grasshoppers' wings.
The hierodules, with a long hook, opened the seven-storied

compartments on the body of the Baal. They put meal into the highest,
two turtle-doves into the second, an ape into the third, a ram into

the fourth, a sheep into the fifth, and as no ox was to be had for the
sixth, a tawny hide taken from the sanctuary was thrown into it. The

seventh compartment yawned empty still.
Before taking" target="_blank" title="n.任务；事业；计划">undertaking anything it was well to make trial of the arms of

the god. Slender chainlets stretched from his fingers up to his
shoulders and fell behind, where men by pulling them made the two

hands rise to a level with the elbows, and come close together against
the belly; they were moved several times in succession with little

abrupt jerks. Then the instruments were still. The fire roared.
The pontiffs of Moloch walked about on the great flagstone scanning

the multitude.
An individual sacrifice was necessary, a perfectlyvoluntary oblation,

which was considered as carrying the others along with it. But no one
had appeared up to the present, and the seven passages leading from

the barriers to the colossus were completely empty. Then the priests,
to encourage the people, drew bodkins from their girdles and gashed

their faces. The Devotees, who were stretched on the ground outside,
were brought within the enclosure. A bundle of horrible irons was

thrown to them, and each chose his own torture. They drove in spits
between their breasts; they split their cheeks; they put crowns of

thorns upon their heads; then they twined their arms together, and
surrounded the children in another large circle which widened and

contracted in turns. They reached to the balustrade, they threw
themselves back again, and then began once more, attracting the crowd

to them by the dizziness of their motion with its accompanying blood
and shrieks.

By degrees people came into the end of the passages; they flung into
the flames pearls, gold vases, cups, torches, all their wealth; the

offerings became constantly more numerous and more splendid. At last a
man who tottered, a man pale and hideous with terror, thrust forward a

child; then a little black mass was seen between the hands of the
colossus, and sank into the dark opening. The priests bent over the

edge of the great flagstone,--and a new song burst forth celebrating
the joys of death and of new birth into eternity.

The children ascended slowly, and as the smoke formed lofty eddies as
it escaped, they seemed at a distance to disappear in a cloud. Not one

stirred. Their wrists and ankles were tied, and the dark drapery
prevented them from seeing anything and from being recognised.

Hamilcar, in a red cloak, like the priests of Moloch, was beside the
Baal, standingupright in front of the great toe of its right foot.

When the fourteenth child was brought every one could see him make a
great gesture of horror. But he soon resumed his former attitude,

folded his arms, and looked upon the ground. The high pontiff stood on
the other side of the statue as motionless as he. His head, laden with

an Assyrian mitre, was bent, and he was watching the gold plate on his
breast; it was covered with fatidical stones, and the flame mirrored

in it formed irisated lights. He grew pale and dismayed. Hamilcar bent
his brow; and they were both so near the funeral-pile that the hems of

their cloaks brushed it as they rose from time to time.
The brazen arms were working more quickly. They paused no longer.

Every time that a child was placed in them the priests of Moloch
spread out their hands upon him to burden him with the crimes of the

people, vociferating: "They are not men but oxen!" and the multitude
round about repeated: "Oxen! oxen!" The devout exclaimed: "Lord! eat!"

and the priests of Proserpine, complying through terror with the needs
of Carthage, muttered the Eleusinian formula: "Pour out rain! bring

forth!"
The victims, when scarcely at the edge of the opening, disappeared

like a drop of water on a red-hot plate, and white smoke rose amid the
great scarlet colour.

Nevertheless, the appetite of the god was not appeased. He ever wished
for more. In order to furnish him with a larger supply, the victims

were piled up on his hands with a big chain above them which kept them
in their place. Some devout persons had at the beginning wished to

count them, to see whether their number corresponded with the days of
the solar year; but others were brought, and it was impossible to

distinguish them in the giddy motion of the horrible arms. This lasted
for a long, indefinite time until the evening. Then the partitions

inside assumed a darker glow, and burning flesh could be seen. Some
even believed that they could descry hair, limbs, and whole bodies.

Night fell; clouds accumulated above the Baal. The funeral-pile, which
was flameless now, formed a pyramid of coals up to his knees;

completely red like a giant covered with blood, he looked, with his
head thrown back, as though he were staggering beneath the weight of

his intoxication.
In proportion as the priests made haste, the frenzy of the people

increased; as the number of the victims was diminishing, some cried
out to spare them, others that still more were needful. The walls,

with their burden of people, seemed to be giving way beneath the
howlings of terror and mystic voluptuousness. Then the faithful came

into the passages, dragging their children, who clung to them; and
they beat them in order to make them let go, and handed them over to

the men in red. The instrument-players sometimes stopped through
exhaustion; then the cries of the mothers might be heard, and the

frizzling of the fat as it fell upon the coals. The henbane-drinkers
crawled on all fours around the colossus, roaring like tigers; the

Yidonim vaticinated, the Devotees sang with their cloven lips; the
trellis-work had been broken through, all wished for a share in the

sacrifice;--and fathers, whose children had died previously, cast
their effigies, their playthings, their preserved bones into the fire.

Some who had knives rushed upon the rest. They slaughtered one
another. The hierodules took the fallen ashes at the edge of the

flagstone in bronze fans, and cast them into the air that the
sacrifice might be scattered over the town and even to the region of

the stars.
The loud noise and great light had attracted the Barbarians to the

foot of the walls; they clung to the wreck of the helepolis to have a
better view, and gazed open-mouthed in horror.

CHAPTER XIV
THE PASS OF THE HATCHET

The Carthaginians had not re-entered their houses when the clouds
accumulated more thickly; those who raised their heads towards the

colossus could feel big drops on their foreheads, and the rain fell.
It fell the whole night plentifully, in floods; the thunder growled;

it was the voice of Moloch; he had vanquished Tanith; and she, being
now fecundated, opened up her vast bosom in heaven's heights.

Sometimes she could be seen in a clear and luminous spot stretched
upon cushions of cloud; and then the darkness would close in again as

though she were still too weary and wished to sleep again; the
Carthaginians, all believing that water is brought forth by the moon,

shouted to make her travail easy.
The rain beat upon the terraces and overflowed them, forming lakes in

the courts, cascades on the staircases, and eddies at the corners of
the streets. It poured in warm heavy masses and urgent streams; big

frothy jets leaped from the corners of all the buildings; and it
seemed as though whitish cloths hung dimly upon the walls, and the

washed temple-roofs shone black in the gleam of the lightning.
Torrents descended from the Acropolis by a thousand paths; houses

suddenly gave way, and small beams, plaster, rubbish, and furniture
passed along in streams which ran impetuously over the pavement.

Amphoras, flagons, and canvases had been placed out of doors; but the
torches were extinguished; brands were taken from the funeral-pile of

the Baal, and the Carthaginians bent back their necks and opened their
mouths to drink. Others by the side of the miry pools, plunged their

arms into them up to the armpits, and filled themselves so abundantly
with water that they vomited it forth like buffaloes. The freshness

gradually spread; they breathed in the damp air with play of limb, and