Chapter Chapter 8 · THE BATTLE OF THE MACARAS

. THE BATTLE OF THE MACARAS

In the following day he drew two hundred and twenty-three thousand

kikars of gold from the Syssitia, and decreed a tax of fourteen shekels

upon the rich. Even the women contributed; payment was made in behalf

of the children, and he compelled the colleges of priests to furnish

money—a monstrous thing, according to Carthaginian customs.

He demanded all the horses, mules, and arms. A few tried to conceal

their wealth, and their property was sold; and, to intimidate the

avarice of the rest, he himself gave sixty suits of armour, and fifteen

hundred gomers of meal, which was as much as was given by the Ivory

Company.

He sent into Liguria to buy soldiers, three thousand mountaineers

accustomed to fight with bears; they were paid for six moons in advance

at the rate of four minæ a day.

Nevertheless an army was wanted. But he did not, like Hanno, accept all

the citizens. First he rejected those engaged in sedentary occupations,

and then those who were big-bellied or had a pusillanimous look; and he

admitted those of ill-repute, the scum of Malqua, sons of Barbarians,

freed men. For reward he promised some of the New Carthaginians complete

rights of citizenship.

His first care was to reform the Legion. These handsome young fellows,

who regarded themselves as the military majesty of the Republic,

governed themselves. He reduced their officers to the ranks; he treated

them harshly, made them run, leap, ascend the declivity of Byrsa at a

single burst, hurl javelins, wrestle together, and sleep in the squares

at night. Their families used to come to see them and pity them.

He ordered shorter swords and stronger buskins. He fixed the number of

serving-men, and reduced the amount of baggage; and as there were three

hundred Roman pila kept in the temple of Moloch, he took them in spite

of the pontiff’s protests.

He organised a phalanx of seventy-two elephants with those which

had returned from Utica, and others which were private property, and

rendered them formidable. He armed their drivers with mallet and chisel

to enable them to split their skulls in the fight if they ran away.

He would not allow his generals to be nominated by the Grand Council.

The Ancients tried to urge the laws in objection, but he set them aside;

no one ventured to murmur again, and everything yielded to the violence

of his genius.

He assumed sole charge of the war, the government, and the finances;

and as a precaution against accusations he demanded the Suffet Hanno as

examiner of his accounts.

He set to work upon the ramparts, and had the old and now useless inner

walls demolished in order to furnish stones. But difference of fortune,

replacing the hierarchy of race, still kept the sons of the vanquished

and those of the conquerors apart; thus the patricians viewed the

destruction of these ruins with an angry eye, while the plebeians,

scarcely knowing why, rejoiced.

The troops defiled under arms through the streets from morning till

night; every moment the sound of trumpets was heard; chariots passed

bearing shields, tents, and pikes; the courts were full of women engaged

in tearing up linen; the enthusiasm spread from one to another, and

Hamilcar’s soul filled the Republic.

He had divided his soldiers into even numbers, being careful to place

a strong man and a weak one alternately throughout the length of his

files, so that he who was less vigorous or more cowardly might be at

once led and pushed forward by two others. But with his three thousand

Ligurians, and the best in Carthage, he could form only a simple phalanx

of four thousand and ninety-six hoplites, protected by bronze helmets,

and handling ashen sarissæ fourteen cubits long.

There were two thousand young men, each equipped with a sling, a dagger,

and sandals. He reinforced them with eight hundred others armed with

round shields and Roman swords.

The heavy cavalry was composed of the nineteen hundred remaining

guardsmen of the Legion, covered with plates of vermilion bronze, like

the Assyrian Clinabarians. He had further four hundred mounted archers,

of those that were called Tarentines, with caps of weasel’s skin,

two-edged axes, and leathern tunics. Finally there were twelve hundred

Negroes from the quarter of the caravans, who were mingled with the

Clinabarians, and were to run beside the stallions with one hand resting

on the manes. All was ready, and yet Hamilcar did not start.

Often at night he would go out of Carthage alone and make his way beyond

the lagoon towards the mouths of the Macaras. Did he intend to join the

Mercenaries? The Ligurians encamped in the Mappalian district surrounded

his house.

