Salammbo started, and bent her head.
But Narr' Havas, pursuing the subject, compared his longings to

flowers languishing for rain, or to lost travellers waiting for the
day. He told her, further, that she was more beautiful than the moon,

better than the wind of morning or than the face of a guest. He would
bring for her from the country of the Blacks things such as there were

none in Carthage, and the apartments in their house should be sanded
with gold dust.

Evening fell, and odours of balsam were exhaled. For a long time they
looked at each other in silence, and Salammbo's eyes, in the depths of

her long draperies, resembled two stars in the rift of a cloud. Before
the sun set he withdrew.

The Ancients felt themselves relieved of a great anxiety, when he left
Carthage. The people had received him with even more enthusiastic

acclamations than on the first occasion. If Hamilcar and the King of
the Numidians triumphed alone over the Mercenaries it would be

impossible to resist them. To weaken Barca they thereforeresolved to
make the aged Hanno, him whom they loved, a sharer in the deliverance

of Carthage.
He proceeded immediately towards the western provinces, to take his

vengeance in the very places which had witnessed his shame. But the
inhabitants and the Barbarians were dead, hidden, or fled. Then his

anger was vented upon the country. He burnt the ruins of the ruins, he
did not leave a single tree nor a blade of grass; the children and the

infirm, that were met with, were tortured; he gave the women to his
soldiers to be violated before they were slaughtered.

Often, on the crests of the hills, black tents were struck as though
overturned by the wind, and broad, brilliantly bordered discs, which

were recognised as being chariot-wheels, revolved with a plaintive
sound as they gradually disappeared in the valleys. The tribes, which

had abandoned the siege of Carthage, were wandering in this way
through the provinces, waiting for an opportunity, or for some victory

to be gained by the Mercenaries, in order to return. But, whether from
terror or famine, they all took the roads to their native lands, and

disappeared.
Hamilcar was not jealous of Hanno's successes. Nevertheless he was in

a hurry to end matters; he commanded him to fall back upon Tunis; and
Hanno, who loved his country, was under the walls of the town on the

appointed day.
For its protection it had its aboriginal population, twelve thousand

Mercenaries, and, in addition, all the Eaters of Uncleanness, for like
Matho they were riveted to the horizon of Carthage, and plebs and

schalischim gazed at its lofty walls from afar, looking back in
thought to boundless enjoyments. With this harmony of hatred,

resistance was briskly organised. Leathern bottles were taken to make
helmets; all the palm-trees in the gardens were cut down for lances;

cisterns were dug; while for provisions they caught on the shores of
the lake big white fish, fed on corpses and filth. Their ramparts,

kept in ruins now by the jealousy of Carthage, were so weak that they
could be thrown down with a push of the shoulder. Matho stopped up the

holes in them with the stones of the houses. It was the last struggle;
he hoped for nothing, and yet he told himself that fortune was fickle.

As the Carthaginians approached they noticed a man on the rampart who
towered over the battlements from his belt upwards. The arrows that

flew about him seemed to frighten" target="_blank" title="vt.吓唬，使惊惧">frighten him no more than a swarm of
swallows. Extraordinary to say, none of them touched him.

Hamilcar pitched his camp on the south side; Narr' Havas, to his
right, occupied the plain of Rhades, and Hanno the shore of the lake;

and the three generals were to maintain their respective positions, so
as all to attack the walls simultaneously.

But Hamilcar wished first to show the Mercenaries that he would punish
them like slaves. He had the ten ambassadors crucified beside one

another on a hillock in front of the town.
At the sight of this the besieged forsook the rampart.

Matho had said to himself that if he could pass between the walls and
Narr' Havas's tents with such rapidity that the Numidians had not time

to come out, he could fall upon the rear of the Carthaginian infantry,
who would be caught between his division and those inside. He dashed

out with his veterans.
Narr' Havas perceived him; he crossed the shore of the lake, and came

to warn Hanno to dispatch men to Hamilcar's assistance. Did he believe
Barca too weak to resist the Mercenaries? Was it a piece of treachery

or folly? No one could ever learn.
Hanno, desiring to humiliate his rival, did not hesitate. He shouted

orders to sound the trumpets, and his whole army rushed upon the
Barbarians. The latter returned, and ran straight against the

Carthaginians; they knocked them down, crushed them under their feet,
and, driving them back in this way, reached the tent of Hanno, who was

then surrounded by thirty Carthaginians, the most illustrious of the
Ancients.

He appeared stupefied by their audacity; he called for his captains.
Every one thrust his fist under his throat, vociferating abuse. The

crowd pressed on; and those who had their hands on him could scarce
retain their hold. However, he tried to whisper to them: "I will gave

you whatever you want! I am rich! Save me!" They dragged him along;
heavy as he was his feet did not touch the ground. The Ancients had

been carried off. His terror increased. "You have beaten me! I am your
captive! I will ransom myself! Listen to me, my friends!" and borne

along by all those shoulders which were pressed against his sides, he
repeated: "What are you going to do? What do you want? You can see

that I am not obstanite! I have always been good-natured!"
A gigantic cross stood at the gate. The Barbarians howled: "Here!

here!" But he raised his voice still higher; and in the names of their
gods he called upon them to lead him to the schalischim, because he

wished to confide to him something on which their safety depended.
They paused, some asserting that it was right to summon Matho. He was

sent for.
Hanno fell upon the grass; and he saw around him other crosses also,

as though the torture by which he was about to perish had been
multiplied beforehand; he made efforts to convince himself that he was

mistaken, that there was only one, and even to believe that there were
none at all. At last he was lifted up.

"Speak!" said Matho.
He offered to give up Hamilcar; then they would enter Carthage and

both be kings.
Matho withdrew, signing to the others to make haste. It was a

stratagem, he thought, to gain time.
The Barbarian was mistaken; Hanno was in an extremity when

consideration is had to nothing, and, moreover, he so execrated
Hamilcar that he would have sacrificed him and all his soldiers on the

slightest hope of safety.
The Ancients were languishing on the ground at the foot of the

crosses; ropes had already been passed beneath their armpits. Then the
old Suffet, understanding that he must die, wept.

They tore off the clothes that were still left on him--and the horror
of his person appeared. Ulcers covered the nameless mass; the fat on

his legs hid the nails on his feet; from his fingers there hung what
looked like greenish strips; and the tears streaming through the

tubercles on his cheeks gave to his face an expression of frightful" target="_blank" title="a.可怕的；不愉快的">frightful
sadness, for they seemed to take up more room than on another human

face. His royal fillet, which was half unfastened, trailed with his
white hair in the dust.

They thought that they had no ropes strong enough to haul him up to
the top of the cross, and they nailed him upon it, after the Punic

fashion, before it was erected. But his pride awoke in his pain. He
began to overwhelm them with abuse. He foamed and twisted like a

marine monster being slaughtered on the shore, and predicted that they
would all end more horribly still, and that he would be avenged.

He was. On the other side of the town, whence there now escaped jets
of flame with columns of smoke, the ambassadors from the Mercenaries

were in their last throes.
Some who had swooned at first had just revived in the freshness of the