“What stays you?” cried Spendius.  “Make haste!  Forward!  The Suffet is going to escape us!  But your knees are tottering, and you are looking at me like a drunken man!”

He stamped with impatience and urged Matho, his eyes twinkling as at the approach 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 from his torpor, and felt himself carried away by it.  These words, coming when his distress was at its height, drove his despair to vengeance, and pointed to food for his wrath.  He bounded upon one of the camels that were among the baggage, snatched up its halter, and with the long rope, struck the stragglers with all his might, running right and left alternately, in the rear of the army, like a dog driving a flock.

At this thundering voice the lines of men closed up; even the lame hurried their steps; the intervening space lessened in the middle of the isthmus.  The foremost of the Barbarians were marching in the dust raised by the Carthaginians.  The two armies were coming close, and were on the point of touching.  But the Malqua gate, the Tagaste gate, and the great gate of Khamon threw wide their leaves.  The Punic square divided; three columns were swallowed up, and eddied beneath the porches.  Soon the mass, being too tightly packed, could advance no further; pikes clashed in the air, and the arrows of the Barbarians were shivering against the walls.

Hamilcar was to be seen on the threshold of Khamon.  He turned round and shouted to his men to move aside.  He dismounted from his horse; and pricking it on the croup with the sword which he held, sent it against the Barbarians.

It was a black stallion, which was fed on balls of meal, and would bend its knees to allow its master to mount.  Why was he sending it away?  Was this 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 again with furious leaps; and while they were moving aside, trying to stop it, or looking at it in surprise, the Carthaginians had united again; they entered, and the enormous gate shut echoing behind them.

It would not yield.  The Barbarians came crushing against it;—­and for some minutes there was an oscillation throughout the army, which became weaker and weaker, and at last ceased.

The Carthaginians had placed soldiers on the aqueduct, they began to hurl stones, balls, and beams.  Spendius represented that it would be best not to persist.  The Barbarians went and posted themselves further off, all being quite resolved to lay siege to Carthage.