The apprehensions of the rich appeared justified when, one day, three

hundred Barbarians were seen approaching the walls. The Suffet opened

the gates to them; they were deserters; drawn by fear or by fidelity,

they were hastening to their master.

Hamilcar’s return had not surprised the Mercenaries; according to

their ideas the man could not die. He was returning to fulfil his

promise;—a hope by no means absurd, so deep was the abyss between

Country and Army. Moreover they did not believe themselves culpable; the

feast was forgotten.

The spies whom they surprised undeceived them. It was a triumph for the

bitter; even the lukewarm grew furious. Then the two sieges overwhelmed

then with weariness; no progress was being made; a battle would be

better! Thus many men had left the ranks and were scouring the country.

But at news of the arming they returned; Matho leaped for joy. “At

last! at last!” he cried.

Then the resentment which he cherished against Salammbô was turned

against Hamilcar. His hate could now perceive a definite prey; and as

his vengeance grew easier of conception he almost believed that he

had realised it and he revelled in it already. At the same time he was

seized with a loftier tenderness, and consumed by more acrid desire.

He saw himself alternately in the midst of the soldiers brandishing the

Suffet’s head on a pike, and then in the room with the purple bed,

clasping the maiden in his arms, covering her face with kisses, passing

his hands over her long, black hair; and the imagination of this, which

he knew could never be realised, tortured him. He swore to himself that,

since his companions had appointed him schalishim, he would conduct the

war; the certainty that he would not return from it urged him to render

it a pitiless one.

He came to Spendius and said to him:

“You will go and get your men! I will bring mine! Warn Autaritus! We

are lost if Hamilcar attacks us! Do you understand me? Rise!”

Spendius was stupefied before such an air of authority. Matho usually

allowed himself to be led, and his previous transports had quickly

passed away. But just now he appeared at once calmer and more terrible;

a superb will gleamed in his eyes like the flame of sacrifice.

The Greek did not listen to his reasons. He was living in one of the

Carthaginian pearl-bordered tents, drinking cool beverages from silver

cups, playing at the cottabos, letting his hair grow, and conducting the

siege with slackness. Moreover, he had entered into communications with

some in the town and would not leave, being sure that it would open its

gates before many days were over.

Narr’ Havas, who wandered about among the three armies, was at that

time with him. He supported his opinion, and even blamed the Libyan for

wishing in his excess of courage to abandon their enterprise.

“Go, if you are afraid!” exclaimed Matho; “you promised us pitch,

sulphur, elephants, foot-soldiers, horses! where are they?”

Narr’ Havas reminded him that he had exterminated Hanno’s last

cohorts;—as to the elephants, they were being hunted in the woods,

he was arming the foot-soldiers, the horses were on their way; and the

Numidian rolled his eyes like a woman and smiled in an irritating manner

as he stroked the ostrich feather which fell upon his shoulder. In his

presence Matho was at a loss for a reply.

But a man who was a stranger entered, wet with perspiration, scared,

and with bleeding feet and loosened girdle; his breathing shook his

lean sides enough to have burst them, and speaking in an unintelligible

dialect he opened his eyes wide as if he were telling of some battle.

The king sprang outside and called his horsemen.

They ranged themselves in the plain before him in the form of a circle.

Narr’ Havas, who was mounted, bent his head and bit his lips. At last

he separated his men into two equal divisions, and told the first to

wait; then with an imperious gesture he carried off the others at a

gallop and disappeared on the horizon in the direction of the mountains.

“Master!” murmured Spendius, “I do not like these extraordinary

chances—the Suffet returning, Narr’ Havas going away—”

“Why! what does it matter?” said Matho disdainfully.

It was a reason the more for anticipating Hamilcar by uniting with

Autaritus. But if the siege of the towns were raised, the inhabitants

would come out and attack them in the rear, while they would have the

Carthaginians in front. After much talking the following measures were

resolved upon and immediately executed.

