reserving her for some alliance that might serve his political ends;
so that Salammbo lived alone in the midst of the palace. Her mother

was long since dead.
She had grown up with abstinences, fastings and purifications, always

surrounded by grave and exquisite things, her body saturated with
perfumes, and her soul filled with prayers. She had never tasted wine,

nor eaten meat, nor touched an unclean animal, nor set her heels in
the house of death.

She knew nothing of obscene images, for as each god was manifested in
different forms, the same principle often received the witness of

contradictory cults, and Salammbo worshipped the goddess in her
sidereal presentation. An influence had descended upon the maiden from

the moon; when the planet passed diminishing away, Salammbo grew weak.
She languished the whole day long, and revived at evening. During an

eclipse she nearly died.
But Rabetna, in jealousy, revenged herself for the virginity withdrawn

from her sacrifices, and she tormented Salammbo with possessions, all
the stronger for being vague, which were spread through this belief

and excited by it.
Unceasingly was Hamilcar's daughter disquieted about Tanith. She had

learned her adventures, her travels, and all her names, which she
would repeat without their having any distinct signification for her.

In order to penetrate into the depths of her dogma, she wished to
become acquainted, in the most secret part of the temple, with the old

idol in the magnificentmantle, whereon depended the destinies of
Carthage, for the idea of a god did not stand out clearly from his

representation, and to hold, or even see the image of one, was to take
away part of his virtue, and in a measure to rule him.

But Salammbo turned around. She had recognised the sound of the golden
bells which Schahabarim wore at the hem of his garment.

He ascended the staircases; then at the threshold of the terrace he
stopped and folded his arms.

His sunken eyes shone like the lamps of a sepulchre; his long thin
body floated in its linen robe which was weighted by the bells, the

latter alternating with balls of emeralds at his heels. He had feeble
limbs, an oblique skull and a pointed chin; his skin seemed cold to

the touch, and his yellow face, which was deeply furrowed with
wrinkles, was as if it contracted in a longing, in an everlasting

grief.
He was the high priest of Tanith, and it was he who had educated

Salammbo.
"Speak!" he said. "What will you?"

"I hoped--you had almost promised me--" She stammered and was
confused; then suddenly: "Why do you despise me? what have I forgotten

in the rites? You are my master, and you told me that no one was so
accomplished in the things pertaining to the goddess as I; but there

are some of which you will not speak. Is it so, O father?"
Schahabarim remembered Hamilcar's orders, and replied:

"No, I have nothing more to teach you!"
"A genius," she resumed, "impels me to this love. I have climbed the

steps of Eschmoun, god of the planets and intelligences; I have slept
beneath the golden olive of Melkarth, patron of the Tyrian colonies; I

have pushed open the doors of Baal-Khamon, the enlightener and
fertiliser; I have sacrificed to the subterranean Kabiri, to the gods

of woods, winds, rivers and mountains; but, can you understand? they
are all too far away, too high, too insensible, while she--I feel her

mingled in my life; she fills my soul, and I quiver with inward
startings, as though she were leaping in order to escape. Methinks I

am about to hear her voice, and see her face, lightnings dazzle me and
then I sink back again into the darkness."

Schahabarim was silent. She entreated him with suppliant looks. At
last he made a sign for the dismissal of the slave, who was not of

Chanaanitish race. Taanach disappeared, and Schahabarim, raising one
arm in the air, began:

"Before the gods darkness alone was, and a breathing stirred dull and
indistinct as the conscience of a man in a dream. It contracted,

creating Desire and Cloud, and from Desire and Cloud there issued
primitive Matter. This was a water, muddy, black, icy and deep. It

contained senseless monsters, incoherent portions of the forms to be
born, which are painted on the walls of the sanctuaries.

"Then Matter condensed. It became an egg. It burst. One half formed
the earth and the other the firmament. Sun, moon, winds and clouds

appeared, and at the crash of the thunderintelligent creatures awoke.
Then Eschmoun spread himself in the starrysphere; Khamon beamed in

the sun; Melkarth thrust him with his arms behind Gades; the Kabiri
descended beneath the volcanoes, and Rabetna like a nurse bent over

the world pouring out her light like milk, and her night like a
mantle."

"And then?" she said.
He had related the secret of the origins to her, to divert her from

sublimer prospects; but the maiden's desire kindled again at his last
words, and Schahabarim, half yielding resumed:

"She inspires and governs the loves of men."
"The loves of men!" repeated Salammbo dreamily.

"She is the soul of Carthage," continued the priest; "and although she
is everywhere diffused, it is here that she dwells, beneath the sacred

veil."
"O father!" cried Salammbo, "I shall see her, shall I not? you will

bring me to her! I had long been hesitating; I am devoured with
curiosity to see her form. Pity! help me! let us go?"

He repulsed her with a vehementgesture that was full of pride.
"Never! Do you not know that it means death? The hermaphrodite Baals

are unveiled to us alone who are men in understanding and women in
weakness. Your desire is sacrilege; be satisfied with the knowledge

that you possess!"
She fell upon her knees placing two fingers against her ears in token

of repentance; and crushed by the priest's words, and filled at once
with anger against him, with terror and humiliation, she burst into

sobs. Schahabarim remained erect, and more insensible than the stones
of the terrace. He looked down upon her quivering at his feet, and

felt a kind of joy on seeing her suffer for his divinity whom he
himself could not whollyembrace. The birds were already singing, a

cold wind was blowing, and little clouds were drifting in the paling
sky.

Suddenly he perceived on the horizon, behind Tunis, what looked like
slight mists trailing along the ground; then these became a great

curtain of dust extending perpendicularly, and, amid the whirlwinds of
the thronging mass, dromedaries' heads, lances and shields appeared.

It was the army of the Barbarians advancing upon Carthage.
CHAPTER IV

BENEATH THE WALLS OF CARTHAGE
Some country people, riding on asses or running on foot, arrived in

the town, pale, breathless, and mad with fear. They were flying before
the army. It had accomplished the journey from Sicca in three days, in

order to reach Carthage and wholly exterminate it.
The gates were shut. The Barbarians appeared almost immediately; but

they stopped in the middle of the isthmus, on the edge of the lake.
At first they made no hostileannouncement. Several approached with

palm branches in their hands. They were driven back with arrows, so
great was the terror.

In the morning and at nightfall prowlers would sometimes wander along
the walls. A little man carefully wrapped in a cloak, and with his

face concealed beneath a very low visor, was especially noticed. He
would remain whole hours gazing at the aqueduct, and so persistently

that he doubtless wished to mislead the Carthaginians as to his real
designs. Another man, a sort of giant who walked bareheaded, used to

accompany him.
But Carthage was defended throughout the whole breadth of the isthmus:

first by a trench, then by a grassyrampart, and lastly by a wall
thirty cubits high, built of freestone, and in two storys. It

contained stables for three hundred elephants with stores for their
caparisons, shackles, and food; other stables again for four thousand

horses with supplies of barley and harness, and barracks for twenty
thousand soldiers with armour and all materials of war. Towers rose