CHAPTER IV BENEATH THE WALLS OF CARTHAGE
Some country people, riding on asses or running on foot, arrived in thetown, pale, breathless, and mad with fear. They were flying before thearmy. It had accomplished the journey from Sicca in three days, in orderto reach Carthage and wholly exterminate it.
The gates were shut. The Barbarians appeared almost immediately; butthey stopped in the middle of the isthmus, on the edge of the lake.
At first they made no hostile announcement. Several approached with palmbranches in their hands. They were driven back with arrows, so great wasthe terror.
In the morning and at nightfall prowlers would sometimes wander alongthe walls. A little man carefully wrapped in a cloak, and with his faceconcealed beneath a very low visor, was especially noticed. He wouldremain whole hours gazing at the aqueduct, and so persistently that hedoubtless wished to mislead the Carthaginians as to his real designs.Another man, a sort of giant who walked bareheaded, used to accompanyhim.
But Carthage was defended throughout the whole breadth of the isthmus:first by a trench, then by a grassy rampart, and lastly by a wall thirtycubits high, built of freestone, and in two storys. It contained stablesfor three hundred elephants with stores for their caparisons, shackles,and food; other stables again for four thousand horses with suppliesof barley and harness, and barracks for twenty thousand soldiers witharmour and all materials of war. Towers rose from the second story, allprovided with battlements, and having bronze bucklers hung on cramps onthe outside.
This first line of wall gave immediate shelter to Malqua, the sailors’and dyers’ quarter. Masts might be seen whereon purple sails weredrying, and on the highest terraces clay furnaces for heating the picklewere visible.
Behind, the lofty houses of the city rose in an ampitheatre of cubicalform. They were built of stone, planks, shingle, reeds, shells, andbeaten earth. The woods belonging to the temples were like lakes ofverdure in this mountain of diversely-coloured blocks. It was levelledat unequal distances by the public squares, and was cut from top tobottom by countless intersecting lanes. The enclosures of the three oldquarters which are now lost might be distinguished; they rose hereand there like great reefs, or extended in enormous fronts, blackened,half-covered with flowers, and broadly striped by the casting of filth,while streets passed through their yawning apertures like rivers beneathbridges.
The hill of the Acropolis, in the centre of Byrsa, was hidden beneath adisordered array of monuments. There were temples with wreathed columnsbearing bronze capitals and metal chains, cones of dry stones with bandsof azure, copper cupolas, marble architraves, Babylonian buttresses,obelisks poised on their points like inverted torches. Peristylesreached to pediments; volutes were displayed through colonnades; granitewalls supported tile partitions; the whole mounting, half-hidden, theone above the other in a marvellous and incomprehensible fashion. In itmight be felt the succession of the ages, and, as it were, the memorialsof forgotten fatherlands.
Behind the Acropolis the Mappalian road, which was lined with tombs,extended through red lands in a straight line from the shore to thecatacombs; then spacious dwellings occurred at intervals in the gardens,and this third quarter, Megara, which was the new town, reached as faras the edge of the cliff, where rose a giant pharos that blazed forthevery night.
In this fashion was Carthage displayed before the soldiers quartered inthe plain.
They could recognise the markets and crossways in the distance, anddisputed with one another as to the sites of the temples. Khamon’s,fronting the Syssitia, had golden tiles; Melkarth, to the left ofEschmoun, had branches of coral on its roofing; beyond, Tanith’scopper cupola swelled among the palm trees; the dark Moloch was belowthe cisterns, in the direction of the pharos. At the angles of thepediments, on the tops of the walls, at the corners of the squares,everywhere, divinities with hideous heads might be seen, colossal orsquat, with enormous bellies, or immoderately flattened, opening theirjaws, extending their arms, and holding forks, chains or javelins intheir hands; while the blue of the sea stretched away behind the streetswhich were rendered still steeper by the perspective.
They were filled from morning till evening with a tumultuous people;young boys shaking little bells, shouted at the doors of the baths; theshops for hot drinks smoked, the air resounded with the noise of anvils,the white cocks, sacred to the Sun, crowed on the terraces, the oxenthat were being slaughtered bellowed in the temples, slaves ran aboutwith baskets on their heads; and in the depths of the porticoes a priestwould sometimes appear, draped in a dark cloak, barefooted, and wearinga pointed cap.
