Chapter Chapter 12 · THE AQUEDUCT

. THE AQUEDUCT

Twelve hours afterwards all that remained of the Mercenaries was a heap

of wounded, dead, and dying.

Hamilcar had suddenly emerged from the bottom of the gorge, and again

descended the western slope that looked towards Hippo-Zarytus, and

the space being broader at this spot he had taken care to draw the

Barbarians into it. Narr’ Havas had encompassed them with his horse;

the Suffet meanwhile drove them back and crushed them. Then, too, they

were conquered beforehand by the loss of the zaïmph; even those who

cared nothing about it had experienced anguish and something akin to

enfeeblement. Hamilcar, not indulging his pride by holding the field of

battle, had retired a little further off on the left to some heights,

from which he commanded them.

The shape of the camps could be recognised by their sloping palisades.

A long heap of black cinders was smoking on the side of the Libyans;

the devastated soil showed undulations like the sea, and the tents with

their tattered canvas looked like dim ships half lost in the breakers.

Cuirasses, forks, clarions, pieces of wood, iron and brass, corn, straw,

and garments were scattered about among the corpses; here and there a

phalarica on the point of extinction burned against a heap of baggage;

in some places the earth was hidden with shields; horses’ carcasses

succeeded one another like a series of hillocks; legs, sandals, arms,

and coats of mail were to be seen, with heads held in their helmets by

the chin-pieces and rolling about like balls; heads of hair were hanging

on the thorns; elephants were lying with their towers in pools of blood,

with entrails exposed, and gasping. The foot trod on slimy things, and

there were swamps of mud although no rain had fallen.

This confusion of dead bodies covered the whole mountain from top to

bottom.

Those who survived stirred as little as the dead. Squatting in unequal

groups they looked at one another scared and without speaking.

The lake of Hippo-Zarytus shone at the end of a long meadow beneath

the setting sun. To the right an agglomeration of white houses extended

beyond a girdle of walls; then the sea spread out indefinitely; and the

Barbarians, with their chins in their hands, sighed as they thought of

their native lands. A cloud of grey dust was falling.

The evening wind blew; then every breast dilated, and as the freshness

increased, the vermin might be seen to forsake the dead, who were colder

now, and to run over the hot sand. Crows, looking towards the dying,

rested motionless on the tops of the big stones.

When night had fallen yellow-haired dogs, those unclean beasts which

followed the armies, came quite softly into the midst of the Barbarians.

At first they licked the clots of blood on the still tepid stumps; and

soon they began to devour the corpses, biting into the stomachs first of

all.

The fugitives reappeared one by one like shadows; the women also

ventured to return, for there were still some of them left, especially

among the Libyans, in spite of the dreadful massacre of them by the

Numidians.

Some took ropes’ ends and lighted them to use as torches. Others held

crossed pikes. The corpses were placed upon these and were conveyed

apart.

They were found lying stretched in long lines, on their backs, with

their mouths open, and their lances beside them; or else they were piled

up pell-mell so that it was often necessary to dig out a whole heap

in order to discover those they were wanting. Then the torch would be

passed slowly over their faces. They had received complicated wounds

from hideous weapons. Greenish strips hung from their foreheads; they

were cut in pieces, crushed to the marrow, blue from strangulation,

or broadly cleft by the elephants’ ivory. Although they had died at

almost the same time there existed differences between their various

states of corruption. The men of the North were puffed up with livid

swellings, while the more nervous Africans looked as though they had

been smoked, and were already drying up. The Mercenaries might be

recognised by the tattooing on their hands: the old soldiers of

Antiochus displayed a sparrow-hawk; those who had served in Egypt, the

head of the cynocephalus; those who had served with the princes of Asia,

a hatchet, a pomegranate, or a hammer; those who had served in the Greek

republics, the side-view of a citadel or the name of an archon; and some

were to be seen whose arms were entirely covered with these multiplied

symbols, which mingled with their scars and their recent wounds.

Four great funeral piles were erected for the men of Latin race, the

Samnites, Etruscans, Campanians, and Bruttians.

