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.