filled up! At Tedes they have carried off fifteen hundred gomors of

meal; at Marrazana they have killed the shepherds, eaten the flocks,
burnt your house--your beautiful house with its cedar beams, which you

used to visit in the summer! The slaves at Tuburbo who were reaping
barley fled to the mountains; and the asses, the mules both great and

small, the oxen from Taormina, and the antelopes,--not a single one
left! all carried away! It is a curse! I shall not survive it!" He

went on again in tears: "Ah! if you knew how full the cellars were,
and how the ploughshares shone! Ah! the fine rams! ah! the fine

bulls!--"
Hamilcar's wrath was choking him. It burst forth:

"Be silent! Am I a pauper then? No lies! speak the truth! I wish to
know all that I have lost to the last shekel, to the last cab!

Abdalonim, bring me the accounts of the ships, of the caravans, of the
farms, of the house! And if your consciences are not clear, woe be on

your heads! Go out!"
All the stewards went out walking backwards, with their fists touching

the ground.
Abdalonim went up to a set of pigeon-holes in the wall, and from the

midst of them took out knotted cords, strips of linen or papyrus, and
sheeps' shoulder-blades inscribed with delicatewriting. He laid them

at Hamilcar's feet, placed in his hands a wooden frame furnished on
the inside with three threads on which balls of gold, silver, and horn

were strung, and began:
"One hundred and ninety-two houses in the Mappalian district let to

the New Carthaginians at the rate of one bekah a moon."
"No! it is too much! be lenient towards the poor people! and you will

try to learn whether they are attached to the Republic, and write down
the names of those who appear to you to be the most daring! What

next?"
Abdalonim hesitated in surprise at such generosity.

Hamilcar snatched the strips of linen from his hands.
"What is this? three palaces around Khamon at twelve kesitahs a month!

Make it twenty! I do not want to be eaten up by the rich."
The Steward of the stewards, after a long salutation, resumed:

"Lent to Tigillas until the end of the season two kikars at three per
cent., maritime interest; to Bar-Malkarth fifteen hundred shekels on

the security of thirty slaves. But twelve have died in the salt-
marshes."

"That is because they were not hardy," said the Suffet, laughing. "No
matter! if he is in want of money, satisfy him! We should always lend,

and at different rates of interest, according to the wealth of the
individual."

Then the servant hastened to read all that had been brought in by the
iron-mines of Annaba, the coral fisheries, the purple factories, the

farming of the tax on the resident Greeks, the export of silver to
Arabia, where it had ten times the value of gold, and the captures of

vessels, deduction of a tenth being made for the temple of the
goddess. "Each time I declared a quarter less, Master!" Hamilcar was

reckoning with the balls; they rang beneath his fingers.
"Enough! What have you paid?"

"To Stratonicles of Corinth, and to three Alexandrian merchants, on
these letters here (they have been realised), ten thousand Athenian

drachmas, and twelve Syrian talents of gold. The food for the crews,
amounting to twenty minae a month for each trireme--"

"I know! How many lost?"
"Here is the account on these sheets of lead," said the Steward. "As

to the ships chartered in common, it has often been necessary to throw
the cargo into the seas, and so the unequal losses have been divided

among the partners. For the ropes which were borrowed from the
arsenals, and which it was impossible to restore, the Syssitia exacted

eight hundred kesitahs before the expedition to Utica."
"They again!" said Hamilcar, hanging his head; and he remained for a

time as if quite crushed by the weight of all the hatreds that he
could feel upon him. "But I do not see the Megara expenses?"

Abdalonim, turning pale, went to another set of pigeon-holes, and took
from them some planchettes of sycamore wood strung in packets on

leathern strings.
Hamilcar, curious about these domestic details, listened to him and

grew calm with the monotony of the tones in which the figures were
enumerated. Abdalonim became slower. Suddenly he let the wooden sheets

fall to the ground and threw himself flat on his face with his arms
stretched out in the position of a condemned criminal. Hamilcar picked

up the tablets without any emotion; and his lips parted and his eyes
grew larger when he perceived an exorbitant consumption of meat, fish,

birds, wines, and aromatics, with broken vases, dead slaves, and
spoiled carpets set down as the expense of a single day.

Abdalonim, still prostrate, told him of the feast of the Barbarians.
He had not been able to avoid the command of the Ancients. Moreover,

Salammbo desired money to be lavished for the better reception of the
soldiers.

At his daughter's name Hamilcar leaped to his feet. Then with
compressed lips he crouched down upon the cushions, tearing the

fringes with his nails, and panting with staring eyes.
"Rise!" said he; and he descended.

Abdalonim followed him; his knees trembled. But seizing an iron bar he
began like one distraught to loosen the paving stones. A wooden disc

sprang up and soon there appeared throughout the length of the passage
several of the large covers employed for stopping up the trenches in

which grain was kept.
"You see, Eye of Baal," said the servant, trembling, "they have not

taken everything yet! and these are each fifty cubits deep and filled
up to the brim! During your voyage I had them dug out in the arsenals,

in the gardens, everywhere! your house is full of corn as your heart
is full of wisdom."

A smile passed over Hamilcar's face. "It is well, Abdalonim!" Then
bending over to his ear: "You will have it brought from Etruria,

Brutium, whence you will, and no matter at what price! Heap it and
keep it! I alone must possess all the corn in Carthage."

Then when they were alone at the extremity of the passage, Abdalonim,
with one of the keys hanging at his girdle, opened a large

quadrangular chamber divided in the centre by pillars of cedar. Gold,
silver, and brass coins were arranged on tables or packed into niches,

and rose as high as the joists of the roof along the four walls. In
the corners there were huge baskets of hippopotamus skin supporting

whole rows of smaller bags; there were hillocks formed of heaps of
bullion on the pavement; and here and there a pile that was too high

had given way and looked like a ruined column. The large Carthaginian
pieces, representing Tanith with a horse beneath a palm-tree, mingled

with those from the colonies, which were marked with a bull, star,
globe, or crescent. Then there might be seen pieces of all values,

dimensions, and ages arrayed in unequal amounts--from the ancient
coins of Assyria, slender as the nail, to the ancient ones of Latium,

thicker than the hand, with the buttons of Egina, the tablets of
Bactriana, and the short bars of Lacedaemon; many were covered with

rust, or had grown greasy, or, having been taken in nets or from among
the ruins of captured cities, were green with the water or blackened

by fire. The Suffet had speedily calculated whether the sums present
corresponded with the gains and losses which had just been read to

him; and he was going away when he perceived three brass jars
completely empty. Abdalonim turned away his head to mark his horror,

and Hamilcar, resigning himself to it, said nothing.
They crossed other passages and other halls, and at last reached a

door where, to ensure its better protection and in accordance with a
Roman custom lately introduced into Carthage, a man was fastened by

the waist to a long chain let into the wall. His beard and nails had
grown to an immoderate length, and he swayed himself from right to

left with that continual oscillation which is characteristic of
captive animals. As soon as he recognised Hamilcar he darted towards