CHAPTER XII THE AQUEDUCT
Twelve hours afterwards all that remained of the Mercenaries was a heapof wounded, dead, and dying.
Hamilcar had suddenly emerged from the bottom of the gorge, and againdescended the western slope that looked towards Hippo-Zarytus, andthe space being broader at this spot he had taken care to draw theBarbarians into it. Narr’ Havas had encompassed them with his horse;the Suffet meanwhile drove them back and crushed them. Then, too, theywere conquered beforehand by the loss of the zaïmph; even those whocared nothing about it had experienced anguish and something akin toenfeeblement. Hamilcar, not indulging his pride by holding the field ofbattle, 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 withtheir 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 aphalarica on the point of extinction burned against a heap of baggage;in some places the earth was hidden with shields; horses’ carcassessucceeded one another like a series of hillocks; legs, sandals, arms,and coats of mail were to be seen, with heads held in their helmets bythe chin-pieces and rolling about like balls; heads of hair were hangingon the thorns; elephants were lying with their towers in pools of blood,with entrails exposed, and gasping. The foot trod on slimy things, andthere were swamps of mud although no rain had fallen.
This confusion of dead bodies covered the whole mountain from top tobottom.
Those who survived stirred as little as the dead. Squatting in unequalgroups they looked at one another scared and without speaking.
The lake of Hippo-Zarytus shone at the end of a long meadow beneaththe setting sun. To the right an agglomeration of white houses extendedbeyond a girdle of walls; then the sea spread out indefinitely; and theBarbarians, with their chins in their hands, sighed as they thought oftheir native lands. A cloud of grey dust was falling.
The evening wind blew; then every breast dilated, and as the freshnessincreased, the vermin might be seen to forsake the dead, who were coldernow, 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 whichfollowed the armies, came quite softly into the midst of the Barbarians.At first they licked the clots of blood on the still tepid stumps; andsoon they began to devour the corpses, biting into the stomachs first ofall.
The fugitives reappeared one by one like shadows; the women alsoventured to return, for there were still some of them left, especiallyamong the Libyans, in spite of the dreadful massacre of them by theNumidians.
Some took ropes’ ends and lighted them to use as torches. Others heldcrossed pikes. The corpses were placed upon these and were conveyedapart.
They were found lying stretched in long lines, on their backs, withtheir mouths open, and their lances beside them; or else they were piledup pell-mell so that it was often necessary to dig out a whole heapin order to discover those they were wanting. Then the torch would bepassed slowly over their faces. They had received complicated woundsfrom hideous weapons. Greenish strips hung from their foreheads; theywere cut in pieces, crushed to the marrow, blue from strangulation,or broadly cleft by the elephants’ ivory. Although they had died atalmost the same time there existed differences between their variousstates of corruption. The men of the North were puffed up with lividswellings, while the more nervous Africans looked as though they hadbeen smoked, and were already drying up. The Mercenaries might berecognised by the tattooing on their hands: the old soldiers ofAntiochus displayed a sparrow-hawk; those who had served in Egypt, thehead of the cynosephalus; those who had served with the princes of Asia,a hatchet, a pomegranate, or a hammer; those who had served in the Greekrepublics, the side-view of a citadel or the name of an archon; and somewere to be seen whose arms were entirely covered with these multipliedsymbols, which mingled with their scars and their recent wounds.
Four great funeral piles were erected for the men of Latin race, theSamnites, Etruscans, Campanians, and Bruttians.
The Greeks dug pits with the points of their swords. The Spartansremoved their red cloaks and wrapped them round the dead; the Athenianslaid them out with their faces towards the rising sun; the Cantabriansburied them beneath a heap of pebbles; the Nasamonians bent them doublewith ox-leather thongs, and the Garamantians went and interred them onthe shore so that they might be perpetually washed by the waves. But theLatins were grieved that they could not collect the ashes in urns; theNomads 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 ofan islet-covered gulf.
Vociferations arose, followed by the lengthened silence. This was tooblige the souls to return. Then the shouting was resumed persistentlyat regular intervals.
They made excuses to the dead for their inability to honour them as therites prescribed: for, owing to this deprivation, they would pass forinfinite periods through all kinds of chances and metamorphoses; theyquestioned them and asked them what they desired; others loaded themwith abuse for having allowed themselves to be conquered.