The Greeks dug pits with the points of their swords. The Spartans

removed their red cloaks and wrapped them round the dead; the Athenians

laid them out with their faces towards the rising sun; the Cantabrians

buried them beneath a heap of pebbles; the Nasamonians bent them double

with ox-leather thongs, and the Garamantians went and interred them on

the shore so that they might be perpetually washed by the waves. But the

Latins were grieved that they could not collect the ashes in urns; the

Nomads regretted the heat of the sands in which bodies were mummified,

and the Celts, the three rude stones beneath a rainy sky at the end of

an islet-covered gulf.

Vociferations arose, followed by the lengthened silence. This was to

oblige the souls to return. Then the shouting was resumed persistently

at regular intervals.

They made excuses to the dead for their inability to honour them as the

rites prescribed: for, owing to this deprivation, they would pass for

infinite periods through all kinds of chances and metamorphoses; they

questioned them and asked them what they desired; others loaded them

with abuse for having allowed themselves to be conquered.

The bloodless faces lying back here and there on wrecks of armour showed

pale in the light of the great funeral-pile; tears provoked tears, the

sobs became shriller, the recognitions and embracings more frantic.

Women stretched themselves on the corpses, mouth to mouth and brow to

brow; it was necessary to beat them in order to make them withdraw when

the earth was being thrown in. They blackened their cheeks; they cut off

their hair; they drew their own blood and poured it into the pits; they

gashed themselves in imitation of the wounds that disfigured the dead.

Roarings burst forth through the crashings of the cymbals. Some snatched

off their amulets and spat upon them. The dying rolled in the bloody

mire biting their mutilated fists in their rage; and forty-three

Samnites, quite a “sacred spring,” cut one another’s throats like

gladiators. Soon wood for the funeral-piles failed, the flames were

extinguished, every spot was occupied; and weary from shouting,

weakened, tottering, they fell asleep close to their dead brethren,

those who still clung to life full of anxieties, and the others desiring

never to wake again.

In the greyness of the dawn some soldiers appeared on the outskirts of

the Barbarians, and filed past with their helmets raised on the points

of their pikes; they saluted the Mercenaries and asked them whether they

had no messages to send to their native lands.

Others approached, and the Barbarians recognised some of their former

companions.

The Suffet had proposed to all the captives that they should serve in

his troops. Several had fearlessly refused; and quite resolved neither

to support them nor to abandon them to the Great Council, he had sent

them away with injunctions to fight no more against Carthage. As to

those who had been rendered docile by the fear of tortures, they had

been furnished with the weapons taken from the enemy; and they were now

presenting themselves to the vanquished, not so much in order to seduce

them as out of an impulse of pride and curiosity.

At first they told of the good treatment which they had received from

the Suffet; the Barbarians listened to them with jealousy although they

despised them. Then at the first words of reproach the cowards fell

into a passion; they showed them from a distance their own swords

and cuirasses and invited them with abuse to come and take them. The

Barbarians picked up flints; all took to flight; and nothing more could

be seen on the summit of the mountain except the lance-points projecting

above the edge of the palisades.

Then the Barbarians were overwhelmed with a grief that was heavier than

the humiliation of the defeat. They thought of the emptiness of their

courage, and they stood with their eyes fixed and grinding their teeth.

The same thought came to them all. They rushed tumultuously upon the

Carthaginian prisoners. It chanced that the Suffet’s soldiers had

been unable to discover them, and as he had withdrawn from the field of

battle they were still in the deep pit.

They were ranged on the ground on a flattened spot. Sentries formed a

circle round them, and the women were allowed to enter thirty or forty

at a time. Wishing to profit by the short time that was allowed to them,

they ran from one to the other, uncertain and panting; then bending over

the poor bodies they struck them with all their might like washerwomen

beating linen; shrieking their husband’s names they tore them with

their nails and put out their eyes with the bodkins of their hair. The

men came next and tortured them from their feet, which they cut off at

the ankles, to their foreheads, from which they took crowns of skin to

put upon their own heads. The Eaters of Uncleanness were atrocious in

their devices. They envenomed the wounds by pouring into them dust,

vinegar, and fragments of pottery; others waited behind; blood flowed,

and they rejoiced like vintagers round fuming vats.

Matho, however, was seated on the ground, at the very place where he had

happened to be when the battle ended, his elbows on his knees, and his

temples in his hands; he saw nothing, heard nothing, and had ceased to

think.

