“Let him bring them!”

Gisco soon appeared at the far end of the garden with an escort of the Sacred Legion.  His full, black cloak, which was fastened on his head to a golden mitre starred with precious stones, and which hung all about him down to his horse’s hoofs, blended in the distance with the colour of the night.  His white beard, the radiancy of his head-dress, and his triple necklace of broad blue plates beating against his breast, were alone visible.

When he entered, the soldiers greeted him with loud shouts, all crying: 

“The cups!  The cups!”

He began by declaring that if reference were had to their courage, they were worthy of them.

The crowd applauded and howled with joy.

He knew it, he who had commanded them over yonder, and had returned with the last cohort in the last galley!

“True!  True!” said they.

Nevertheless, Gisco continued, the Republic had respected their national divisions, their customs, and their modes of worship; in Carthage they were free!  As to the cups of the Sacred Legion, they were private property.  Suddenly a Gaul, who was close to Spendius, sprang over the tables and ran straight up to Gisco, gesticulating and threatening him with two naked swords.

Without interrupting his speech, the General struck him on the head with his heavy ivory staff, and the Barbarian fell.  The Gauls howled, and their frenzy, which was spreading to the others, would soon have swept away the legionaries.  Gisco shrugged his shoulders as he saw them growing pale.  He thought that his courage would be useless against these exasperated brute beasts.  It would be better to revenge himself upon them by some artifice later; accordingly, he signed to his soldiers and slowly withdrew.  Then, turning in the gateway towards the Mercenaries, he cried to them that they would repent of it.

The feast recommenced.  But Gisco might return, and by surrounding the suburb, which was beside the last ramparts, might crush them against the walls.  Then they felt themselves alone in spite of their crowd, and the great town sleeping beneath them in the shade suddenly made them afraid, with its piles of staircases, its lofty black houses, and its vague gods fiercer even than its people.  In the distance a few ships’-lanterns were gliding across the harbour, and there were lights in the temple of Khamon.  They thought of Hamilcar.  Where was he?  Why had he forsaken them when peace was concluded?  His differences with the Council were doubtless but a pretence in order to destroy them.  Their unsatisfied hate recoiled upon him, and they cursed him, exasperating one another with their own anger.  At this juncture they collected together beneath the plane-trees to see a slave who, with eyeballs fixed, neck contorted, and lips covered with foam, was rolling on the ground, and beating the soil with his limbs.  Some one cried out that he