The bloodless faces lying back here and there on wrecks of armour showedpale in the light of the great funeral-pile; tears provoked tears, thesobs became shriller, the recognitions and embracings more frantic.Women stretched themselves on the corpses, mouth to mouth and brow tobrow; it was necessary to beat them in order to make them withdraw whenthe earth was being thrown in. They blackened their cheeks; they cut offtheir hair; they drew their own blood and poured it into the pits; theygashed themselves in imitation of the wounds that disfigured the dead.Roarings burst forth through the crashings of the cymbals. Some snatchedoff their amulets and spat upon them. The dying rolled in the bloodymire biting their mutilated fists in their rage; and forty-threeSamnites, quite a “sacred spring,” cut one another’s throats likegladiators. Soon wood for the funeral-piles failed, the flames wereextinguished, 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 desiringnever to wake again.
In the greyness of the dawn some soldiers appeared on the outskirts ofthe Barbarians, and filed past with their helmets raised on the pointsof their pikes; they saluted the Mercenaries and asked them whether theyhad no messages to send to their native lands.
Others approached, and the Barbarians recognised some of their formercompanions.
The Suffet had proposed to all the captives that they should serve inhis troops. Several had fearlessly refused; and quite resolved neitherto support them nor to abandon them to the Great Council, he had sentthem away with injunctions to fight no more against Carthage. As tothose who had been rendered docile by the fear of tortures, they hadbeen furnished with the weapons taken from the enemy; and they were nowpresenting themselves to the vanquished, not so much in order to seducethem as out of an impulse of pride and curiosity.
At first they told of the good treatment which they had received fromthe Suffet; the Barbarians listened to them with jealousy although theydespised them. Then at the first words of reproach the cowards fellinto a passion; they showed them from a distance their own swordsand cuirasses and invited them with abuse to come and take them. TheBarbarians picked up flints; all took to flight; and nothing more couldbe seen on the summit of the mountain except the lance-points projectingabove the edge of the palisades.
Then the Barbarians were overwhelmed with a grief that was heavier thanthe humiliation of the defeat. They thought of the emptiness of theircourage, and they stood with their eyes fixed and grinding their teeth.
The same thought came to them all. They rushed tumultuously upon theCarthaginian pris
oners. It chanced that the Suffet’s soldiers hadbeen unable to discover them, and as he had withdrawn from the field ofbattle they were still in the deep pit.
They were ranged on the ground on a flattened spot. Sentries formed acircle round them, and the women were allowed to enter thirty or fortyat 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 overthe poor bodies they struck them with all their might like washerwomenbeating linen; shrieking their husband’s names they tore them withtheir nails and put out their eyes with the bodkins of their hair. Themen came next and tortured them from their feet, which they cut off atthe ankles, to their foreheads, from which they took crowns of skin toput upon their own heads. The Eaters of Uncleanness were atrocious intheir 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 hadhappened to be when the battle ended, his elbows on his knees, and histemples in his hands; he saw nothing, heard nothing, and had ceased tothink.
At the shrieks of joy uttered by the crowd he raised his head. Beforehim a strip of canvas caught on a flagpole, and trailing on the ground,sheltered in confused fashion blankets, carpets, and a lion’s skin. Herecognised his tent; and he riveted his eyes upon the ground as thoughHamilcar’s daughter, when she disappeared, had sunk into the earth.
The torn canvas flapped in the wind; the long rags of it sometimespassed across his mouth, and he perceived a red mark like the print ofa 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 threwit disdainfully upon the wrecks of his tent. Then with the toe of hiscothurn he pushed the things which fell out back towards the flame sothat nothing might be left.
Suddenly, without any one being able to guess from what point he hadsprung up, Spendius reappeared.
The former slave had fastened two fragments of a lance against histhigh; he limped with a piteous look, breathing forth complaints thewhile.
“Remove that,” said Matho to him. “I know that you are a bravefellow!” For he was so crushed by the injustice of the gods that hehad not strength enough to be indignant with men.
Spendius beckoned to him and led him to a hollow of the mountain, whereZarxas and Autaritus were lying concealed.
They had fled like the slave, the one although he was cruel, and theother in spite of his bravery. But who, said they, could have expectedthe 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 mountainbeneath the instant blows of the Carthaginians? Spendius made noacknowledgement of his terror, and persisted in maintaining that his legwas broken.