Spendius proceeded with fifteen thousand men as far as the bridge built

across the Macaras, three miles from Utica; the corners of it were

fortified with four huge towers provided with catapults; all the paths

and gorges in the mountains were stopped up with trunks of trees, pieces

of rock, interlacings of thorn, and stone walls; on the summits heaps

of grass were made which might be lighted as signals, and shepherds who

were able to see at a distance were posted at intervals.

No doubt Hamilcar would not, like Hanno, advance by the mountain of

the Hot Springs. He would think that Autaritus, being master of the

interior, would close the route against him. Moreover, a check at the

opening of the campaign would ruin him, while if he gained a victory he

would soon have to make a fresh beginning, the Mercenaries being further

off. Again, he could disembark at Cape Grapes and march thence upon one

of the towns. But he would then find himself between the two armies,

an indiscretion which he could not commit with his scanty forces.

Accordingly he must proceed along the base of Mount Ariana, then turn

to the left to avoid the mouths of the Macaras, and come straight to the

bridge. It was there that Matho expected him.

At night he used to inspect the pioneers by torch-light. He would hasten

to Hippo-Zarytus or to the works on the mountains, would come back

again, would never rest. Spendius envied his energy; but in the

management of spies, the choice of sentries, the working of the engines

and all means of defence, Matho listened docilely to his companion. They

spoke no more of Salammbô,—one not thinking about her, and the other

being prevented by a feeling of shame.

Often he would go towards Carthage, striving to catch sight of

Hamilcar’s troops. His eyes would dart along the horizon; he would

lie flat on the ground, and believe that he could hear an army in the

throbbing of his arteries.

He told Spendius that if Hamilcar did not arrive in three days he would

go with all his men to meet him and offer him battle. Two further days

elapsed. Spendius restrained him; but on the morning of the sixth day he

departed.

The Carthaginians were no less impatient for war than the Barbarians.

In tents and in houses there was the same longing and the same distress;

all were asking one another what was delaying Hamilcar.

From time to time he would mount to the cupola of the temple of Eschmoun

beside the Announcer of the Moons and take note of the wind.

One day—it was the third of the month of Tibby—they saw him

descending from the Acropolis with hurried steps. A great clamour arose

in the Mappalian district. Soon the streets were astir, and the soldiers

were everywhere beginning to arm themselves upon their breasts; then

they ran quickly to the square of Khamon to take their places in the

ranks. No one was allowed to follow them or even to speak to them, or to

approach the ramparts; for some minutes the whole town was silent as a

great tomb. The soldiers as they leaned on their lances were thinking,

and the others in the houses were sighing.

At sunset the army went out by the western gate; but instead of taking

the road to Tunis or making for the mountains in the direction of Utica,

they continued their march along the edge of the sea; and they soon

reached the Lagoon, where round spaces quite whitened with salt

glittered like gigantic silver dishes forgotten on the shore.

Then the pools of water multiplied. The ground gradually became softer,

and the feet sank in it. Hamilcar did not turn back. He went on still

at their head; and his horse, which was yellow-spotted like a dragon,

advanced into the mire flinging froth around him, and with great

straining of the loins. Night—a moonless light—fell. A few cried out

that they were about to perish; he snatched their arms from them, and

gave them to the serving-men. Nevertheless the mud became deeper and

deeper. Some had to mount the beasts of burden; others clung to the

horses’ tails; the sturdy pulled the weak, and the Ligurian corps

drove on the infantry with the points of their pikes. The darkness

increased. They had lost their way. All stopped.

Then some of the Suffet’s slaves went on ahead to look for the buoys

which had been placed at intervals by his order. They shouted through

the darkness, and the army followed them at a distance.

At last they felt the resistance of the ground. Then a whitish curve

became dimly visible, and they found themselves on the bank of the

Macaras. In spite of the cold no fires were lighted.

In the middle of the night squalls of wind arose. Hamilcar had the

soldiers roused, but not a trumpet was sounded: their captain tapped

them softly on the shoulder.

A man of lofty stature went down into the water. It did not come up to

his girdle; it was possible to cross.

