Salammbo made a movement as though to advance.  But Schahabarim’s man took her further away, and they passed along by the terrace which enclosed the camp of the Barbarians.  A breach became visible in it, and the slave disappeared.

A sentry was walking upon the top of the entrenchment with a bow in his hand and a pike on his shoulder.

Salammbo drew still nearer; the Barbarian knelt and a long arrow pierced the hem of her cloak.  Then as she stood motionless and shrieking, he asked her what she wanted.

“To speak to Matho,” she replied.  “I am a fugitive from Carthage.”

He gave a whistle, which was repeated at intervals further away.

Salammbo waited; her frightened horse moved round and round, sniffing.

When Matho arrived the moon was rising behind her.  But she had a yellow veil with black flowers over her face, and so many draperies about her person, that it was impossible to make any guess about her.  From the top of the terrace he gazed upon this vague form standing up like a phantom in the penumbrae of the evening.

At last she said to him: 

“Lead me to your tent!  I wish it!”

A recollection which he could not define passed through his memory.  He felt his heart beating.  The air of command intimidated him.

“Follow me!” he said.

The barrier was lowered, and immediately she was in the camp of the Barbarians.

It was filled with a great tumult and a great throng.  Bright fires were burning beneath hanging pots; and their purpled reflections illuminating some places left others completely in the dark.  There was shouting and calling; shackled horses formed long straight lines amid the tents; the latter were round and square, of leather or of canvas; there were huts of reeds, and holes in the sand such as are made by dogs.  Soldiers were carting faggots, resting on their elbows on the ground, or wrapping themselves up in mats and preparing to sleep; and Salammbo’s horse sometimes stretched out a leg and jumped in order to pass over them.

She remembered that she had seen them before; but their beards were longer now, their faces still blacker, and their voices hoarser.  Matho, who walked before her, waved them off with a gesture of his arm which raised his red mantle.  Some kissed his hands; others bending their spines approached him to ask for orders, for he was now veritable and sole chief of the Barbarians; Spendius, Autaritus, and Narr’ Havas had become disheartened, and he had displayed so much audacity and obstinacy that all obeyed him.

Salammbo followed him through the entire camp.  His tent was at the end, three hundred feet from Hamilcar’s entrenchments.

She noticed a wide pit on the right, and it seemed to her that faces were resting against the edge of it on a level with the ground, as decapitated heads might have done.  However, their eyes moved, and from these half-opened mouths groanings escaped in the Punic tongue.