At last the three chiefs and the schalischim asked one another whatdecision should now be adopted.
Hamilcar closed the road to Carthage against them; they were caughtbetween his soldiers and the provinces belonging to Narr’ Havas;the Tyrian towns would join the conquerors; the Barbarians would findthemselves driven to the edge of the sea, and all those united forceswould crush them. This would infallibly happen.
Thus no means presented themselves of avoiding the war. Accordinglythey must prosecute it to the bitter end. But how were they to make thenecessity of an interminable battle understood by all these disheartenedpeople, 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-Zarytusclimbed 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. Theyrecommended their African comrades to watch over Gisco and the othercaptives. A Samian trader, one Hipponax, coming from Carthage, hadinformed them that a plot was being organised to promote their escape,and the Barbarians were urged to take every precaution; the Republic waspowerful.
Spendius’s stratagem did not succeed at first as he had hoped. Thisassurance 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 spentin great distress; several even got rid of their weapons, so as tosoften 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 snatchedfrom his hand a roll of papyrus covered with Phonician writing. TheMercenaries were entreated not to be disheartened; the brave men ofTunis were coming with large reinforcements.
Spendius first read the letter three times in succession; and held up bytwo Cappadocians, who bore him seated on their shoulders, he hadhimself conveyed from place to place and re-read it. For seven hours heharangued.
He reminded the Mercenaries of the promises of the Great Council; theAfricans of the cruelties of the stewards, and all the Barbarians ofthe injustice of Carthage. The Suffet’s mildness was only a bait tocapture them; those who surrendered would be sold as slaves, and thevanquished would perish under torture. As to flight, what routes couldthey follow? Not a nation would receive them. Whereas by continuingtheir efforts they would obtain at once freedom, vengeance, and money!And they would not have long to wait, since the people of Tunis, thewhole of Libya, was rushing to relieve them. He showed the unrolledpapyrus: “Look at it! read! see their promises! I do not lie.”
Dogs were straying about with their black muzzles all plastered withred. The men’s uncovered heads were growing hot in the burning sun.A nauseous smell exhaled from the badly buried corpses. Some evenprojected from the earth as far as the waist. Spendius called them towitness what he was saying; then he raised his fists in the direction ofHamilcar.
Matho, moreover, was watching him, and to cover his cowardice hedisplayed 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 beever dragging this useless cattle after one? “No! we must put an endto 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 theforce of their blows.”
Then they turned again upon the captives. Several were still in the lastthroes; they were finished by the thrust of a heel in the mouth or astab with the point of a javelin.
Then they thought of Gisco. Nowhere could he be seen; they weredisturbed with anxiety. They wished at once to convince themselves ofhis death and to participate in it. At last three Samnite shepherdsdiscovered him at a distance of fifteen paces from the spot whereMatho’s tent lately stood. They recognised him by his long beard andthey called the rest.
Stretched on his back, his arms against his hips, and his knees closetogether, he looked like a dead man laid out for the tomb. Neverthelesshis wasted sides rose and fell, and his eyes, wide-opened in his pallidface, gazed in a continuous and intolerable fashion.
The Barbarians looked at him at first with great astonishment. Since hehad been living in the pit he had been almost forgotten; rendered uneasyby old memories they stood at a distance and did not venture to raisetheir hands against him.
But those who were behind were murmuring and pressed forward when aGaramantian passed through the crowd; he was brandishing a sickle; allunderstood his thought; their faces purpled, and smitten with shame theyshrieked:
“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; togreat jets of blood made a hole in the dust. Zarxas leaped upon it, andlighter than a leopard ran towards the Carthaginians.
Then when he had covered two thirds of the mountain he drew Gisco’
shead from his breast by the beard, whirled his arm rapidly severaltimes,—and the mass, when thrown at last, described a long parabolaand disappeared behind the Punic entrenchments.
Soon at the edge of the palisades there rose two crossed standards, thecustomary sign for claiming a corpse.
Then four heralds, chosen for their width of chest, went out with greatclarions, and speaking through the brass tubes declared that henceforththere would be between Carthaginians and Barbarians neither faith, pity,nor gods, that they refused all overtures beforehand, and that envoyswould be sent back with their hands cut off.
