaginians shut themselves

up within them and stirred out no more.
Every day the sun coming over the hill used, after the early hours, to

forsake the bottom of the gorge and leave them in the shade. The grey
slopes of the ground, covered with flints spotted with scanty lichen,

ascended in front and in the rear, and above their summits stretched
the sky in its perpetualpurity, smoother and colder to the eye than a

metal cupola. Hamilcar was so indignant with Carthage that he felt
inclined to throw himself among the Barbarians and lead them against

her. Moreover, the porters, sutlers, and slaves were beginning to
murmur, while neither people, nor Great Council, nor any one sent as

much as a hope. The situation was intolerable, especially owing to the
thought that it would become worse.

At the news of the disaster Carthage had leaped, as it were, with
anger and hate; the Suffet would have been less execrated if he had

allowed himself to be conquered from the first.
But time and money were lacking for the hire of other Mercenaries. As

to a levy of soldiers in the town, how were they to be equipped?
Hamilcar had taken all the arms! and then who was to command them? The

best captains were down yonder with him! Meanwhile, some men
despatched by the Suffet arrived in the streets with shouts. The Great

Council were roused by them, and contrived to make them disappear.
It was an unnecessary precaution; every one accused Barca of having

behaved with slackness. He ought to have annihilated the Mercenaries
after his victory. Why had he ravaged the tribes? The sacrifices

already imposed had been heavy enough! and the patricians deplored
their contributions of fourteen shekels, and the Syssitia their two

hundred and twenty-three thousand gold kikars; those who had given
nothing lamented like the rest. The populace was jealous of the New

Carthaginians, to whom he had promised full rights of citizenship; and
even the Ligurians, who had fought with such intrepidity, were

confounded with the Barbarians and cursed like them; their race became
a crime, the proof of complicity. The traders on the threshold of

their shops, the workmen passing plumb-line in hand, the vendors of
pickle rinsing their baskets, the attendants in the vapour baths and

the retailers of hot drinks all discussed the operations of the
campaign. They would trace battle-plans with their fingers in the

dust, and there was not a sorry rascal to be found who could not have
corrected Hamilcar's mistakes.

It was a punishment, said the priests, for his long-continued impiety.
He had offered no holocausts; he had not purified his troops; he had

even refused to take augurs with him; and the scandal of sacrilege
strengthened the violence of restrained hate, and the rage of betrayed

hopes. People recalled the Sicilian disasters, and all the burden of
his pride that they had borne for so long! The colleges of the

pontiffs could not forgive him for having seized their treasure, and
they demanded a pledge from the Great Council to crucify him should he

ever return.
The heats of the month of Eloul, which were excessive in that year,

were another calamity. Sickening smells rose from the borders of the
Lake, and were wafted through the air together with the fumes of the

aromatics that eddied at the corners of the streets. The sounds of
hymns were constantly heard. Crowds of people occupied the staircases

of the temples; all the walls were covered with black veils; tapers
burnt on the brows of the Pataec Gods, and the blood of camels slain

for sacrifice ran along the flights of stairs forming red cascades
upon the steps. Carthage was agitated with funereal delirium. From the

depths of the narrowest lanes, and the blackest dens, there issued
pale faces, men with viper-like profiles and grinding their teeth. The

houses were filled with the women's piercing shrieks, which, escaping
through the gratings, caused those who stood talking in the squares to

turn round. Sometimes it was thought that the Barbarians were
arriving; they had been seen behind the mountain of the Hot Springs;

they were encamped at Tunis; and the voices would multiply and swell,
and be blended into one single clamour. Then universal silence would

reign, some remaining where they had climbed upon the frontals of the
buildings, screening their eyes with their open hand, while the rest

lay flat on their faces at the foot of the ramparts straining their
ears. When their terror had passed off their anger would begin again.

But the conviction of their own impotence would soon sink them into
the same sadness as before.

It increased every evening when all ascended the terraces, and bowing
down nine times uttered a loud cry in salutation of the sun, as it

sank slowly behind the lagoon, and then suddenly disappeared among the
mountains in the direction of the Barbarians.

They were waiting for the thrice holy festival when, from the summit
of a funeral pile, an eagle flew heavenwards as a symbol of the

resurrection of the year, and a message from the people to their Baal;
they regarded it as a sort of union, a method of connecting themselves

with the might of the Sun. Moreover, filled as they now were with
hatred, they turned frankly towards homicidal Moloch, and all forsook

Tanith. In fact, Rabetna, having lost her veil, was as if she had been
despoiled of part of her virtue. She denied the beneficence of her

waters, she had abandoned Carthage; she was a deserter, an enemy. Some
threw stones at her to insult her. But many pitied her while they

inveighed against her; she was still beloved, and perhaps more deeply
than she had been.

All their misfortunes came, therefore, from the loss of the zaimph.
Salammbo had indirectly participated in it; she was included in the

same ill will; she must be punished. A vague idea of immolation spread
among the people. To appease the Baalim it was without doubt necessary

to offer them something of incalculable worth, a being handsome,
young, virgin, of old family, a descendant of the gods, a human star.

Every day the gardens of Megara were invaded by strange men; the
slaves, trembling on their own account, dared not resist them.

Nevertheless, they did not pass beyond the galleystaircase. They
remained below with their eyes raised to the highest terrace; they

were waiting for Salammbo, and they would cry out for hours against
her like dogs baying at the moon.

CHAPTER X
THE SERPENT

These clamourings of the populace did not alarm Hamilcar's daughter.
She was disturbed by loftier anxieties: her great serpent, the black

python, was drooping; and in the eyes of the Carthaginians, the
serpent was at once a national and a private fetish. It was believed

to be the offspring of the dust of the earth, since it emerges from
its depths and has no need of feet to traverse it; its mode of

progression called to mind the undulations of rivers, its temperature
the ancient, viscous, and fecund darkness, and the orbit which it

describes when biting its tail the harmony of the planets, and the
intelligence of Eschmoun.

Salammbo's serpent had several times already refused the four live
sparrows which were offered to it at the full moon and at every new

moon. Its handsome skin, covered like the firmament with golden spots
upon a perfectly black ground, was now yellow, relaxed, wrinkled, and

too large for its body. A cottony mouldiness extended round its head;
and in the corners of its eyelids might be seen little red specks

which appeared to move. Salammbo would approach its silver-wire basket
from time to time, and would draw aside the purple curtains, the lotus

leaves, and the bird's down; but it was continually rolled up upon
itself, more motionless than a withered bind-weed; and from looking at

it she at last came to feel a kind of spiral within her heart, another