The spectacle afforded by Carthage irritated the Barbarians; theyadmired it and execrated it, and would have liked both to annihilate itand to dwell in it. But what was there in the Military Harbour defendedby a triple wall? Then behind the town, at the back of Megara, andhigher than the Acropolis, appeared Hamilcar’s palace.
Matho’s eyes were directed thither every moment. He would ascend theolive trees and lean over with his hand spread out above his eyebrows.The gardens were empty, and the red door with its black cross remainedconstantly shut.
More than twenty times he walked round the ramparts, seeking some breachby which he might enter. One night he threw himself into the gulf andswam for three hours at a stretch. He reached the foot of the Mappalianquarter and tried to climb up the face of the cliff. He covered hisknees with blood, broke his nails, and then fell back into the waves andreturned.
His impotence exasperated him. He was jealous of this Carthage whichcontained Salammbô, as if of some one who had possessed her. Hisnervelessness left him to be replaced by a mad and continual eagernessfor action. With flaming cheek, angry eyes, and hoarse voice, he wouldwalk with rapid strides through the camp; or seated on the shore hewould scour his great sword with sand. He shot arrows at the passingvultures. His heart overflowed into frenzied speech.
“Give free course to your wrath like a runaway chariot,” saidSpendius. “Shout, blaspheme, ravage and slay. Grief is allayed withblood, and since you cannot sate your love, gorge your hate; it willsustain you!”
Matho resumed the command of his soldiers. He drilled them pitilessly.He was respected for his courage and especially for his strength.Moreover he inspired a sort of mystic dread, and it was believed thathe conversed at night with phantoms. The other captains were animatedby his example. The army soon grew disciplined. From their houses theCarthaginians could hear the bugle-flourishes that regulated theirexercises. At last the Barbarians drew near.
To crush them in the isthmus it would have been necessary for two armiesto take them simultaneously in the rear, one disembarking at the end ofthe gulf of Utica, and the second at the mountain of the Hot Springs.But what could be done with the single sacred Legion, mustering at mostsix thousand men? If the enemy bent towards the east they would join thenomads and intercept the commerce of the desert. If they fell back tothe west, Numidia would rise. Finally, lack of provisions wouldsooner or later lead them to devastate the surrounding country likegrasshoppers, and the rich trembled for their fine country-houses, theirvineyards and their cultivated lands.
Hanno proposed atrocious and impracticable measures, such as promisinga heavy sum for every Barbarian’s head, or setting fire to their campwith ships and machines. His colleague Gisco, on the other hand, wishedthem to be paid. But the Ancients detested him owing to his popularity;for they dreaded the risk of a master, and through terror of monarchystrove to weaken whatever contributed to it or might re-establish it.
Outside the fortification there were people of another race and ofunknown origin, all hunters of the porcupine, and eaters of shell-fishand serpents. They used to go into caves to catch hyenas alive, andamuse themselves by making them run in the evening on the sands ofMegara between the stelæ of the tombs. Their huts, which were madeof mud and wrack, hung on the cliff like swallows’ nests. There theylived, without government and without gods, pell-mell, completely naked,at once feeble and fierce, and execrated by the
people of all time onaccount of their unclean food. One morning the sentries perceived thatthey were all gone.
At last some members of the Great Council arrived at a decision. Theycame to the camp without necklaces or girdles, and in open sandalslike neighbours. They walked at a quiet pace, waving salutations tothe captains, or stopped to speak to the soldiers, saying that all wasfinished and that justice was about to be done to their claims.
Many of them saw a camp of Mercenaries for the first time. Instead ofthe confusion which they had pictured to themselves, there prevailedeverywhere terrible silence and order. A grassy rampart formed a loftywall round the army immovable by the shock of catapults. The ground inthe streets was sprinkled with fresh water; through the holes in thetents they could perceive tawny eyeballs gleaming in the shade. Thepiles of pikes and hanging panoplies dazzled them like mirrors. Theyconversed in low tones. They were afraid of upsetting something withtheir long robes.
The soldiers requested provisions, undertaking to pay for them out ofthe money that was due.
Oxen, sheep, guinea fowl, fruit and lupins were sent to them, withsmoked scombri, that excellent scombri which Carthage dispatched toevery port. But they walked scornfully around the magnificent cattle,and disparaging what they coveted, offered the worth of a pigeon fora ram, or the price of a pomegranate for three goats. The Eaters ofUncleanness came forward as arbitrators, and declared that they werebeing duped. Then they drew their swords with threats to slay.