Immediately afterwards, Spendius was sent to Hippo-Zarytus to procureprovisions; the Tyrian city sent them some the same evening. They ategreedily. Then when they were strengthened they speedily collectedthe remains of their baggage and their broken arms; the women massedthemselves in the centre, and heedless of the wounded left weepingbehind them, they set out along the edge of the shore like a herd ofwolves taking its departure.
They were marching upon Hippo-Zarytus, resolved to take it, for they hadneed of a town.
Hamilcar, as he perceived them at a distance, had a feeling of despairin spite of the pride which he experienced in seeing them fly beforehim. He ought to have attacked them immediately with fresh troops.Another similar day and the war was over! If matters were protractedthey would return with greater strength; the Tyrian towns would jointhem; his clemency towards the vanquished had been of no avail. Heresolved to be pitiless.
The same evening he sent the Great Council a dromedary laden withbracelets collected from the dead, and with horrible threats orderedanother army to be despatched.
All had for a long time believed him lost; so that on learning hisvictory they felt a stupefaction which was almost terror. The vaguelyannounced return of the zaïmph completed the wonder. Thus the gods andthe might of Carthage seemed now to belong to him.
None of his enemies ventured upon complaint or recrimination. Owing tothe enthusiasm of some and the pusillanimity of the rest, an army offive thousand men was ready before the interval prescribed had elapsed.
This army promptly made its way to Utica in order to support theSuffet’s rear, while three thousand of the most notable citizensembarked in vessels which were to land them at Hippo-Zarytus, whencethey were to drive back the Barbarians.
Hanno had accepted the command; but he intrusted the army to hislieutenant, Magdassin, so as to lead the troops which were to bedisembarked himself, for he could no longer endure the shaking ofthe litter. His disease had eaten away his lips and nostrils, and hadhollowed out a large hole in his face; the back of his throat could beseen at a distance of ten paces, and he knew himself to be so hideousthat he wore a veil over his head like a woman.
Hippo-Zarytus paid no attention to his summonings nor yet to those ofthe Barbarians; but every morning the inhabitants lowered provisions tothe latter in baskets, and shouting from the tops of the towers pleadedthe exigencies of the Republic and conjured them to withdraw. By meansof signs they addressed the same protestations to the Carthaginians, whowere stationed on the sea.
Hanno contented himself with blockading the harbour without risking anattack. However, he permitted the judges of Hippo-Zarytus to admit threehundred soldiers. Then he departed to the Cape Grapes, and made along circuit so as to hem in the Barbarians, an inopportune and evendangerous operation. His jealousy prevented him from relieving theSuffet; he arrested his spies, impeded him in all his plans, andcompromised the success of the enterprise. At last Hamilcar wrote tothe Great Council to rid himself of Hanno, and the latter returned toCarthage furious at the baseness of the Ancients and the madness of hiscolleague. Hence, after so many hopes, the situation was now still moredeplorable; but there was an effort not to reflect upon it and even notto talk about it.
As if all this were not sufficient misfortune at one time, news camethat the Sardinian Mercenaries had crucified their general, seized thestrongholds, and everywhere slaughtered those of Chanaanitish race. TheRoman people threatened the Republic with immediate hostilitiesunless she gave twelve hundred talents with the whole of the island ofSardinia. They had accepted the alliance of the Barbarians, and theydespatched to them flat-bottomed boats laden with meal and dried meat.The Carthaginians pursued these, and captured five hundred men; butthree days afterwards a fleet coming from Byzacena, and conveyingprovisions to Carthage, foundered in a storm. The gods were evidentlydeclaring 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 behindthem they took them by the legs, and suddenly threw them over theramparts. Some who were not killed were pursued, and went and drownedthemselves in the sea.
Utica was enduring the presence of soldiers, for Magdassin had actedlike Hanno, and in accordance with his orders and deaf to Hamilcar’sprayers, was surrounding the town. As for these, they were given winemixed with mandrake, and were then slaughtered in their sleep. At thesame time the Barbarians arrived; Magdassin fled; the gates were opened,and thenceforward the two Tyrian towns displayed an obstinate devotionto their new friends and an inconceivable hatred to their former allies.
This abandonment of the Punic cause was a counsel and a precedent. Hopesof deliverance revived. Populations hitherto uncertain hesitated nolonger. Everywhere there was a stir. The Suffet learnt this, and he hadno assistance to look for! He was now irrevocably lost.
