“He is strong, is he not?”

“Yes, Master, and intrepid as well!  He has no fear of serpents, or thunder, or phantoms.  He runs bare-footed like a herdsman along the brinks of precipices.”

“Speak! speak!”

“He invents snares for wild beasts.  Would you believe it, that last moon he surprised an eagle; he dragged it away, and the bird’s blood and the child’s were scattered in the air in large drops like driven roses.  The animal in its fury enwrapped him in the beating of its wings; he strained it against his breast, and as it died his laughter increased, piercing and proud like the clashing of swords.”

Hamilcar bent his head, dazzled by such presages of greatness.

“But he has been for some time restless and disturbed.  He gazes at the sails passing far out at sea; he is melancholy, he rejects bread, he inquires about the gods, and he wishes to become acquainted with Carthage.”

“No, no! not yet!” exclaimed the Suffet.

The old slave seemed to understand the peril which alarmed Hamilcar, and he resumed: 

“How is he to be restrained?  Already I am obliged to make him promises, and I have come to Carthage only to buy him a dagger with a silver handle and pearls all around it.”  Then he told how, having perceived the Suffet on the terrace, he had passed himself off on the warders of the harbour as one of Salammbo’s women, so as to make his way in to him.

Hamilcar remained for a long time apparently lost in deliberation; at last he said: 

“To-morrow you will present yourself at sunset behind the purple factories in Megara, and imitate a jackal’s cry three times.  If you do not see me, you will return to Carthage on the first day of every moon.  Forget nothing!  Love him!  You may speak to him now about Hamilcar.”

The slave resumed his costume, and they left the house and the harbour together.

Hamilcar went on his way alone on foot and without an escort, for the meetings of the Ancients were, under extraordinary circumstances, always secret, and were resorted to mysteriously.

At first he went along the western front of the Acropolis, and then passed through the Green Market, the galleries of Kinisdo, and the Perfumers’ suburb.  The scattered lights were being extinguished, the broader streets grew still, then shadows glided through the darkness.  They followed him, others appeared, and like him they all directed their course towards the Mappalian district.

The temple of Moloch was built at the foot of a steep defile in a sinister spot.  From below nothing could be seen but lofty walls rising indefinitely like those of a monstrous tomb.  The night was gloomy, a greyish fog seemed to weigh upon the sea, which beat against the cliff with a noise as of death-rattles and sobs; and the shadows gradually vanished as if they had passed through the walls.

But as soon as the doorway was crossed one found oneself in a vast quadrangular court bordered by arcades.  In the centre rose a mass of architecture with eight equal faces.  It was surmounted by cupolas which thronged around a second story supporting a kind of rotunda, from which sprang a cone with a re-entrant curve and terminating in a ball on the summit.