Spendius hesitated; he trembled; at last, addressing the Libyans who were the most numerous, he said to them: 

“You have all heard this man’s horrible threats!”

Hanno made no exclamation, therefore he did not understand Libyan; and, to carry on the experiment, Spendius repeated the same phrase in the other Barbarian dialects.

They looked at one another in astonishment; then, as by a tacit agreement, and believing perhaps that they had understood, they bent their heads in token of assent.

Then Spendius began in vehement tones: 

“He said first that all the Gods of the other nations were but dreams besides the Gods of Carthage!  He called you cowards, thieves, liars, dogs, and the sons of dogs!  But for you (he said that!) the Republic would not be forced to pay excessive tribute to the Romans; and through your excesses you have drained it of perfumes, aromatics, slaves, and silphium, for you are in league with the nomads on the Cyrenian frontier!  But the guilty shall be punished!  He read the enumeration of their torments; they shall be made to work at the paving of the streets, at the equipment of the vessels, at the adornment of the Syssitia, while the rest shall be sent to scrape the earth in the mines in the country of the Cantabrians.”

Spendius repeated the same statements to the Gauls, Greeks, Campanians and Balearians.  The Mercenaries, recognising several of the proper names which had met their ears, were convinced that he was accurately reporting the Suffet’s speech.  A few cried out to him, “You lie!” but their voices were drowned in the tumult of the rest; Spendius added: 

“Have you not seen that he has left a reserve of his horse-soldiers outside the camp?  At a given signal they will hasten hither to slay you all.”

The Barbarians turned in that direction, and as the crowd was then scattering, there appeared in the midst of them, and advancing with the slowness of a phantom, a human being, bent, lean, entirely naked, and covered down to his flanks with long hair bristling with dried leaves, dust and thorns.  About his loins and his knees he had wisps of straw and linen rags; his soft and earthy skin hung on his emaciated limbs like tatters on dried boughs; his hands trembled with a continuous quivering, and as he walked he leaned on a staff of olive-wood.

He reached the Negroes who were bearing the torches.  His pale gums were displayed in a sort of idiotic titter; his large, scared eyes gazed upon the crowd of Barbarians around him.

But uttering a cry of terror he threw himself behind them, shielding himself with their bodies.  “There they are!  There they are!” he stammered out, pointing to the Suffet’s guards, who were motionless in their glittering armour.  Their horses, dazzled by the light of the torches which crackled in the darkness, were pawing the ground; the human spectre struggled and howled: 

“They have killed them!”