The Suffet ordered thirty-two of the elephants to be posted in the river

a hundred paces further on, while the others, lower down, would check

the lines of men that were carried away by the current; and holding

their weapons above their heads they all crossed the Macaras as though

between two walls. He had noticed that the western wind had driven the

sand so as to obstruct the river and form a natural causeway across it.

He was now on the left bank in front of Utica, and in a vast plain, the

latter being advantageous for his elephants, which formed the strength

of his army.

This feat of genius filled the soldiers with enthusiasm. They recovered

extraordinary confidence. They wished to hasten immediately against the

Barbarians; but the Suffet bade them rest for two hours. As soon as the

sun appeared they moved into the plain in three lines—first came the

elephants, and then the light infantry with the cavalry behind it, the

phalanx marching next.

The Barbarians encamped at Utica, and the fifteen thousand about the

bridge were surprised to see the ground undulating in the distance. The

wind, which was blowing very hard, was driving tornadoes of sand before

it; they rose as though snatched from the soil, ascended in great

light-coloured strips, then parted asunder and began again, hiding the

Punic army the while from the Mercenaries. Owing to the horns, which

stood up on the edge of the helmets, some thought that they could

perceive a herd of oxen; others, deceived by the motion of the cloaks,

pretended that they could distinguish wings, and those who had travelled

a good deal shrugged their shoulders and explained everything by

the illusions of the mirage. Nevertheless something of enormous size

continued to advance. Little vapours, as subtle as the breath, ran

across the surface of the desert; the sun, which was higher now, shone

more strongly: a harsh light, which seemed to vibrate, threw back

the depths of the sky, and permeating objects, rendered distance

incalculable. The immense plain expanded in every direction beyond the

limits of vision; and the almost insensible undulations of the soil

extended to the extreme horizon, which was closed by a great blue line

which they knew to be the sea. The two armies, having left their tents,

stood gazing; the people of Utica were massing on the ramparts to have a

better view.

At last they distinguished several transverse bars bristling with level

points. They became thicker, larger; black hillocks swayed to and fro;

square thickets suddenly appeared; they were elephants and lances. A

single shout went up: “The Carthaginians!” and without signal or

command the soldiers at Utica and those at the bridge ran pell-mell to

fall in a body upon Hamilcar.

Spendius shuddered at the name. “Hamilcar! Hamilcar!” he repeated,

panting, and Matho was not there! What was to be done? No means of

flight! The suddenness of the event, his terror of the Suffet, and above

all, the urgent need of forming an immediate resolution, distracted him;

he could see himself pierced by a thousand swords, decapitated, dead.

Meanwhile he was being called for; thirty thousand men would follow him;

he was seized with fury against himself; he fell back upon the hope of

victory; it was full of bliss, and he believed himself more intrepid

than Epaminondas. He smeared his cheeks with vermilion in order to

conceal his paleness, then he buckled on his knemids and his cuirass,

swallowed a patera of pure wine, and ran after his troops, who were

hastening towards those from Utica.

They united so rapidly that the Suffet had not time to draw up his

men in battle array. By degrees he slackened his speed. The elephants

stopped; they rocked their heavy heads with their chargings of ostrich

feathers, striking their shoulders the while with their trunks.

Behind the intervals between them might be seen the cohorts of the

velites, and further on the great helmets of the Clinabarians,

with steel heads glancing in the sun, cuirasses, plumes, and waving

standards. But the Carthaginian army, which amounted to eleven thousand

three hundred and ninety-six men, seemed scarcely to contain them, for

it formed an oblong, narrow at the sides and pressed back upon itself.

Seeing them so weak, the Barbarians, who were thrice as numerous, were

seized with extravagant joy. Hamilcar was not to be seen. Perhaps he

had remained down yonder? Moreover what did it matter? The disdain

which they felt for these traders strengthened their courage; and

before Spendius could command a manouvre they had all understood it, and

already executed it.