At the shrieks of joy uttered by the crowd he raised his head. Before

him a strip of canvas caught on a flagpole, and trailing on the ground,

sheltered in confused fashion blankets, carpets, and a lion’s skin. He

recognised his tent; and he riveted his eyes upon the ground as though

Hamilcar’s daughter, when she disappeared, had sunk into the earth.

The torn canvas flapped in the wind; the long rags of it sometimes

passed across his mouth, and he perceived a red mark like the print of

a hand. It was the hand of Narr’ Havas, the token of their alliance.

Then Matho rose. He took a firebrand which was still smoking, and threw

it disdainfully upon the wrecks of his tent. Then with the toe of his

cothurn he pushed the things which fell out back towards the flame so

that nothing might be left.

Suddenly, without any one being able to guess from what point he had

sprung up, Spendius reappeared.

The former slave had fastened two fragments of a lance against his

thigh; he limped with a piteous look, breathing forth complaints the

while.

“Remove that,” said Matho to him. “I know that you are a brave

fellow!” For he was so crushed by the injustice of the gods that he

had not strength enough to be indignant with men.

Spendius beckoned to him and led him to a hollow of the mountain, where

Zarxas and Autaritus were lying concealed.

They had fled like the slave, the one although he was cruel, and the

other in spite of his bravery. But who, said they, could have expected

the treachery of Narr’ Havas, the burning of the camp of the Libyans,

the loss of the zaïmph, the sudden attack by Hamilcar, and, above all,

his manouvres which forced them to return to the bottom of the mountain

beneath the instant blows of the Carthaginians? Spendius made no

acknowledgement of his terror, and persisted in maintaining that his leg

was broken.

At last the three chiefs and the schalischim asked one another what

decision should now be adopted.

Hamilcar closed the road to Carthage against them; they were caught

between his soldiers and the provinces belonging to Narr’ Havas;

the Tyrian towns would join the conquerors; the Barbarians would find

themselves driven to the edge of the sea, and all those united forces

would crush them. This would infallibly happen.

Thus no means presented themselves of avoiding the war. Accordingly

they must prosecute it to the bitter end. But how were they to make the

necessity of an interminable battle understood by all these disheartened

people, who were still bleeding from their wounds.

“I will undertake that!” said Spendius.

Two hours afterwards a man who came from the direction of Hippo-Zarytus

climbed the mountain at a run. He waved some tablets at arm’s length,

and as he shouted very loudly the Barbarians surrounded him.

The tablets had been despatched by the Greek soldiers in Sardinia. They

recommended their African comrades to watch over Gisco and the other

captives. A Samian trader, one Hipponax, coming from Carthage, had

informed them that a plot was being organised to promote their escape,

and the Barbarians were urged to take every precaution; the Republic was

powerful.

Spendius’s stratagem did not succeed at first as he had hoped. This

assurance of the new peril, so far from exciting frenzy, raised fears;

and remembering Hamilcar’s warning, lately thrown into their midst,

they expected something unlooked for and terrible. The night was spent

in great distress; several even got rid of their weapons, so as to

soften the Suffet when he presented himself.

But on the following day, at the third watch, a second runner appeared,

still more breathless, and blackened with dust. The Greek snatched

from his hand a roll of papyrus covered with Phonician writing. The

Mercenaries were entreated not to be disheartened; the brave men of

Tunis were coming with large reinforcements.

Spendius first read the letter three times in succession; and held up by

two Cappadocians, who bore him seated on their shoulders, he had

himself conveyed from place to place and re-read it. For seven hours he

harangued.

He reminded the Mercenaries of the promises of the Great Council; the

Africans of the cruelties of the stewards, and all the Barbarians of

the injustice of Carthage. The Suffet’s mildness was only a bait to

capture them; those who surrendered would be sold as slaves, and the

vanquished would perish under torture. As to flight, what routes could

they follow? Not a nation would receive them. Whereas by continuing

their efforts they would obtain at once freedom, vengeance, and money!

And they would not have long to wait, since the people of Tunis, the

whole of Libya, was rushing to relieve them. He showed the unrolled

papyrus: “Look at it! read! see their promises! I do not lie.”

Dogs were straying about with their black muzzles all plastered with

red. The men’s uncovered heads were growing hot in the burning sun.

