“Drink!” said he, “that strength of sun-born serpents may penetrate into the marrow of your bones, and take courage, O reflection of the gods!  You know, moreover, that a priest of Eschmoun watches those cruel stars round the Dog from which your malady is derived.  They are growing pale like the spots on your skin, and you are not to die from them.”

“Oh! yes, that is so, is it not?” repeated the Suffet, “I am not to die from them!” And his violaceous lips gave forth a breath more nauseous than the exhalation from a corpse.  Two coals seemed to burn in the place of his eyes, which had lost their eyebrows; a mass of wrinkled skin hung over his forehead; both his ears stood out from his head and were beginning to increase in size; and the deep lines forming semicircles round his nostrils gave him a strange and terrifying appearance, the look of a wild beast.  His unnatural voice was like a roar; he said: 

“Perhaps you are right, Demonades.  In fact there are many ulcers here which have closed.  I feel robust.  Here! look how I am eating!”

And less from greediness than from ostentation, and the desire to prove to himself that he was in good health, he cut into the forcemeats of cheese and marjoram, the boned fish, gourds, oysters with eggs, horse-radishes, truffles, and brochettes of small birds.  As he looked at the prisoners he revelled in the imagination of their tortures.  Nevertheless he remembered Sicca, and the rage caused by all his woes found vent in the abuse of these three men.

“Ah! traitors! ah! wretches! infamous, accursed creatures!  And you outraged me!—­me! the Suffet!  Their services, the price of their blood, say they!  Ah! yes! their blood! their blood!” Then speaking to himself:—­“All shall perish! not one shall be sold!  It would be better to bring them to Carthage!  I should be seen—­but doubtless, I have not brought chains enough?  Write:  Send me—­How many of them are there? go and ask Muthumbal!  Go! no pity! and let all their hands be cut off and brought to me in baskets!”

But strange cries at once hoarse and shrill penetrated into the hall above Hanno’s voice and the rattling of the dishes that were being placed around him.  They increased, and suddenly the furious trumpeting of the elephants burst forth as if the battle were beginning again.  A great tumult was going on around the town.

The Carthaginians had not attempted to pursue the Barbarians.  They had taken up their quarters at the foot of the walls with their baggage, mules, serving men, and all their train of satraps; and they made merry in their beautiful pearl-bordered tents, while the camp of the Mercenaries was now nothing but a heap of ruins in the plain.  Spendius had recovered his courage.  He dispatched Zarxas to Matho, scoured the woods, rallied his men (the losses had been inconsiderable),—­and they were re-forming their lines enraged at having been conquered without a fight, when they discovered a vat of petroleum which had no doubt been abandoned by the Carthaginians.  Then Spendius had some pigs carried off from the farms, smeared them with bitumen, set them on fire, and drove them towards Utica.