They were deployed in a long, straight line, overlapping the wings of

the Punic army in order to completely encompass it. But when there

was an interval of only three hundred paces between the armies, the

elephants turned round instead of advancing; then the Clinabarians were

seen to face about and follow them; and the surprise of the Mercenaries

increased when they saw the archers running to join them. So the

Carthaginians were afraid, they were fleeing! A tremendous hooting broke

out from among the Barbarian troops, and Spendius exclaimed from the top

of his dromedary: “Ah! I knew it! Forward! forward!”

Then javelins, darts, and sling-bullets burst forth simultaneously. The

elephants feeling their croups stung by the arrows began to gallop more

quickly; a great dust enveloped them, and they vanished like shadows in

a cloud.

But from the distance there came a loud noise of footsteps dominated by

the shrill sound of the trumpets, which were being blown furiously.

The space which the Barbarians had in front of them, which was full

of eddies and tumult, attracted like a whirlpool; some dashed into it.

Cohorts of infantry appeared; they closed up; and at the same time

all the rest saw the foot-soldiers hastening up with the horseman at a

gallop.

Hamilcar had, in fact, ordered the phalanx to break its sections, and

the elephants, light troops, and cavalry to pass through the intervals

so as to bring themselves speedily upon the wings, and so well had he

calculated the distance from the Barbarians, that at the moment when

they reached him, the entire Carthaginian army formed one long straight

line.

In the centre bristled the phalanx, formed of syntagmata or full squares

having sixteen men on each side. All the leaders of all the files

appeared amid long, sharp lanceheads, which jutted out unevenly around

them, for the first six ranks crossed their sarissæ, holding them in

the middle, and the ten lower ranks rested them upon the shoulders of

their companions in succession before them. Their faces were all half

hidden beneath the visors of their helmets; their right legs were all

covered with bronze knemids; broad cylindrical shields reached down to

their knees; and the horrible quadrangular mass moved in a single body,

and seemed to live like an animal and work like a machine. Two cohorts

of elephants flanked it in regular array; quivering, they shook off the

splinters of the arrows that clung to their black skins. The Indians,

squatting on their withers among the tufts of white feathers, restrained

them with their spoon-headed harpoons, while the men in the towers, who

were hidden up to their shoulders, moved about iron distaffs furnished

with lighted tow on the edges of their large bended bows. Right and

left of the elephants hovered the slingers, each with a sling around his

loins, a second on his head, and a third in his right hand. Then came

the Clinabarians, each flanked by a Negro, and pointing their lances

between the ears of their horses, which, like themselves, were

completely covered with gold. Afterwards, at intervals, came the light

armed soldiers with shields of lynx skin, beyond which projected the

points of the javelins which they held in their left hands; while

the Tarentines, each having two coupled horses, relieved this wall of

soldiers at its two extremities.

The army of the Barbarians, on the contrary, had not been able to

preserve its line. Undulations and blanks were to be found through

its extravagant length; all were panting and out of breath with their

running.

The phalanx moved heavily along with thrusts from all its sarissæ;

and the too slender line of the Mercenaries soon yielded in the centre

beneath the enormous weight.

Then the Carthaginian wings expanded in order to fall upon them, the

elephants following. The phalanx, with obliquely pointed lances, cut

through the Barbarians; there were two enormous, struggling bodies; and

the wings with slings and arrows beat them back upon the phalangites.

There was no cavalry to get rid of them, except two hundred Numidians

operating against the right squadron of the Clinabarians. All the rest

were hemmed in, and unable to extricate themselves from the lines. The

peril was imminent, and the need of coming to some resolution urgent.

Spendius ordered attacks to be made simultaneously on both flanks of the

phalanx so as to pass clean through it. But the narrower ranks glided

below the longer ones and recovered their position, and the phalanx

turned upon the Barbarians as terrible in flank as it had just been in

front.

They struck at the staves of the sarissæ, but the cavalry in the rear

embarrassed their attack; and the phalanx, supported by the elephants,

lengthened and contracted, presenting itself in the form of a square,

a cone, a rhombus, a trapezium, a pyramid. A twofold internal movement

went on continually from its head to its rear; for those who were at

the lowest part of the files hastened up to the first ranks, while the

latter, from fatigue, or on account of the wounded, fell further back.