A nauseous smell exhaled from the badly buried corpses. Some even

projected from the earth as far as the waist. Spendius called them to

witness what he was saying; then he raised his fists in the direction of

Hamilcar.

Matho, moreover, was watching him, and to cover his cowardice he

displayed an anger by which he gradually found himself carried away.

Devoting himself to the gods he heaped curses upon the Carthaginians.

The torture of the captives was child’s play. Why spare them, and be

ever dragging this useless cattle after one? “No! we must put an end

to it! their designs are known! a single one might ruin us! no pity!

Those who are worthy will be known by the speed of their legs and the

force of their blows.”

Then they turned again upon the captives. Several were still in the last

throes; they were finished by the thrust of a heel in the mouth or a

stab with the point of a javelin.

Then they thought of Gisco. Nowhere could he be seen; they were

disturbed with anxiety. They wished at once to convince themselves of

his death and to participate in it. At last three Samnite shepherds

discovered him at a distance of fifteen paces from the spot where

Matho’s tent lately stood. They recognised him by his long beard and

they called the rest.

Stretched on his back, his arms against his hips, and his knees close

together, he looked like a dead man laid out for the tomb. Nevertheless

his wasted sides rose and fell, and his eyes, wide-opened in his pallid

face, gazed in a continuous and intolerable fashion.

The Barbarians looked at him at first with great astonishment. Since he

had been living in the pit he had been almost forgotten; rendered uneasy

by old memories they stood at a distance and did not venture to raise

their hands against him.

But those who were behind were murmuring and pressed forward when a

Garamantian passed through the crowd; he was brandishing a sickle; all

understood his thought; their faces purpled, and smitten with shame they

shrieked:

“Yes! yes!”

The man with the curved steel approached Gisco. He took his head, and,

resting it upon his knee, sawed it off with rapid strokes; it fell; to

great jets of blood made a hole in the dust. Zarxas leaped upon it, and

lighter than a leopard ran towards the Carthaginians.

Then when he had covered two thirds of the mountain he drew Gisco’s

head from his breast by the beard, whirled his arm rapidly several

times,—and the mass, when thrown at last, described a long parabola

and disappeared behind the Punic entrenchments.

Soon at the edge of the palisades there rose two crossed standards, the

customary sign for claiming a corpse.

Then four heralds, chosen for their width of chest, went out with great

clarions, and speaking through the brass tubes declared that henceforth

there would be between Carthaginians and Barbarians neither faith, pity,

nor gods, that they refused all overtures beforehand, and that envoys

would be sent back with their hands cut off.

Immediately afterwards, Spendius was sent to Hippo-Zarytus to procure

provisions; the Tyrian city sent them some the same evening. They ate

greedily. Then when they were strengthened they speedily collected

the remains of their baggage and their broken arms; the women massed

themselves in the centre, and heedless of the wounded left weeping

behind them, they set out along the edge of the shore like a herd of

wolves taking its departure.

They were marching upon Hippo-Zarytus, resolved to take it, for they had

need of a town.

Hamilcar, as he perceived them at a distance, had a feeling of despair

in spite of the pride which he experienced in seeing them fly before

him. He ought to have attacked them immediately with fresh troops.

Another similar day and the war was over! If matters were protracted

they would return with greater strength; the Tyrian towns would join

them; his clemency towards the vanquished had been of no avail. He

resolved to be pitiless.

The same evening he sent the Great Council a dromedary laden with

bracelets collected from the dead, and with horrible threats ordered

another army to be despatched.

All had for a long time believed him lost; so that on learning his

victory they felt a stupefaction which was almost terror. The vaguely

announced return of the zaïmph completed the wonder. Thus the gods and

the might of Carthage seemed now to belong to him.

None of his enemies ventured upon complaint or recrimination. Owing to

the enthusiasm of some and the pusillanimity of the rest, an army of

five thousand men was ready before the interval prescribed had elapsed.

This army promptly made its way to Utica in order to support the

Suffet’s rear, while three thousand of the most notable citizens

embarked in vessels which were to land them at Hippo-Zarytus, whence

they were to drive back the Barbarians.

Hanno had accepted the command; but he intrusted the army to his

lieutenant, Magdassin, so as to lead the troops which were to be

disembarked himself, for he could no longer endure the shaking of

the litter. His disease had eaten away his lips and nostrils, and had

hollowed out a large hole in his face; the back of his throat could be

seen at a distance of ten paces, and he knew himself to be so hideous

that he wore a veil over his head like a woman.

