At first he would speak of the siege, but his coming was only to ease his sorrow by talking about Salammbo.  Spendius exhorted him to be prudent.

“Drive away these trifles from your soul, which is degraded by them!  Formerly you were used to obey; now you command an army, and if Carthage is not conquered we shall at least be granted provinces.  We shall become kings!”

But how was it that the possession of the zaimph did not give them the victory?  According to Spendius they must wait.

Matho fancied that the veil affected people of Chanaanitish race exclusively, and, in his Barbarian-like subtlety, he said to himself:  “The zaimph will accordingly do nothing for me, but since they have lost it, it will do nothing for them.”

Afterwards a scruple troubled him.  He was afraid of offending Moloch by worshipping Aptouknos, the god of the Libyans, and he timidly asked Spendius to which of the gods it would be advisable to sacrifice a man.

“Keep on sacrificing!” laughed Spendius.

Matho, who could not understand such indifference, suspected the Greek of having a genius of whom he did not speak.

All modes of worship, as well as all races, were to be met with in these armies of Barbarians, and consideration was had to the gods of others, for they too, inspired fear.  Many mingled foreign practices with their native religion.  It was to no purpose that they did not adore the stars; if a constellation were fatal or helpful, sacrifices were offered to it; an unknown amulet found by chance at a moment of peril became a divinity; or it might be a name and nothing more, which would be repeated without any attempt to understand its meaning.  But after pillaging temples, and seeing numbers of nations and slaughters, many ultimately ceased to believe in anything but destiny and death;—­and every evening these would fall asleep with the placidity of wild beasts.  Spendius had spit upon the images of Jupiter Olympius; nevertheless he dreaded to speak aloud in the dark, nor did he fail every day to put on his right boot first.

He reared a long quadrangular terrace in front of Utica, but in proportion as it ascended the rampart was also heightened, and what was thrown down by the one side was almost immediately raised again by the other.  Spendius took care of his men; he dreamed of plans and strove to recall the stratagems which he had heard described in his travels.  But why did Narr’ Havas not return?  There was nothing but anxiety.

Hanno had at last concluded his preparations.  One night when there was no moon he transported his elephants and soldiers on rafts across the Gulf of Carthage.  Then they wheeled round the mountain of the Hot Springs so as to avoid Autaritus, and continued their march so slowly that instead of surprising the Barbarians in the morning, as the Suffet had calculated, they did not reach them until it was broad daylight on the third day.