He immediately dismissed Narr’ Havas, who was to guard the borders ofhis kingdom. As for himself, he resolved to re-enter Carthage in orderto obtain soldiers and begin the war again.
The Barbarians posted at Hippo-Zarytus perceived his army as itdescended the mountain.
Where could the Carthaginians be going? Hunger, no doubt, was urgingthem on; and, distracted by their sufferings, they were coming in spiteof their weakness to give battle. But they turned to the right: theywere fleeing. They might be overtaken and all be crushed. The Barbariansdashed in pursuit of them.
The Carthaginians were checked by the river. It was wide this time andthe west wind had not been blowing. Some crossed by swimming, and therest on their shields. They resumed their march. Night fell. They wereout 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 withthem. Their numbers increased at every bush; and the Carthaginians, asthey lay on the ground, could hear the tramping of their feet in thedarkness. From time to time Barca had a volley of arrows dischargedbehind him to check them, and several were killed. When day broke theywere in the Ariana Mountains, at the spot where the road makes a bend.
Then Matho, who was marching at the head, thought that he coulddistinguish something green on the horizon on the summit of an eminence.Then the ground sank, and obelisks, domes, and houses appeared! It wasCarthage. He leaned against a tree to keep himself from falling, sorapidly did his heart beat.
He thought of all that had come to pass in his existence since thelast time that he had passed that way! It was an infinite surprise, itstunned him. Then he was transported with joy at the thought of seeingSalammbô again. The reasons which he had for execrating her returned tohis recollection, but he very quickly rejected them. Quivering and withstraining eyeballs he gazed at the lofty terrace of a palace above thepalm trees beyond Eschmoun; a smile of ecstasy lighted his face as ifsome great light had reached him; he opened his arms, and sent kisses onthe 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 Suffetis going to escape us! But your knees are tottering, and you are lookingat me like a drunken man!”
He stamped with impatience and urged Matho, his eyes twinkling as at theapproach 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 fromhi
s torpor, and felt himself carried away by it. These words, comingwhen his distress was at its height, drove his despair to vengeance, andpointed to food for his wrath. He bounded upon one of the camels thatwere among the baggage, snatched up its halter, and with the longrope, struck the stragglers with all his might, running right and leftalternately, in the rear of the army, like a dog driving a flock.
At this thundering voice the lines of men closed up; even the lamehurried their steps; the intervening space lessened in the middle of theisthmus. The foremost of the Barbarians were marching in the dust raisedby the Carthaginians. The two armies were coming close, and were on thepoint of touching. But the Malqua gate, the Tagaste gate, and the greatgate of Khamon threw wide their leaves. The Punic square divided; threecolumns were swallowed up, and eddied beneath the porches. Soon themass, being too tightly packed, could advance no further; pikes clashedin the air, and the arrows of the Barbarians were shivering against thewalls.
Hamilcar was to be seen on the threshold of Khamon. He turned roundand shouted to his men to move aside. He dismounted from his horse; andpricking it on the croup with the sword which he held, sent it againstthe Barbarians.
It was a black stallion, which was fed on balls of meal, and would bendits knees to allow its master to mount. Why was he sending it away? Wasthis 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 againwith furious leaps; and while they were moving aside, trying to stop it,or looking at it in surprise, the Carthaginians had united again; theyentered, and the enormous gate shut echoing behind them.
It would not yield. The Barbarians came crushing against it;—and forsome minutes there was an oscillation throughout the army, which becameweaker and weaker, and at last ceased.
The Carthaginians had placed soldiers on the aqueduct, they began tohurl stones, balls, and beams. Spendius represented that it would bebest not to persist. The Barbarians went and posted themselves furtheroff, all being quite resolved to lay siege to Carthage.
The rumour of the war, however, had passed beyond the confines ofthe Punic empire; and from the pillars of Hercules to beyond Cyreneshepherds mused on it as they kept their flocks, and caravans talkedabout it in the light of the stars. This great Carthage, mistress of theseas, splendid as the sun, and terrible as a god, actually found menwho were daring enough to attack her! Her fall even had been assertedseveral times; and all had believed it for all wished it: the subjectpopulations, the tributary villages, the allied provinces, theindependent hordes, those who execrated her for her tyranny or werejealous of her power, or coveted her wealth. The bravest had veryspeedily joined the Mercenaries. The defeat at the Macaras had checkedall the rest. At last they had recovered confidence, had graduallyadvanced and approached; and now the men of the eastern regions werelying on the sandhills of Clypea on the other side of the gulf. As soonas they perceived the Barbarians they showed themselves.
