The crowd applauded and howled with joy.
HE knew it, he who had commanded them over yonder, and had returned

with the last cohort in the last galley!
"True! True!" said they.

Nevertheless, Gisco continued, the Republic had respected their
national divisions, their customs, and their modes of worship; in

Carthage they were free! As to the cups of the Sacred Legion, they
were private property. Suddenly a Gaul, who was close to Spendius,

sprang over the tables and ran straight up to Gisco, gesticulating and
threatening him with two naked swords.

Without interrupting his speech, the General struck him on the head
with his heavy ivory staff, and the Barbarian fell. The Gauls howled,

and their frenzy, which was spreading to the others, would soon have
swept away the legionaries. Gisco shrugged his shoulders as he saw

them growing pale. He thought that his courage would be useless
against these exasperated brute beasts. It would be better to revenge

himself upon them by some artifice later; accordingly, he signed to
his soldiers and slowly withdrew. Then, turning in the gateway towards

the Mercenaries, he cried to them that they would repent of it.
The feast recommenced. But Gisco might return, and by surrounding the

suburb, which was beside the last ramparts, might crush them against
the walls. Then they felt themselves alone in spite of their crowd,

and the great town sleeping beneath them in the shade suddenly made
them afraid, with its piles of staircases, its lofty black houses, and

its vague gods fiercer even than its people. In the distance a few
ships'-lanterns were gliding across the harbour, and there were lights

in the temple of Khamon. They thought of Hamilcar. Where was he? Why
had he forsaken them when peace was concluded? His differences with

the Council were doubtless but a pretence in order to destroy them.
Their unsatisfied hate recoiled upon him, and they cursed him,

exasperating one another with their own anger. At this juncture they
collected together beneath the plane-trees to see a slave who, with

eyeballs fixed, neck contorted, and lips covered with foam, was
rolling on the ground, and beating the soil with his limbs. Some one

cried out that he was poisoned. All then believed themselves poisoned.
They fell upon the slaves, a terrible clamour was raised, and a

vertigo of destruction came like a whirlwind upon the drunken army.
They struck about them at random, they smashed, they slew; some hurled

torches into the foliage; others, leaning over the lions' balustrade,
massacred the animals with arrows; the most daring ran to the

elephants, desiring to cut down their trunks and eat ivory.
Some Balearic slingers, however, who had gone round the corner of the

palace, in order to pillage more conveniently, were checked by a lofty
barrier, made of Indian cane. They cut the lock-straps with their

daggers, and then found themselves beneath the front that faced
Carthage, in another garden full of trimmed vegetation. Lines of white

flowers all following one another in regular succession formed long
parabolas like star-rockets on the azure-coloured earth. The gloomy

bushes exhaled warm and honied odours. There were trunks of trees
smeared with cinnabar, which resembled columns covered with blood. In

the centre were twelve pedestals, each supporting a great glass ball,
and these hollow globes were indistinctly filled with reddish lights,

like enormous and still palpitating eyeballs. The soldiers lighted
themselves with torches as they stumbled on the slope of the deeply

laboured soil.
But they perceived a little lake divided into several basins by walls

of blue stones. So limpid was the wave that the flames of the torches
quivered in it at the very bottom, on a bed of white pebbles and

golden dust. It began to bubble, luminous spangles glided past, and
great fish with gems about their mouths, appeared near the surface.

With much laughter the soldiers slipped their fingers into the gills
and brought them to the tables. They were the fish of the Barca

family, and were all descended from those primordial lotes which had
hatched the mystic egg wherein the goddess was concealed. The idea of

committing a sacrilege revived the greediness of the Mercenaries; they
speedily placed fire beneath some brazen vases, and amused themselves

by watching the beautiful fish struggling in the boiling water.
The surge of soldiers pressed on. They were no longer afraid. They

commenced to drink again. Their ragged tunics were wet with the
perfumes that flowed in large drops from their foreheads, and resting

both fists on the tables, which seemed to them to be rocking like
ships, they rolled their great drunken eyes around to devour by sight

what they could not take. Others walked amid the dishes on the purple
table covers, breaking ivory stools, and phials of Tyrian glass to

pieces with their feet. Songs mingled with the death-rattle of the
slaves expiring amid the broken cups. They demanded wine, meat, gold.

They cried out for women. They raved in a hundred languages. Some
thought that they were at the vapour baths on account of the steam

which floated around them, or else, catching sight of the foliage,
imagined that they were at the chase, and rushed upon their companions

as upon wild beasts. The conflagration spread to all the trees, one
after another, and the lofty mosses of verdure, emitting long white

spirals, looked like volcanoes beginning to smoke. The clamour
redoubled; the wounded lions roared in the shade.

In an instant the highest terrace of the palace was illuminated, the
central door opened, and a woman, Hamilcar's daughter herself, clothed

in black garments, appeared on the threshold. She descended the first
staircase, which ran obliquely along the first story, then the second,

and the third, and stopped on the last terrace at the head of the
galleystaircase. Motionless and with head bent, she gazed upon the

soldiers.
Behind her, on each side, were two long shadows of pale men, clad in

white, red-fringed robes, which fell straight to their feet. They had
no beard, no hair, no eyebrows. In their hands, which sparkled with

rings, they carried enormous lyres, and with shrill voice they sang a
hymn to the divinity of Carthage. They were the eunuch priests of the

temple of Tanith, who were often summoned by Salammbo to her house.
At last she descended the galleystaircase. The priests followed her.

She advanced into the avenue of cypress, and walked slowly through the
tables of the captains, who drew back somewhat as they watched her

pass.
Her hair, which was powdered with violet sand, and combined into the

form of a tower, after the fashion of the Chanaanite maidens, added to
her height. Tresses of pearls were fastened to her temples, and fell

to the corners of her mouth, which was as rosy as a half-open
pomegranate. On her breast was a collection of luminous stones, their

variegation imitating the scales of the murena. Her arms were adorned
with diamonds, and issued naked from her sleeveless tunic, which was

starred with red flowers on a perfectly black ground. Between her
ankles she wore a golden chainlet to regulate her steps, and her large

dark purplemantle, cut of an unknown material, trailed behind her,
making, as it were, at each step, a broad wave which followed her.

The priests played nearly stifled chords on their lyres from time to
time, and in the intervals of the music might be heard the tinkling of

the little golden chain, and the regular patter of her papyrus
sandals.

No one as yet was acquainted with her. It was only known that she led
a retired life, engaged in pious practices. Some soldiers had seen her

in the night on the summit of her palace kneeling before the stars
amid the eddyings from kindled perfuming-pans. It was the moon that

had made her so pale, and there was something from the gods that
enveloped her like a subtle vapour. Her eyes seemed to gaze far beyond

terrestrial space. She bent her head as she walked, and in her right
hand she carried a little ebony lyre.

They heard her murmur:
"Dead! All dead! No more will you come obedient to my voice as when,

seated on the edge of the lake, I used to through seeds of the
watermelon into your mouths! The mystery of Tanith ranged in the

depths of your eyes that were more limpid than the globules of
rivers." And she called them by their names, which were those of the

months--"Siv! Sivan! Tammouz, Eloul, Tischri, Schebar! Ah! have pity
on me, goddess!"

The soldiers thronged about her without understanding what she said.