In an instant the highest terrace of the palace was illuminated, the central door opened, and a woman, Hamilcar’s daughter herself, clothed in black garments, appeared on the threshold.  She descended the first staircase, which ran obliquely along the first story, then the second, and the third, and stopped on the last terrace at the head of the galley staircase.  Motionless and with head bent, she gazed upon the soldiers.

Behind her, on each side, were two long shadows of pale men, clad in white, red-fringed robes, which fell straight to their feet.  They had no beard, no hair, no eyebrows.  In their hands, which sparkled with rings, they carried enormous lyres, and with shrill voice they sang a hymn to the divinity of Carthage.  They were the eunuch priests of the temple of Tanith, who were often summoned by Salammbo to her house.

At last she descended the galley staircase.  The priests followed her.  She advanced into the avenue of cypress, and walked slowly through the tables of the captains, who drew back somewhat as they watched her pass.

Her hair, which was powdered with violet sand, and combined into the form of a tower, after the fashion of the Chanaanite maidens, added to her height.  Tresses of pearls were fastened to her temples, and fell to the corners of her mouth, which was as rosy as a half-open pomegranate.  On her breast was a collection of luminous stones, their variegation imitating the scales of the murena.  Her arms were adorned with diamonds, and issued naked from her sleeveless tunic, which was starred with red flowers on a perfectly black ground.  Between her ankles she wore a golden chainlet to regulate her steps, and her large dark purple mantle, cut of an unknown material, trailed behind her, making, as it were, at each step, a broad wave which followed her.

The priests played nearly stifled chords on their lyres from time to time, and in the intervals of the music might be heard the tinkling of the little golden chain, and the regular patter of her papyrus sandals.

No one as yet was acquainted with her.  It was only known that she led a retired life, engaged in pious practices.  Some soldiers had seen her in the night on the summit of her palace kneeling before the stars amid the eddyings from kindled perfuming-pans.  It was the moon that had made her so pale, and there was something from the gods that enveloped her like a subtle vapour.  Her eyes seemed to gaze far beyond terrestrial space.  She bent her head as she walked, and in her right hand she carried a little ebony lyre.

They heard her murmur: 

“Dead!  All dead!  No more will you come obedient to my voice as when, seated on the edge of the lake, I used to through seeds of the watermelon into your mouths!  The mystery of Tanith ranged in the depths of your eyes that were more limpid than the globules of rivers.”  And she called them by their names, which were those of the months—­“Siv!  Sivan!  Tammouz, Eloul, Tischri, Schebar!  Ah! have pity on me, goddess!”