They were not Libyans from the neighbourhood of Carthage, who had longcomposed the third army, but nomads from the tableland of Barca, banditsfrom Cape Phiscus and the promontory of Dernah, from Phazzana andMarmarica. They had crossed the desert, drinking at the brackish wellswalled in with camels’ bones; the Zuaeces, with their covering ofostrich feathers, had come on quadrigæ; the Garamantians, masked withblack veils, rode behind on their painted mares; others were mounted onasses, onagers, zebras, and buffaloes; while some dragged after them theroofs of their sloop-shaped huts together with their families andidols. There were Ammonians with limbs wrinkled by the hot water of thesprings; Atarantians, who curse the sun; Troglodytes, who bury theirdead with laughter beneath branches of trees; and the hideous Auseans,who eat grass-hoppers; the Achyrmachidæ, who eat lice; and thevermilion-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. Inthe centre of the isthmus the throng stopped, the Mercenaries who wereposted in front of them, close to the walls, being unwilling to move.
Then from the direction of Ariana appeared the men of the West, thepeople of the Numidians. In fact, Narr’ Havas governed only theMassylians; and, moreover, as they were permitted by custom to abandontheir king when reverses were sustained, they had assembled on theZainus, and then had crossed it at Hamilcar’s first movement. Firstwere seen running up all the hunters from Malethut-Baal and Garaphos,clad in lions’ skins, and with the staves of their pikes driving smalllean horses with long manes; then marched the Gætulians in cuirasses ofserpents’ skin; then the Pharusians, wearing lofty crowns made of waxand resin; and the Caunians, Macarians, and Tillabarians, each holdingtwo javelins and a round shield of hippopotamus leather. They stopped atthe foot of the Catacombs among the first pools of the Lagoon.
But when the Libyans had moved away, the multitude of the Negroesappeared like a cloud on a level with the ground, in the place which theothers had occupied. They were there from the White Harousch, the BlackHarousch, the desert of Augila, and even from the great country ofAgazymba, which is four months’ journey south of the Garamantians,and from regions further still! In spite of their red wooden jewels, thefilth of their black skin made them look like mulberries that had beenlong rolling in the dust. They had bark-thread drawers, dried-grasstunics, fallow-deer muzzles on their heads; they shook rods furnishedwith rings, and brandished cows’ tails at the end of sticks, after thefashion of standards, howling the while like wolves.
Then behind the Numidians, Marusians, and Gætulians pressed theyellowish men, who are spread through the cedar forests beyond Taggir.They had cat-skin quivers flapping against their shoulders, and they ledin leashes enormous dogs, which were as high as asses, and did not bark.
Finally, as though Africa had not been sufficiently emptied, and it hadbeen necessary to seek further fury in the very dregs of the races, menmight be seen behind the rest, with beast-like profiles and grinningwith idiotic laughter—wretches ravaged by hideous diseases, deformedpigmies, mulattoes of doubtful sex, albinos whose red eyes blinked inthe sun; stammering out unintelligible sounds, they put a finger intotheir 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 woodendaggers, stone hatchets and ivory tridents, to long sabres toothedlike saws, slender, and formed of a yielding copper blade. They handledcutlasses which were forked into several branches like antelopes’horns, bills fastened to the ends of ropes, iron triangles, clubs andbodkins. The Ethiopians from the Bambotus had little poisoned dartshidden in their hair. Many had brought pebbles in bags. Others, emptyhanded, chattered with their teeth.
This multitude was stirred with a ceaseless swell. Dromedaries, smearedall over with tar-like streaks, knocked down the women, who carriedtheir children on their hips. The provisions in the baskets were pouringout; in walking, pieces of salt, parcels of gum, rotten dates, andgourou nuts were crushed underfoot; and sometimes on vermin-coveredbosoms there would hang a slender cord supporting a diamond that theSatraps had sought, an almost fabulous stone, sufficient to purchasean empire. Most of them did not even know what they desired. They wereimpelled by fascination or curiosity; and nomads who had never seen atown were frightened by the shadows of the walls.