Hippo-Zarytus paid no attention to his summonings nor yet to those of

the Barbarians; but every morning the inhabitants lowered provisions to

the latter in baskets, and shouting from the tops of the towers pleaded

the exigencies of the Republic and conjured them to withdraw. By means

of signs they addressed the same protestations to the Carthaginians, who

were stationed on the sea.

Hanno contented himself with blockading the harbour without risking an

attack. However, he permitted the judges of Hippo-Zarytus to admit three

hundred soldiers. Then he departed to the Cape Grapes, and made a

long circuit so as to hem in the Barbarians, an inopportune and even

dangerous operation. His jealousy prevented him from relieving the

Suffet; he arrested his spies, impeded him in all his plans, and

compromised the success of the enterprise. At last Hamilcar wrote to

the Great Council to rid himself of Hanno, and the latter returned to

Carthage furious at the baseness of the Ancients and the madness of his

colleague. Hence, after so many hopes, the situation was now still more

deplorable; but there was an effort not to reflect upon it and even not

to talk about it.

As if all this were not sufficient misfortune at one time, news came

that the Sardinian Mercenaries had crucified their general, seized the

strongholds, and everywhere slaughtered those of Chanaanitish race. The

Roman people threatened the Republic with immediate hostilities

unless she gave twelve hundred talents with the whole of the island of

Sardinia. They had accepted the alliance of the Barbarians, and they

despatched to them flat-bottomed boats laden with meal and dried meat.

The Carthaginians pursued these, and captured five hundred men; but

three days afterwards a fleet coming from Byzacena, and conveying

provisions to Carthage, foundered in a storm. The gods were evidently

declaring against her.

Upon this the citizens of Hippo-Zarytus, under pretence of an alarm,

made Hanno’s three hundred men ascend their walls; then coming behind

them they took them by the legs, and suddenly threw them over the

ramparts. Some who were not killed were pursued, and went and drowned

themselves in the sea.

Utica was enduring the presence of soldiers, for Magdassin had acted

like Hanno, and in accordance with his orders and deaf to Hamilcar’s

prayers, was surrounding the town. As for these, they were given wine

mixed with mandrake, and were then slaughtered in their sleep. At the

same time the Barbarians arrived; Magdassin fled; the gates were opened,

and thenceforward the two Tyrian towns displayed an obstinate devotion

to their new friends and an inconceivable hatred to their former allies.

This abandonment of the Punic cause was a counsel and a precedent. Hopes

of deliverance revived. Populations hitherto uncertain hesitated no

longer. Everywhere there was a stir. The Suffet learnt this, and he had

no assistance to look for! He was now irrevocably lost.

He immediately dismissed Narr’ Havas, who was to guard the borders of

his kingdom. As for himself, he resolved to re-enter Carthage in order

to obtain soldiers and begin the war again.

The Barbarians posted at Hippo-Zarytus perceived his army as it

descended the mountain.

Where could the Carthaginians be going? Hunger, no doubt, was urging

them on; and, distracted by their sufferings, they were coming in spite

of their weakness to give battle. But they turned to the right: they

were fleeing. They might be overtaken and all be crushed. The Barbarians

dashed in pursuit of them.

The Carthaginians were checked by the river. It was wide this time and

the west wind had not been blowing. Some crossed by swimming, and the

rest on their shields. They resumed their march. Night fell. They were

out of sight.

The Barbarians did not stop; they went higher to find a narrower place.

The people of Tunis hastened thither, bringing those of Utica along with

them. Their numbers increased at every bush; and the Carthaginians, as

they lay on the ground, could hear the tramping of their feet in the

darkness. From time to time Barca had a volley of arrows discharged

behind him to check them, and several were killed. When day broke they

were in the Ariana Mountains, at the spot where the road makes a bend.

Then Matho, who was marching at the head, thought that he could

distinguish something green on the horizon on the summit of an eminence.

Then the ground sank, and obelisks, domes, and houses appeared! It was

Carthage. He leaned against a tree to keep himself from falling, so

rapidly did his heart beat.