Commissaries of the Great Council wrote down the number of years forwhich pay was due to each soldier. But it was no longer possible to knowhow many Mercenaries had been engaged, and the Ancients were dismayed atthe enormous sum which they would have to pay. The reserve of silphiummust be sold, and the trading towns taxed; the Mercenaries wouldgrow impatient; Tunis was already with them; and the rich, stunned byHanno’s ragings and his colleague’s reproaches, urged any citizenswho might know a Barbarian to go to see him immediately in order to winback his friendship, and to speak him fair. Such a show of confidencewould soothe them.
Traders, scribes, workers in the arsenal, and whole families visited theBarbarians.
The soldiers allowed all the Carthaginians to come in, but by a singlepassage so narrow that four men abreast jostled one another in it.Spendius, standing against the barrier, had them carefully searched;facing him Matho was examining the multitude, trying to recognise someone whom he might have seen at Salammbô’s palace.
The camp was like a town, so full of people and of movement was it. Thetwo distinct crowds mingled without blending, one dressed in linen orwool, with felt caps like fir-cones, and the other clad in iron andwearing helmets. Amid serving men and itinerant vendors there movedwomen of all nations, as brown as ripe dates, as greenish as olives,as yellow as oranges, sold by sailors, picked out of dens, stolen fromcaravans, taken in the sacking of towns, women that were jaded with loveso long as they were young, and plied with blows when they were old, andthat died in routs on the roadsides among the baggage and the abandonedbeasts of burden. The wives of the nomads had square, tawny robes ofdromedary’s hair swinging at their heels; musicians from Cyrenaica,wrapped in violet gauze and with painted eyebrows, sang, squatting onmats; old Negresses with hanging breasts gathered the animals’ dungthat was drying in the sun to light their fires; the Syracusan women hadgolden plates in their hair; the Lusitanians had necklaces of shells;the Gauls wore wolf skins upon their white bosoms; and sturdy children,vermin-covered, naked and uncircumcised, butted with their heads againstpassers-by, or came behind them like young tigers to bite their hands.
The Carthaginians walked through the camp, surprised at the quantitiesof things with which it was running over. The most miserable weremelancholy, and the rest dissembled their anxiety.
The soldiers struck them on the shoulder, and exhorted them to be gay.As soon as they saw any one, they invited him to their amusements. Ifthey were playing at discus, they would manage to crush his feet, orif at boxing to fracture his jaw with the very first blow. The slingersterrified the Carthaginians with their slings, the Psylli with theirvipers, and the horsemen with their horses, while their victims,addicted as they were to peaceful occupations, bent their heads andtried to smile at all these outrages. Some, in order to show themselvesbrave, made signs that they should like to become soldiers. They wereset to split wood and to curry mules. They were buckled up in armour,and rolled like casks through the streets of the camp. Then, whenthey were about to leave, the Mercenaries plucked out their hair withgrotesque contortions.
But many, from foolishness or prejudice, innocently believed that allthe Carthaginians were very rich, and they walked behind them entreatingthem to grant them something. They requested everything that theythought fine: a ring, a girdle, sandals, the fringe of a robe, and whenthe despoiled Carthaginian cried—“But I have nothing left. Whatdo you want?” they would reply, “Your wife!” Others even said,“Your life!”
The military accounts were handed to the captains, read to the soldiers,and definitively approved. Then they claimed tents; they received them.Next the polemarchs of the Greeks demanded some of the handsome suits ofarmour that were manufactured at Carthage; the Great Council votedsums of money for their purchase. But it was only fair, so the horsemenpretended, that the Republic should indemnify them for their horses;one had lost three at such a siege, another, five during such a march,another, fourteen in the precipices. Stallions from Hecatompylos wereoffered to them, but they preferred money.
Next they demanded that they should be paid in money (in pieces ofmoney, and not in leathern coins) for all the corn that was owing tothem, and at the highest price that it had fetched during the war; sothat they exacted four hundred times as much for a measure of meal asthey had given for a sack of wheat. Such injustice was exasperating; butit was necessary, nevertheless, to submit.