The Barbarians found themselves thronged upon the phalanx. It was

impossible for it to advance; there was, as it were, an ocean wherein

leaped red crests and scales of brass, while the bright shields rolled

like silver foam. Sometimes broad currents would descend from one

extremity to the other, and then go up again, while a heavy mass

remained motionless in the centre. The lances dipped and rose

alternately. Elsewhere there was so quick a play of naked swords that

only the points were visible, while turmæ of cavalry formed wide

circles which closed again like whirlwinds behind them.

Above the voices of the captains, the ringing of clarions and the

grating of tyres, bullets of lead and almonds of clay whistled through

the air, dashing the sword from the hand or the brain out of the skull.

The wounded, sheltering themselves with one arm beneath their shields,

pointed their swords by resting the pommels on the ground, while others,

lying in pools of blood, would turn and bite the heels of those above

them. The multitude was so compact, the dust so thick, and the tumult

so great that it was impossible to distinguish anything; the cowards who

offered to surrender were not even heard. Those whose hands were empty

clasped one another close; breasts cracked against cuirasses, and

corpses hung with head thrown back between a pair of contracted arms.

There was a company of sixty Umbrians who, firm on their hams, their

pikes before their eyes, immovable and grinding their teeth, forced two

syntagmata to recoil simultaneously. Some Epirote shepherds ran upon the

left squadron of the Clinabarians, and whirling their staves, seized the

horses by the man; the animals threw their riders and fled across the

plain. The Punic slingers scattered here and there stood gaping. The

phalanx began to waver, the captains ran to and fro in distraction,

the rearmost in the files were pressing upon the soldiers, and the

Barbarians had re-formed; they were recovering; the victory was theirs.

But a cry, a terrible cry broke forth, a roar of pain and wrath: it came

from the seventy-two elephants which were rushing on in double line,

Hamilcar having waited until the Mercenaries were massed together in

one spot to let them loose against them; the Indians had goaded them so

vigorously that blood was trickling down their broad ears. Their trunks,

which were smeared with minium, were stretched straight out in the air

like red serpents; their breasts were furnished with spears and their

backs with cuirasses; their tusks were lengthened with steel blades

curved like sabres,—and to make them more ferocious they had been

intoxicated with a mixture of pepper, wine, and incense. They shook

their necklaces of bells, and shrieked; and the elephantarchs bent their

heads beneath the stream of phalaricas which was beginning to fly from

the tops of the towers.

In order to resist them the better the Barbarians rushed forward in

a compact crowd; the elephants flung themselves impetuously upon the

centre of it. The spurs on their breasts, like ships’ prows, clove

through the cohorts, which flowed surging back. They stifled the men

with their trunks, or else snatching them up from the ground delivered

them over their heads to the soldiers in the towers; with their tusks

they disembowelled them, and hurled them into the air, and long entrails

hung from their ivory fangs like bundles of rope from a mast. The

Barbarians strove to blind them, to hamstring them; others would slip

beneath their bodies, bury a sword in them up to the hilt, and perish

crushed to death; the most intrepid clung to their straps; they would go

on sawing the leather amid flames, bullets, and arrows, and the wicker

tower would fall like a tower of stone. Fourteen of the animals on the

extreme right, irritated by their wounds, turned upon the second rank;

the Indians seized mallet and chisel, applied the latter to a joint in

the head, and with all their might struck a great blow.

Down fell the huge beasts, falling one above another. It was like

a mountain; and upon the heap of dead bodies and armour a monstrous

elephant, called “The Fury of Baal,” which had been caught by the

leg in some chains, stood howling until the evening with an arrow in its

eye.

The others, however, like conquerors, delighting in extermination,

overthrew, crushed, stamped, and raged against the corpses and the

débris. To repel the maniples in serried circles around them, they

turned about on their hind feet as they advanced, with a continual

rotatory motion. The Carthaginians felt their energy increase, and the

battle begin again.