He thought of all that had come to pass in his existence since the

last time that he had passed that way! It was an infinite surprise, it

stunned him. Then he was transported with joy at the thought of seeing

Salammbô again. The reasons which he had for execrating her returned to

his recollection, but he very quickly rejected them. Quivering and with

straining eyeballs he gazed at the lofty terrace of a palace above the

palm trees beyond Eschmoun; a smile of ecstasy lighted his face as if

some great light had reached him; he opened his arms, and sent kisses on

the breeze, and murmured: “Come! come!” A sigh swelled his breast,

and two long tears like pearls fell upon his beard.

“What stays you?” cried Spendius. “Make haste! Forward! The Suffet

is going to escape us! But your knees are tottering, and you are looking

at me like a drunken man!”

He stamped with impatience and urged Matho, his eyes twinkling as at the

approach of an object long aimed at.

“Ah! we have reached it! We are there! I have them!”

He had so convinced and triumphant an air that Matho was surprised from

his torpor, and felt himself carried away by it. These words, coming

when his distress was at its height, drove his despair to vengeance, and

pointed to food for his wrath. He bounded upon one of the camels that

were among the baggage, snatched up its halter, and with the long

rope, struck the stragglers with all his might, running right and left

alternately, in the rear of the army, like a dog driving a flock.

At this thundering voice the lines of men closed up; even the lame

hurried their steps; the intervening space lessened in the middle of the

isthmus. The foremost of the Barbarians were marching in the dust raised

by the Carthaginians. The two armies were coming close, and were on the

point of touching. But the Malqua gate, the Tagaste gate, and the great

gate of Khamon threw wide their leaves. The Punic square divided; three

columns were swallowed up, and eddied beneath the porches. Soon the

mass, being too tightly packed, could advance no further; pikes clashed

in the air, and the arrows of the Barbarians were shivering against the

walls.

Hamilcar was to be seen on the threshold of Khamon. He turned round

and shouted to his men to move aside. He dismounted from his horse; and

pricking it on the croup with the sword which he held, sent it against

the Barbarians.

It was a black stallion, which was fed on balls of meal, and would bend

its knees to allow its master to mount. Why was he sending it away? Was

this a sacrifice?

The noble horse galloped into the midst of the lances, knocked down men,

and, entangling its feet in its entrails, fell down, then rose again

with furious leaps; and while they were moving aside, trying to stop it,

or looking at it in surprise, the Carthaginians had united again; they

entered, and the enormous gate shut echoing behind them.

It would not yield. The Barbarians came crushing against it;—and for

some minutes there was an oscillation throughout the army, which became

weaker and weaker, and at last ceased.

The Carthaginians had placed soldiers on the aqueduct, they began to

hurl stones, balls, and beams. Spendius represented that it would be

best not to persist. The Barbarians went and posted themselves further

off, all being quite resolved to lay siege to Carthage.

The rumour of the war, however, had passed beyond the confines of

the Punic empire; and from the pillars of Hercules to beyond Cyrene

shepherds mused on it as they kept their flocks, and caravans talked

about it in the light of the stars. This great Carthage, mistress of the

seas, splendid as the sun, and terrible as a god, actually found men

who were daring enough to attack her! Her fall even had been asserted

several times; and all had believed it for all wished it: the subject

populations, the tributary villages, the allied provinces, the

independent hordes, those who execrated her for her tyranny or were

jealous of her power, or coveted her wealth. The bravest had very

speedily joined the Mercenaries. The defeat at the Macaras had checked

all the rest. At last they had recovered confidence, had gradually

advanced and approached; and now the men of the eastern regions were

lying on the sandhills of Clypea on the other side of the gulf. As soon

as they perceived the Barbarians they showed themselves.

They were not Libyans from the neighbourhood of Carthage, who had long

composed the third army, but nomads from the tableland of Barca, bandits

from Cape Phiscus and the promontory of Dernah, from Phazzana and

Marmarica. They had crossed the desert, drinking at the brackish wells

walled in with camels’ bones; the Zuaeces, with their covering of

ostrich feathers, had come on quadrigæ; the Garamantians, masked with

black veils, rode behind on their painted mares; others were mounted on

asses, onagers, zebras, and buffaloes; while some dragged after them the

roofs of their sloop-shaped huts together with their families and

idols. There were Ammonians with limbs wrinkled by the hot water of the

springs; Atarantians, who curse the sun; Troglodytes, who bury their

dead with laughter beneath branches of trees; and the hideous Auseans,

who eat grass-hoppers; the Achyrmachidæ, who eat lice; and the

vermilion-painted Gysantians, who eat apes.