Then the delegates from the soldiers and from the Great Council sworerenewed friendship by the Genius of Carthage and the gods of theBarbarians. They exchanged excuses and caresses with orientaldemonstrativeness and verbosity. Then the soldiers claimed, as a proofof friendship, the punishment of those who had estranged them from theRepublic.
Their meaning, it was pretended, was not understood, and they explainedthemselves more clearly by saying that they must have Hanno’s head.
Several times a day, they left their camp, and walked along the foot ofthe walls, shouting a demand that the Suffet’s head should be thrownto them, and holding out their robes to receive it.
The Great Council would perhaps have given way but for a last exaction,more outrageous than the rest; they demanded maidens, chosen fromillustrious families, in marriage for their chiefs. It was an ideawhich had emanated from Spendius, and which many thought most simple andpracticable. But the assumption of their desire to mix with Punic bloodmade the people indignant; and they were bluntly told that they were toreceive no more. Then they exclaimed that they had been deceived,and that if their pay did not arrive within three days, they wouldthemselves go and take it in Carthage.
The bad faith of the Mercenaries was not so complete as their enemiesthought. Hamilcar had made them extravagant promises, vague, it is true,but at the same time solemn and reiterated. They might have believedthat when they disembarked at Carthage the town would be abandoned tothem, and that they should have treasures divided among them; andwhen they saw that scarcely their wages would be paid, the disillusiontouched their pride no less than their greed.
Had not Dionysius, Pyrrhus, Agathocles, and the generals of Alexanderfurnished examples of marvellous good fortune? Hercules, whom theChanaanites confounded with the sun, was the ideal which shone on thehorizon of armies. They knew that simple soldiers had worn diadems, andthe echoes of crumbling empires would furnish dreams to the Gaul inhis oak forest, to the Ethiopian amid his sands. But there was a nationalways ready to turn courage to account; and the robber driven fromhis tribe, the patricide wandering on the roads, the perpetrator ofsacrilege pursued by the gods, all wh
o were starving or in despairstrove to reach the port where the Carthaginian broker was recruitingsoldiers. Usually the Republic kept its promises. This time, however,the eagerness of its avarice had brought it into perilous disgrace.Numidians, Libyans, the whole of Africa was about to fall upon Carthage.Only the sea was open to it, and there it met with the Romans; so that,like a man assailed by murderers, it felt death all around it.
It was quite necessary to have recourse to Gisco, and the Barbariansaccepted his intervention. One morning they saw the chains of theharbour lowered, and three flat-bottomed boats passing through the canalof Tænia entered the lake.
Gisco was visible on the first at the prow. Behind him rose an enormouschest, higher than a catafalque, and furnished with rings like hangingcrowns. Then appeared the legion of interpreters, with their hairdressed like sphinxes, and with parrots tattooed on their breasts.Friends and slaves followed, all without arms, and in such numbers thatthey shouldered one another. The three long, dangerously-loaded bargesadvanced amid the shouts of the onlooking army.
As soon as Gisco disembarked the soldiers ran to him. He had a sort oftribune erected with knapsacks, and declared that he should not departbefore he had paid them all in full.
There was an outburst of applause, and it was a long time before he wasable to speak.
Then he censured the wrongs done to the Republic, and to the Barbarians;the fault lay with a few mutineers who had alarmed Carthage by theirviolence. The best proof of good intention on the part of the latter wasthat it was he, the eternal adversary of the Suffet Hanno, who was sentto them. They must not credit the people with the folly of desiring toprovoke brave men, nor with ingratitude enough not to recognise theirservices; and Gisco began to pay the soldiers, commencing with theLibyans. As they had declared that the lists were untruthful, he made nouse of them.
They defiled before him according to nationality, opening their fingersto show the number of their years of service; they were marked insuccession with green paint on the left arm; the scribes dipped into theyawning coffer, while others made holes with a style on a sheet of lead.
A man passed walking heavily like an ox.
“Come up beside me,” said the Suffet, suspecting some fraud; “howmany years have you served?”
“Twelve,” replied the Libyan.
Gisco slipped his fingers under his chin, for the chin-piece of thehelmet used in course of time to occasion two callosities there; thesewere called carobs, and “to have the carobs” was an expression usedto denote a veteran.
“Thief!” exclaimed the Suffet, “your shoulders ought to have whatyour face lacks!” and tearing off his tunic he laid bare is back whichwas covered with a bleeding scab; he was a labourer from Hippo-Zarytus.Hootings were raised, and he was decapitated.
