Then the Barbarians were indignant as though he were betraying them.  Those who were most weary of the siege, and especially the Gauls, did not hesitate to leave the walls in order to try and rejoin him.  Spendius wanted to reconstruct the helepolis; Matho had traced an imaginary line from his tent to Megara, and inwardly swore to follow it, and none of their men stirred.  But the rest, under the command of Autaritus, went off, abandoning the western part of the rampart, and so profound was the carelessness exhibited that no one even thought of replacing them.

Narr’ Havas spied them from afar in the mountains.  During the night he led all his men along the sea-shore on the outer side of the Lagoon, and entered Carthage.

He presented himself as a saviour with six thousand men all carrying meal under their cloaks, and forty elephants laden with forage and dried meat.  The people flocked quickly around them; they gave them names.  The sight of these strong animals, sacred to Baal, gave the Carthaginians even more joy than the arrival of such relief; it was a token of the tenderness of the god, a proof that he was at last about to interfere in the war to defend them.

Narr’ Havas received the compliments of the Ancients.  Then he ascended to Salammbo’s palace.

He had not seen her again since the time when in Hamilcar’s tent amid the five armies he had felt her little, cold, soft hand fastened to his own; she had left for Carthage after the betrothal.  His love, which had been diverted by other ambitions, had come back to him; and now he expected to enjoy his rights, to marry her, and take her.

Salammbo did not understand how the young man could ever become her master!  Although she asked Tanith every day for Matho’s death, her horror of the Libyan was growing less.  She vaguely felt that the hate with which he had persecuted her was something almost religious,—­and she would fain have seen in Narr’ Havas’s person a reflection, as it were, of that malice which still dazzled her.  She desired to know him better, and yet his presence would have embarrassed her.  She sent him word that she could not receive him.

Moreover, Hamilcar had forbidden his people to admit the King of the Numidians to see her; by putting off his reward to the end of the war he hoped to retain his devotion;—­and, through dread of the Suffet, Narr’ Havas withdrew.

But he bore himself haughtily towards the Hundred.  He changed their arrangements.  He demanded privileges for his men, and placed them on important posts; thus the Barbarians stared when they perceived Numidians on the towers.

The surprise of the Carthaginians was greater still when three hundred of their own people, who had been made prisoners during the Sicilian war, arrived on board an old Punic trireme.  Hamilcar, in fact, had secretly sent back to the Quirites the crews of the Latin vessels, taken before the defection of the Tyrian towns; and, to reciprocate the courtesy, Rome was now sending him back her captives.  She scorned the overtures of the Mercenaries in Sardinian, and would not even recognise the inhabitants of Utica as subjects.