He did not speak, however, of Rabbet.  Salammbo imagined that it was through some shame for his vanquished goddess, and calling her by a common name which designated the moon, she launched into blessings upon the soft and fertile planet.  At last he exclaimed: 

“No! no! she draws all her fecundity from the other!  Do you not see her hovering about him like an amorous woman running after a man in a field?” And he exalted the virtue of light unceasingly.

Far from depressing her mystic desires, he sought, on the contrary, to excite them, and he even seemed to take joy in grieving her by the revelation of a pitiless doctrine.  In spite of the pains of her love Salammbo threw herself upon it with transport.

But the more that Schahabarim felt himself in doubt about Tanith, the more he wished to believe in her.  At the bottom of his soul he was arrested by remorse.  He needed some proof, some manifestation from the gods, and in the hope of obtaining it the priest devised an enterprise which might save at once his country and his belief.

Thenceforward he set himself to deplore before Salammbo the sacrilege and the misfortunes which resulted from it even in the regions of the sky.  Then he suddenly announced the peril of the Suffet, who was assailed by three armies under the command of Matho—­for on account of the veil Matho was, in the eyes of the Carthaginians, the king, as it were, of the Barbarians,—­and he added that the safety of the Republic and of her father depended upon her alone.

“Upon me!” she exclaimed.  “How can I—?”

But the priest, with a smile of disdain said: 

“You will never consent!”

She entreated him.  At last Schahabarim said to her: 

“You must go to the Barbarians and recover the zaimph!”

She sank down upon the ebony stool, and remained with her arms stretched out between her knees and shivering in all her limbs, like a victim at the altar’s foot awaiting the blow of the club.  Her temples were ringing, she could see fiery circles revolving, and in her stupor she had lost the understanding of all things save one, that she was certainly going to die soon.

But if Rabbetna triumphed, if the zaimph were restored and Carthage delivered, what mattered a woman’s life? thought Schahabarim.  Moreover, she would perhaps obtain the veil and not perish.

He stayed away for three days; on the evening of the fourth she sent for him.

The better to inflame her heart he reported to her all the invectives howled against Hamilcar in open council; he told her that she had erred, that she owed reparation for her crime, and that Rabbetna commanded the sacrifice.

A great uproar came frequently across the Mappalian district to Megara.  Schahabarim and Salammbo went out quickly, and gazed from the top of the galley staircase.