The isthmus was now hidden by men; and this long surface, whereon thetents were like huts amid an inundation, stretched as far as the firstlines of the other Barbarians, which were streaming with steel and wereposted symmetrically upon both sides of the aqueduct.
The Carthaginians had not recovered from the terror caused by theirarrival when they perceived the siege-engines sent by the Tyrian townscoming straight towards them like monsters and like buildings—withtheir masts, arms, ropes, articulations, capitals and carapaces, sixtycarroballistas, eighty onagers, thirty scorpions, fifty tollenos, twelverams, and three gigantic catapults which hurled pieces of rock of theweig
ht of fifteen talents. Masses of men clinging to their bases pushedthem on; at every step a quivering shook them, and in this way theyarrived in front of the walls.
But several days were still needed to finish the preparations forthe siege. The Mercenaries, taught by their defeats, would not riskthemselves 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 thatthe result of it would be complete victory or complete extermination.
Carthage might hold out for a long time; her broad walls presented aseries of re-entrant and projecting angles, an advantageous arrangementfor repelling assaults.
Nevertheless a portion had fallen down in the direction of theCatacombs, and on dark nights lights could be seen in the dens of Malquathrough the disjointed blocks. These in some places overlooked the topof the ramparts. It was here that the Mercenaries’ wives, who had beendriven away by Matho, were living with their new husbands. On seeing themen again their hearts could stand it no longer. They waved their scarfsat a distance; then they came and chatted in the darkness with thesoldiers through the cleft in the wall, and one morning the GreatCouncil learned that they had all fled. Some had passed through betweenthe stones; others with greater intrepidity had let themselves down withropes.
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 theinhabitants suspected his enterprise. But soon they diminished thesentries on the aqueduct. There were not too many people for the defenceof the walls.
The former slave practised himself for some days in shooting arrows atthe flamingoes on the lake. Then one moonlight evening he begged Mathoto light a great fire of straw in the middle of the night, while all hismen were to shout at the same time; and taking Zarxas with him, he wentaway along the edge of the gulf in the direction of Tunis.
When on a level with the last arches they returned straight towards theaqueduct; the place was unprotected: they crawled to the base of thepillars.
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 ofCarthage.
One man had remained. He showed black against the background of thesky. The moon was shining behind him, and his shadow, which was ofextravagant size, looked in the distance like an obelisk proceedingacross the plain.
They waited until he was in position just before them. Zarxas seized hissling, 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 itagainst the great toe of his left foot; he took aim, and the arrow wentoff.
The man did not fall. He disappeared.
“If he were wounded we should hear him!” said Spendius; and hemounted quickly from story to story as he had done the first time, withthe assistance of a rope and a harpoon. Then when he had reached the topand was beside the corpse, he let it fall again. The Balearian fasteneda pick and a mallet to it and turned back.
The trumpets sounded no longer. All was now quiet. Spendius had raisedone of the flag-stones and, entering the water, had closed it behindhim.
Calculating the distance by the number of his steps, he arrived at theexact spot where he had noticed an oblique fissure; and for three hoursuntil morning he worked in continuous and furious fashion, breathingwith difficulty through the interstices in the upper flag-tones,assailed with anguish, and twenty times believing that he was goingto die. At last a crack was heard, and a huge stone ricocheting on thelower arches rolled to the ground,—and suddenly a cataract, an entireriver, fell from the skies onto the plain. The aqueduct, being cutthrough in the centre, was emptying itself. It was death to Carthage andvictory for the Barbarians.
In an instant the awakened Carthaginians appeared on the walls, thehouses, and the temples. The Barbarians pressed forward with shouts.They danced in delirium around the great waterfall, and came up and wettheir heads in it in the extravagance of their joy.
A man in a torn, brown tunic was perceived on the summit of theaqueduct. He stood leaning over the very edge with both hands on hiships, and was looking down below him as though astonished at his work.
Then he drew himself up. He surveyed the horizon with a haughty airwhich seemed to say: “All that is now mine!” The applause of theBarbarians burst forth, while the Carthaginians, comprehending theirdisaster at last, shrieked with despair. Then he began to run aboutthe platform from one end to the other,—and like a chariot-drivertriumphant at the Olympic Games, Spendius, distraught with pride, raisedhis arms aloft.
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