As soon as night fell, Spendius went and roused the Libyans, and said tothem:
“When the Ligurians, Greeks, Balearians, and men of Italy are paid,they will return. But as for you, you will remain in Africa, scatteredthrough your tribes, and without any means of defence! It will be thenthat the Republic will take its revenge! Mistrust the journey! Are yougoing to believe everything that is said? Both the Suffets are agreed,and this one is imposing on you! Remember the Island of Bones, andXanthippus, whom they sent back to Sparta in a rotten galley!”
“How are we to proceed?” they asked.
“Reflect!” said Spendius.
The two following days were spent in paying the men of Magdala, Leptis,and Hecatompylos; Spendius went about among the Gauls.
“They are paying off the Libyans, and then they will discharge theGreeks, the Balearians, the Asiatics and all the rest! But you, who arefew in number, will receive nothing! You will see your native landsno more! You will have no ships, and they will kill you to save yourfood!”
The Gauls came to the Suffet. Autaritus, he whom he had wounded atHamilcar’s palace, put questions to him, but was repelled by theslaves, and disappeared swearing he would be revenged.
The demands and complaints multiplied. The most obstinate penetrated atnight into the Suffet’s tent; they took his hands and sought to movehim by making him feel their toothless mouths, their wasted arms, andthe scars of their wounds. Those who had not yet been paid were growingangry, those who had received the money demanded more for their horses;and vagabonds and outlaws assumed soldiers’ arms and declared thatthey were being forgotten. Every minute there arrived whirlwinds of men,as it were; the tents strained and fell; the multitude, thick pressedbetween the ramparts of the camp, swayed with loud shouts from the gatesto the centre. When the tumult grew excessively violent Gisco would restone elbow on his ivory sceptre and stand motionless looking at the seawith his fingers buried in his beard.
Matho frequently went off to speak with Spendius; then he would againplace himself in front of the Suffet, and Gisco could feel his eyescontinually like two flaming phalaricas darted against him. Severaltimes they hurled reproaches at each other over the heads of the crowd,but without making themselves heard. The distribution, meanwhile,continued, and the Suffet found expedients to remove every obstacle.
The Greeks tried to quibble about differences in currency, but hefurnished them with such explanations that they retired without amurmur. The Negroes demanded white shells such as are used for tradingin the interior of Africa, but when he offered to send to Carthage forthem they accepted money like the rest.
But the Balearians had been promised something better, namely, women.The Suffet replied that a whole caravan of maidens was expected forthem, but the journey was long and would require six moons more. Whenthey were fat and well rubbed with benjamin they should be sent in shipsto the ports of the Balearians.
Suddenly Zarxas, now handsome and vigorous, leaped like a mountebankupon the shoulders of his friends and cried:
“Have you reserved any of them for the corpses?” at the same timepointing to the gate of Khamon in Carthage.
The brass plates with which it was furnished from top to bottom shonein the sun’s latest fires, and the Barbarians believed that they coulddiscern on it a trail of blood. Every time that Gisco wished to speaktheir shouts began again. At last he descended with measured steps, andshut himself up in his tent.
When he left it at sunrise his interpreters, who used to sleep outside,did not stir; they lay on their backs with their eyes fixed, theirtongues between their teeth, and their faces of a bluish colour. Whitemucus flowed from their nostrils, and their limbs were stiff, as ifthey had all been frozen by the cold during the night. Each had a littlenoose of rushes round his neck.
From that time onward the rebellion was unchecked. The murder of theBalearians which had been recalled by Zarxas strengthened the distrustinspired by Spendius. They imagined that the Republic was always tryingto deceive them. An end must be put to it! The interpreters should bedispensed with! Zarxas sang war songs with a sling around his head;Autaritus brandished his great sword; Spendius whispered a word to oneor gave a dagger to another. The boldest endeavoured to pay themselves,while those who were less frenzied wished to have the distributioncontinued. No one now relinquished his arms, and the anger of allcombined into a tumultuous hatred of Gisco.
Some got up beside him. So long as they vociferated abuse they werelistened to with patience; but if they tried to utter the least word inhis behalf they were immediately stoned, or their heads were cut offby a sabre-stroke from behind. The heap of knapsacks was redder than analtar.
