Matho, meanwhile, was besieging Hippo-Zarytus.  But the town was protected by a lake, communicating with the sea.  It had three lines of circumvallation, and upon the heights which surrounded it there extended a wall fortified with towers.  He had never commanded in such an enterprise before.  Moreover, he was beset with thoughts of Salammbo, and he raved in the delight of her beauty as in the sweetness of a vengeance that transported him with pride.  He felt an acrid, frenzied, permanent want to see her again.  He even thought of presenting himself as the bearer of a flag of truce, in the hope that once within Carthage he might make his way to her.  Often he would cause the assault to be sounded and waiting for nothing rush upon the mole which it was sought to construct in the sea.  He would snatch up the stones with his hands, overturn, strike, and deal sword-thrusts everywhere.  The Barbarians would dash on pell-mell; the ladders would break with a loud crash, and masses of men would tumble into the water, causing it to fly up in red waves against the walls.  Finally the tumult would subside, and the soldiers would retire to make a fresh beginning.

Matho would go and seat himself outside the tents, wipe his blood-splashed face with his arm, and gaze at the horizon in the direction of Carthage.

In front of him, among the olives, palms, myrtles and planes, stretched two broad ponds which met another lake, the outlines of which could not be seen.  Behind one mountain other mountains reared themselves, and in the middle of the immense lake rose an island perfectly black and pyramidal in form.  On the left, at the extremity of the gulf, were sand-heaps like arrested waves, large and pale, while the sea, flat as a pavement of lapis-lazuli, ascended by insensible degrees to the edge of the sky.  The verdure of the country was lost in places beneath long sheets of yellow; carobs were shining like knobs of coral; vine branches drooped from the tops of the sycamores; the murmuring of the water could be heard; crested larks were hopping about, and the sun’s latest fires gilded the carapaces of the tortoises as they came forth from the reeds to inhale the breeze.

Matho would heave deep sighs.  He would lie flat on his face, with his nails buried in the soil, and weep; he felt wretched, paltry, forsaken.  Never would he possess her, and he was unable even to take a town.

At night when alone in his tent he would gaze upon the zaimph.  Of what use to him was this thing which belonged to the gods?—­and doubt crept into the Barbarian’s thoughts.  Then, on the contrary, it would seem to him that the vesture of the goddess was depending from Salammbo, and that a portion of her soul hovered in it, subtler than a breath; and he would feel it, breathe it in, bury his face in it, and kiss it with sobs.  He would cover his shoulders with it in order to delude himself that he was beside her.

Sometimes he would suddenly steal away, stride in the starlight over the sleeping soldiers as they lay wrapped in their cloaks, spring upon a horse on reaching the camp gates, and two hours later be at Utica in Spendius’s tent.