The Barbarians were growing weak; some Greek hoplites threw away all

their arms, and terror seized upon the rest. Spendius was seen stooping

upon his dromedary, and spurring it on the shoulders with two javelins.

Then they all rushed away from the wings and ran towards Utica.

The Clinabarians, whose horses were exhausted, did not try to overtake

them. The Ligurians, who were weakened by thirst, cried out for an

advance towards the river. But the Carthaginians, who were posted in the

centre of the syntagmata, and had suffered less, stamped their feet

with longing for the vengeance which was flying from them; and they

were already darting forward in pursuit of the Mercenaries when Hamilcar

appeared.

He held in his spotted and sweat-covered horse with silver reins. The

bands fastened to the horns on his helmet flapped in the wind behind

him, and he had placed his oval shield beneath his left thigh. With a

motion of his triple-pointed pike he checked the army.

The Tarentines leaped quickly upon their spare horses, and set off right

and left towards the river and towards the town.

The phalanx exterminated all the remaining Barbarians at leisure. When

the swords appeared they would stretch out their throats and close their

eyelids. Others defended themselves to the last, and were knocked down

from a distance with flints like mad dogs. Hamilcar had desired the

taking of prisoners, but the Carthaginians obeyed him grudgingly, so

much pleasure did they derive from plunging their swords into the bodies

of the Barbarians. As they were too hot they set about their work with

bare arms like mowers; and when they desisted to take breath they would

follow with their eyes a horseman galloping across the country after a

fleeing soldier. He would succeed in seizing him by the hair, hold him

thus for a while, and then fell him with a blow of his axe.

Night fell. Carthaginians and Barbarians had disappeared. The elephants

which had taken to flight roamed in the horizon with their fired towers.

These burned here and there in the darkness like beacons nearly half

lost in the mist; and no movement could be discerned in the plain save

the undulation of the river, which was heaped with corpses, and was

drifting them away to the sea.

Two hours afterwards Matho arrived. He caught sight in the starlight of

long, uneven heaps lying upon the ground.

They were files of Barbarians. He stooped down; all were dead. He called

into the distance, but no voice replied.

That very morning he had left Hippo-Zarytus with his soldiers to march

upon Carthage. At Utica the army under Spendius had just set out, and

the inhabitants were beginning to fire the engines. All had fought

desperately. But, the tumult which was going on in the direction of

the bridge increasing in an incomprehensible fashion, Matho had struck

across the mountain by the shortest road, and as the Barbarians were

fleeing over the plain he had encountered nobody.

Facing him were little pyramidal masses rearing themselves in the shade,

and on this side of the river and closer to him were motionless lights

on the surface of the ground. In fact the Carthaginians had fallen

back behind the bridge, and to deceive the Barbarians the Suffet had

stationed numerous posts upon the other bank.

Matho, still advancing, thought that he could distinguish Punic engines,

for horses’ heads which did not stir appeared in the air fixed upon

the tops of piles of staves which could not be seen; and further off he

could hear a great clamour, a noise of songs, and clashing of cups.

Then, not knowing where he was nor how to find Spendius, assailed with

anguish, scared, and lost in the darkness, he returned more impetuously

by the same road. The dawn as growing grey when from the top of

the mountain he perceived the town with the carcases of the engines

blackened by the flames and looking like giant skeletons leaning against

the walls.

All was peaceful amid extraordinary silence and heaviness. Among his

soldiers on the verge of the tents men were sleeping nearly naked, each

upon his back, or with his forehead against his arm which was supported

by his cuirass. Some were unwinding bloodstained bandages from their

legs. Those who were doomed to die rolled their heads about gently;

others dragged themselves along and brought them drink. The sentries

walked up and down along the narrow paths in order to warm themselves,

or stood in a fierce attitude with their faces turned towards the

horizon, and their pikes on their shoulders. Matho found Spendius

sheltered beneath a rag of canvas, supported by two sticks set in the

ground, his knee in his hands and his head cast down.

They remained for a long time without speaking.

At last Matho murmured: “Conquered!”

Spendius rejoined in a gloomy voice: “Yes, conquered!”