They became terrible after their meal and when they had drunk wine! Thiswas an enjoyment forbidden in the Punic armies under pain of death, andthey raised their cups in the direction of Carthage in derision of itsdiscipline. Then they returned to the slaves of the exchequer and againbegan to kill. The word strike, though different in each language, wasunderstood by all.
Gisco was well aware that he was being abandoned by his country; but inspite of its ingratitude he would not dishonour it. When they remindedhim that they had been promised ships, he swore by Moloch to providethem hi
mself at his own expense, and pulling off his necklace of bluestones he threw it into the crowd as the pledge of his oath.
Then the Africans claimed the corn in accordance with the engagementsmade by the Great Council. Gisco spread out the accounts of the Syssitiatraced in violet pigment on sheep skins; and read out all that hadentered Carthage month by month and day by day.
Suddenly he stopped with gaping eyes, as if he had just discovered hissentence of death among the figures.
The Ancients had, in fact, fraudulently reduced them, and the corn soldduring the most calamitous period of the war was set down at so low arate that, blindness apart, it was impossible to believe it.
“Speak!” they shouted. “Louder! Ah! he is trying to lie, thecoward! Don’t trust him.”
For some time he hesitated. At last he resumed his task.
The soldiers, without suspecting that they were being deceived, acceptedthe accounts of the Syssitia as true. But the abundance that hadprevailed at Carthage made them furiously jealous. They broke open thesycamore chest; it was three parts empty. They had seen such sums comingout of it, that they thought it inexhaustible; Gisco must have buriedsome in his tent. They scaled the knapsacks. Matho led them, and as theyshouted “The money! the money!” Gisco at last replied:
“Let your general give it to you!”
He looked them in the face without speaking, with his great yellow eyes,and his long face that was paler than his beard. An arrow, held by itsfeathers, hung from the large gold ring in his ear, and a stream ofblood was trickling from his tiara upon his shoulder.
At a gesture from Matho all advanced. Gisco held out his arms; Spendiustied his wrists with a slip knot; another knocked him down, and hedisappeared amid the disorder of the crowd which was stumbling over theknapsacks.
They sacked his tent. Nothing was found in it except thingsindispensable to life; and, on a closer search, three images of Tanith,and, wrapped up in an ape’s skin, a black stone which had fallen fromthe moon. Many Carthaginians had chosen to accompany him; they wereeminent men, and all belonged to the war party.
They were dragged outside the tents and thrown into the pit used for thereception of filth. They were tied with iron chains around the body tosolid stakes, and were offered food at the point of the javelin.
Autaritus overwhelmed them with invectives as he inspected them, butbeing quite ignorant of his language they made no reply; and the Gaulfrom time to time threw pebbles at their faces to make them cry out.
The next day a sort of languor took possession of the army. Now thattheir anger was over they were seized with anxiety. Matho was sufferingfrom vague melancholy. It seemed to him that Salammbô had indirectlybeen insulted. These rich men were a kind of appendage to her person.He sat down in the night on the edge of the pit, and recognised in theirgroanings something of the voice of which his heart was full.
All, however, upbraided the Libyans, who alone had been paid. But whilenational antipathies revived, together with personal hatreds, it wasfelt that it would be perilous to give way to them. Reprisals aftersuch an outrage would be formidable. It was necessary, therefore, toanticipate the vengeance of Carthage. Conventions and harangues neverceased. Every one spoke, no one was listened to; Spendius, usually soloquacious, shook his head at every proposal.
One evening he asked Matho carelessly whether there were not springs inthe interior of the town.
“Not one!” replied Matho.
The next day Spendius drew him aside to the bank of the lake.
“Master!” said the former slave, “If your heart is dauntless, Iwill bring you into Carthage.”
“How?” repeated the other, panting.
“Swear to execute all my commands and to follow me like a shadow!”
Then Matho, raising his arm towards the planet of Chabar, exclaimed:
“By Tanith, I swear!”
Spendius resumed:
“To-morrow after sunset you will wait for me at the foot of theaqueduct between the ninth and tenth arcades. Bring with you an ironpick, a crestless helmet, and leathern sandals.”
