The despairing priests wrung their hands on the peristyles of the temples.  The guards of the Legion galloped about at random; the people climbed upon the houses, the terraces, the shoulders of the colossuses, and the masts of the ships.  He went on, nevertheless, and the rage, and the terror also, increased at each of his steps; the streets cleared at his approach, and the torrent of flying men streamed on both sides up to the tops of the walls.  Everywhere he could perceive only eyes opened widely as if to devour him, chattering teeth and outstretched fists, and Salammbo’s imprecations resounded many times renewed.

Suddenly a long arrow whizzed past, then another, and stones began to buzz about him; but the missiles, being badly aimed (for there was the dread of hitting the zaimph), passed over his head.  Moreover, he made a shield of the veil, holding it to the right, to the left, before him and behind him; and they could devise no expedient.  He quickened his steps more and more, advancing through the open streets.  They were barred with cords, chariots, and snares; and all his windings brought him back again.  At last he entered the square of Khamon where the Balearians had perished, and stopped, growing pale as one about to die.  This time he was surely lost, and the multitude clapped their hands.

He ran up to the great gate, which was closed.  It was very high, made throughout of heart of oak, with iron nails and sheathed with brass.  Matho flung himself against it.  The people stamped their feet with joy when they saw the impotence of his fury; then he took his sandal, spit upon it, and beat the immovable panels with it.  The whole city howled.  The veil was forgotten now, and they were about to crush him.  Matho gazed with wide vacant eyes upon the crowd.  His temples were throbbing with violence enough to stun him, and he felt a numbness as of intoxication creeping over him.  Suddenly he caught sight of the long chain used in working the swinging of the gate.  With a bound he grasped it, stiffening his arms, and making a buttress of his feet, and at last the huge leaves partly opened.

Then when he was outside he took the great zaimph from his neck, and raised it as high as possible above his head.  The material, upborne by the sea breeze, shone in the sunlight with its colours, its gems, and the figures of its gods.  Matho bore it thus across the whole plain as far as the soldiers’ tents, and the people on the walls watched the fortune of Carthage depart.

CHAPTER VI

HANNO

“I ought to have carried her off!” Matho said in the evening to Spendius.  “I should have seized her, and torn her from her house!  No one would have dared to touch me!”

Spendius was not listening to him.  Stretched on his back he was taking delicious rest beside a large jar filled with honey-coloured water, into which he would dip his head from time to time in order to drink more copiously.