And to all questions he replied by gestures of despair.

Meanwhile sighs and death-rattles reached them. Matho partially opened

the canvas. Then the sight of the soldiers reminded him of another

disaster on the same spot, and he ground his teeth: “Wretch! once

already—”

Spendius interrupted him: “You were not there either.”

“It is a curse!” exclaimed Matho. “Nevertheless, in the end I

will get at him! I will conquer him! I will slay him! Ah! if I had been

there!—” The thought of having missed the battle rendered him even

more desperate than the defeat. He snatched up his sword and threw it

upon the ground. “But how did the Carthaginians beat you?”

The former slave began to describe the manouvres. Matho seemed to

see them, and he grew angry. The army from Utica ought to have taken

Hamilcar in the rear instead of hastening to the bridge.

“Ah! I know!” said Spendius.

“You ought to have made your ranks twice as deep, avoided exposing the

velites against the phalanx, and given free passage to the elephants.

Everything might have been recovered at the last moment; there was no

necessity to fly.”

Spendius replied:

“I saw him pass along in his large red cloak, with uplifted arms

and higher than the dust, like an eagle flying upon the flank of the

cohorts; and at every nod they closed up or darted forward; the throng

carried us towards each other; he looked at me, and I felt the cold

steel as it were in my heart.”

“He selected the day, perhaps?” whispered Matho to himself.

They questioned each other, trying to discover what it was that had

brought the Suffet just when circumstances were most unfavourable.

They went on to talk over the situation, and Spendius, to extenuate his

fault, or to revive his courage, asserted that some hope still remained.

“And if there be none, it matters not!” said Matho; “alone, I will

carry on the war!”

“And I too!” exclaimed the Greek, leaping up; he strode to and fro,

his eyes sparkling, and a strange smile wrinkled his jackal face.

“We will make a fresh start; do not leave me again! I am not made for

battles in the sunlight—the flashing of swords troubles my sight; it

is a disease, I lived too long in the ergastulum. But give me walls to

scale at night, and I will enter the citadels, and the corpses shall be

cold before cock-crow! Show me any one, anything, an enemy, a treasure,

a woman,—a woman,” he repeated, “were she a king’s daughter,

and I will quickly bring your desire to your feet. You reproach me for

having lost the battle against Hanno, nevertheless I won it back

again. Confess it! my herd of swine did more for us than a phalanx of

Spartans.” And yielding to the need that he felt of exalting himself

and taking his revenge, he enumerated all that he had done for the cause

of the Mercenaries. “It was I who urged on the Gaul in the Suffet’s

gardens! And later, at Sicca, I maddened them all with fear of the

Republic! Gisco was sending them back, but I prevented the interpreters

speaking. Ah! how their tongues hung out of their mouths! do you

remember? I brought you into Carthage; I stole the zaïmph. I led you to

her. I will do more yet: you shall see!” He burst out laughing like a

madman.

Matho regarded him with gaping eyes. He felt in a measure uncomfortable

in the presence of this man, who was at once so cowardly and so

terrible.

The Greek resumed in jovial tones and cracking his fingers:

“Evoe! Sun after rain! I have worked in the quarries, and I have

drunk Massic wine beneath a golden awning in a vessel of my own like a

Ptolemæus. Calamity should help to make us cleverer. By dint of work we

may make fortune bend. She loves politicians. She will yield!”

He returned to Matho and took him by the arm.

“Master, at present the Carthaginians are sure of their victory. You

have quite an army which has not fought, and your men obey you. Place

them in the front: mine will follow to avenge themselves. I have still

three thousand Carians, twelve hundred slingers and archers, whole

cohorts! A phalanx even might be formed; let us return!”

Matho, who had been stunned by the disaster, had hitherto thought of

no means of repairing it. He listened with open mouth, and the bronze

plates which circled his sides rose with the leapings of his heart. He

picked up his sword, crying:

“Follow me; forward!”

But when the scouts returned, they announced that the Carthaginian dead

had been carried off, that the bridge was in ruins, and that Hamilcar

had disappeared.