The aqueduct of which he spoke crossed the entire isthmus obliquely,—aconsiderable work, afterwards enlarged by the Romans. In spite of herdisdain of other nations, Carthage had awkwardly borrowed this novelinvention from them, just as Rome herself had built Punic galleys; andfive rows of superposed arches, of a dumpy kind of architecture, withbuttresses at their foot and lions’ heads at the top, reached tothe western part of the Acropolis, where they sank beneath the town toincline what was nearly a river into the cisterns of Megara.
Spendius met Matho here at the hour agreed upon. He fastened a sort ofharpoon to the end of a cord and whirled it rapidly like a sling; theiron instrument caught fast, and they began to climb up the wall, theone after the other.
But when they had ascended to the first story the cramp fell back everytime that they threw it, and in order to discover some fissure they hadto walk along the edge of the cornice. At every row of arches they foundthat it became narrower. Then the cord relaxed. Several times it nearlybroke.
At last they reached the upper platform. Spendius stooped down from timeto time to feel the stones with his hand.
“Here it is,” he said; “let us begin!” And leaning on thepick which Matho had brought they succeeded in dislodging one of theflagstones.
In the distance they perceived a troop of horse-men galloping on horseswithout bridles. Their golden bracelets leaped in the vague drapingsof their cloaks. A man could be seen in front crowned with ostrichfeathers, and galloping with a lance in each hand.
“Narr’ Havas!” exclaimed Matho.
“What matter?” returned Spendius, and he leaped into the hole whichthey had just made by removing the flagstone.
Matho at his command tried to thrust out one of the blocks. But he couldnot move his elbows for want of room.
“We shall return,” said Spendius; “go in front.” Then theyventured into the channel of water.
It reached to their waists. Soon they staggered, and were obliged toswim. Their limbs knocked against the walls of the narrow duct. Thewater flowed almost immediately beneath the stones above, and theirfaces were torn by them. Then the current carried them away. Theirbreasts were crushed with air heavier than that of a sepulchre, andstretching themselves out as much as possible with their heads betweentheir arms and their legs close together, they passed like arrows intothe darkness, choking, gurgling, and almost dead. Suddenly all becameblack before them, and the speed of the waters redoubled. They fell.
When they came to the surface again, they remained for a few minutesextended on their backs, inhaling the air delightfully. Arcades, onebehind another, opened up amid large walls separating the variousbasins. All were filled, and the water stretched in a single sheetthroughout the length of the cisterns. Through the air-holes in thecupolas on the ceiling there fell a pale brightness which spread uponthe waves discs, as it were, of light, while the darkness round aboutthickened towards the walls and threw them back to an indefinitedistance. The slightest sound made a great echo.
Spendius and Matho commenced to swim again, and passing through theopening of the arches, traversed several chambers in succession. Twoother rows of smaller basins extended in a parallel direction on eachside. They lost themselves; they turned, and came back again. At lastsomething offered a resistance to their heels. It was the pavement ofthe gallery that ran along the cisterns.
Then, advancing with great precautions, they felt along the wall tofind an outlet. But their feet slipped, and they fell into the greatcentre-basins. They had to climb up again, and there they fell again.They experienced terrible fatigue, which made them feel as if all theirlimbs had been dissolved in the water while swimming. Their eyes closed;they were in the agonies of death.
Spendius struck his hand against the bars of a grating. They shook it,it gave way, and they found themselves on the steps of a staircase. Adoor of bronze closed it above. With the point of a dagger they movedthe b
ar, which was opened from without, and suddenly the pure open airsurrounded them.
The night was filled with silence, and the sky seemed at anextraordinary height. Clusters of trees projected over the long lines ofwalls. The whole town was asleep. The fires of the outposts shone likelost stars.
Spendius, who had spent three years in the ergastulum, was butimperfectly acquainted with the different quarters. Matho conjecturedthat to reach Hamilcar’s palace they ought to strike to the left andcross the Mappalian district.
“No,” said Spendius, “take me to the temple of Tanith.”
Matho wished to speak.
“Remember!” said the former slave, and raising his arm he showed himthe glittering planet of Chabar.
Then Matho turned in silence towards the Acropolis.
They crept along the nopal hedges which bordered the paths. The watertrickled from their limbs upon the dust. Their damp sandals made nonoise; Spendius, with eyes that flamed more than torches, searchedthe bushes at every step;—and he walked behind Matho with his handsresting on the two daggers which he carried on his arms, and which hungfrom below the armpit by a leathern band.
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