They waited until he was in position just before them.  Zarxas seized his sling, 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 it against the great toe of his left foot; he took aim, and the arrow went off.

The man did not fall.  He disappeared.

“If he were wounded we should hear him!” said Spendius; and he mounted quickly from story to story as he had done the first time, with the assistance of a rope and a harpoon.  Then when he had reached the top and was beside the corpse, he let it fall again.  The Balearian fastened a pick and a mallet to it and turned back.

The trumpets sounded no longer.  All was now quiet.  Spendius had raised one of the flag-stones and, entering the water, had closed it behind him.

Calculating the distance by the number of his steps, he arrived at the exact spot where he had noticed an oblique fissure; and for three hours until morning he worked in continuous and furious fashion, breathing with difficulty through the interstices in the upper flag-tones, assailed with anguish, and twenty times believing that he was going to die.  At last a crack was heard, and a huge stone ricocheting on the lower arches rolled to the ground,—­and suddenly a cataract, an entire river, fell from the skies onto the plain.  The aqueduct, being cut through in the centre, was emptying itself.  It was death to Carthage and victory for the Barbarians.

In an instant the awakened Carthaginians appeared on the walls, the houses, and the temples.  The Barbarians pressed forward with shouts.  They danced in delirium around the great waterfall, and came up and wet their heads in it in the extravagance of their joy.

A man in a torn, brown tunic was perceived on the summit of the aqueduct.  He stood leaning over the very edge with both hands on his hips, and was looking down below him as though astonished at his work.

Then he drew himself up.  He surveyed the horizon with a haughty air which seemed to say:  “All that is now mine!” The applause of the Barbarians burst forth, while the Carthaginians, comprehending their disaster at last, shrieked with despair.  Then he began to run about the platform from one end to the other,—­and like a chariot-driver triumphant at the Olympic Games, Spendius, distraught with pride, raised his arms aloft.

CHAPTER XIII

MOLOCH

The Barbarians had no need of a circumvallation on the side of Africa, for it was theirs.  But to facilitate the approach to the walls, the entrenchments bordering the ditch were thrown down.  Matho next divided the army into great semicircles so as to encompass Carthage the better.  The hoplites of the Mercenaries were placed in the first rank, and behind them the slingers and horsemen; quite at the back were the baggage, chariots, and horses; and the engines bristled in front of this throng at a distance of three hundred paces from the towers.