All were ranged along the edge of the sea in a great straight line.

Afterwards they advanced like tornadoes of sand raised by the wind. In

the centre of the isthmus the throng stopped, the Mercenaries who were

posted in front of them, close to the walls, being unwilling to move.

Then from the direction of Ariana appeared the men of the West, the

people of the Numidians. In fact, Narr’ Havas governed only the

Massylians; and, moreover, as they were permitted by custom to abandon

their king when reverses were sustained, they had assembled on the

Zainus, and then had crossed it at Hamilcar’s first movement. First

were seen running up all the hunters from Malethut-Baal and Garaphos,

clad in lions’ skins, and with the staves of their pikes driving small

lean horses with long manes; then marched the Gætulians in cuirasses of

serpents’ skin; then the Pharusians, wearing lofty crowns made of wax

and resin; and the Caunians, Macarians, and Tillabarians, each holding

two javelins and a round shield of hippopotamus leather. They stopped at

the foot of the Catacombs among the first pools of the Lagoon.

But when the Libyans had moved away, the multitude of the Negroes

appeared like a cloud on a level with the ground, in the place which the

others had occupied. They were there from the White Harousch, the Black

Harousch, the desert of Augila, and even from the great country of

Agazymba, which is four months’ journey south of the Garamantians,

and from regions further still! In spite of their red wooden jewels, the

filth of their black skin made them look like mulberries that had been

long rolling in the dust. They had bark-thread drawers, dried-grass

tunics, fallow-deer muzzles on their heads; they shook rods furnished

with rings, and brandished cows’ tails at the end of sticks, after the

fashion of standards, howling the while like wolves.

Then behind the Numidians, Marusians, and Gætulians pressed the

yellowish men, who are spread through the cedar forests beyond Taggir.

They had cat-skin quivers flapping against their shoulders, and they led

in leashes enormous dogs, which were as high as asses, and did not bark.

Finally, as though Africa had not been sufficiently emptied, and it had

been necessary to seek further fury in the very dregs of the races, men

might be seen behind the rest, with beast-like profiles and grinning

with idiotic laughter—wretches ravaged by hideous diseases, deformed

pigmies, mulattoes of doubtful sex, albinos whose red eyes blinked in

the sun; stammering out unintelligible sounds, they put a finger into

their mouths to show that they were hungry.

The confusion of weapons was as great as that of garments and peoples.

There was not a deadly invention that was not present—from wooden

daggers, stone hatchets and ivory tridents, to long sabres toothed

like saws, slender, and formed of a yielding copper blade. They handled

cutlasses which were forked into several branches like antelopes’

horns, bills fastened to the ends of ropes, iron triangles, clubs and

bodkins. The Ethiopians from the Bambotus had little poisoned darts

hidden in their hair. Many had brought pebbles in bags. Others, empty

handed, chattered with their teeth.

This multitude was stirred with a ceaseless swell. Dromedaries, smeared

all over with tar-like streaks, knocked down the women, who carried

their children on their hips. The provisions in the baskets were pouring

out; in walking, pieces of salt, parcels of gum, rotten dates, and

gourou nuts were crushed underfoot; and sometimes on vermin-covered

bosoms there would hang a slender cord supporting a diamond that the

Satraps had sought, an almost fabulous stone, sufficient to purchase

an empire. Most of them did not even know what they desired. They were

impelled by fascination or curiosity; and nomads who had never seen a

town were frightened by the shadows of the walls.

The isthmus was now hidden by men; and this long surface, whereon the

tents were like huts amid an inundation, stretched as far as the first

lines of the other Barbarians, which were streaming with steel and were

posted symmetrically upon both sides of the aqueduct.

The Carthaginians had not recovered from the terror caused by their

arrival when they perceived the siege-engines sent by the Tyrian towns

coming straight towards them like monsters and like buildings—with

their masts, arms, ropes, articulations, capitals and carapaces, sixty

carroballistas, eighty onagers, thirty scorpions, fifty tollenos, twelve

rams, and three gigantic catapults which hurled pieces of rock of the

weight of fifteen talents. Masses of men clinging to their bases pushed

them on; at every step a quivering shook them, and in this way they

arrived in front of the walls.

But several days were still needed to finish the preparations for

the siege. The Mercenaries, taught by their defeats, would not risk

themselves in useless engagements; and on both sides there was no haste,

for it was well known that a terrible action was about to open, and that

the result of it would be complete victory or complete extermination.

Carthage might hold out for a long time; her broad walls presented a

series of re-entrant and projecting angles, an advantageous arrangement

for repelling assaults.

Nevertheless a portion had fallen down in the direction of the

Catacombs, and on dark nights lights could be seen in the dens of Malqua

through the disjointed blocks. These in some places overlooked the top

of the ramparts. It was here that the Mercenaries’ wives, who had been

driven away by Matho, were living with their new husbands. On seeing the

men again their hearts could stand it no longer. They waved their scarfs

at a distance; then they came and chatted in the darkness with the

soldiers through the cleft in the wall, and one morning the Great

Council learned that they had all fled. Some had passed through between

the stones; others with greater intrepidity had let themselves down with

ropes.

At last Spendius resolved to accomplish his design.

The war, by keeping him at a distance, had hitherto prevented him;

and since the return to before Carthage, it seemed to him that the

inhabitants suspected his enterprise. But soon they diminished the

sentries on the aqueduct. There were not too many people for the defence

of the walls.

The former slave practised himself for some days in shooting arrows at

the flamingoes on the lake. Then one moonlight evening he begged Matho

to light a great fire of straw in the middle of the night, while all his

men were to shout at the same time; and taking Zarxas with him, he went

away along the edge of the gulf in the direction of Tunis.

When on a level with the last arches they returned straight towards the

aqueduct; the place was unprotected: they crawled to the base of the

pillars.

The sentries on the platform were walking quietly up and down.

Towering flames appeared; clarions rang; and the soldiers on vedette,

believing that there was an assault, rushed away in the direction of

Carthage.

One man had remained. He showed black against the background of the

sky. The moon was shining behind him, and his shadow, which was of

extravagant size, looked in the distance like an obelisk proceeding

across the plain.

They waited until he was in position just before them. Zarxas seized his

sling, but whether from prudence or from ferocity Spendius stopped him.

“No, the whiz of the bullet would make a noise! Let me!”

Then he bent his bow with all his strength, resting the lower end of it

against the great toe of his left foot; he took aim, and the arrow went

off.

The man did not fall. He disappeared.

“If he were wounded we should hear him!” said Spendius; and he

mounted quickly from story to story as he had done the first time, with

the assistance of a rope and a harpoon. Then when he had reached the top

and was beside the corpse, he let it fall again. The Balearian fastened

a pick and a mallet to it and turned back.

The trumpets sounded no longer. All was now quiet. Spendius had raised

one of the flag-stones and, entering the water, had closed it behind

him.

Calculating the distance by the number of his steps, he arrived at the

exact spot where he had noticed an oblique fissure; and for three hours

until morning he worked in continuous and furious fashion, breathing

with difficulty through the interstices in the upper flag-stones,

assailed with anguish, and twenty times believing that he was going

to die. At last a crack was heard, and a huge stone ricocheting on the

lower arches rolled to the ground,—and suddenly a cataract, an entire

river, fell from the skies onto the plain. The aqueduct, being cut

through in the centre, was emptying itself. It was death to Carthage and

victory for the Barbarians.

In an instant the awakened Carthaginians appeared on the walls, the

houses, and the temples. The Barbarians pressed forward with shouts.

They danced in delirium around the great waterfall, and came up and wet

their heads in it in the extravagance of their joy.

A man in a torn, brown tunic was perceived on the summit of the

aqueduct. He stood leaning over the very edge with both hands on his

hips, and was looking down below him as though astonished at his work.

Then he drew himself up. He surveyed the horizon with a haughty air

which seemed to say: “All that is now mine!” The applause of the

Barbarians burst forth, while the Carthaginians, comprehending their

disaster at last, shrieked with despair. Then he began to run about

the platform from one end to the other,—and like a chariot-driver

triumphant at the Olympic Games, Spendius, distraught with pride, raised

his arms aloft.