“They are good friends of yours, are the Barbarians!  Infamous traitor!  You come back to see us perish, do you not?  Let him speak!—­No! no!”

They were taking their revenge for the constraint to which political ceremonial had just obliged them; and even though they had wished for Hamilcar’s return, they were now indignant that he had not anticipated their disasters, or rather that he had not endured them as well as they.

When the tumult had subsided, the pontiff of Moloch rose: 

“We ask you why you did not return to Carthage?”

“What is that to you?” replied the Suffet disdainfully.

Their shouts were redoubled.

“Of what do you accuse me?  I managed the war badly, perhaps!  You have seen how I order my battles, you who conveniently allow Barbarians—­”

“Enough! enough!”

He went on in a low voice so as to make himself the better listened to: 

“Oh! that is true!  I am wrong, lights of the Baals; there are intrepid men among you!  Gisco, rise!” And surveying the step of the altar with half-closed eyelids, as if he sought for some one, he repeated: 

“Rise, Gisco!  You can accuse me; they will protect you!  But where is he?” Then, as if he remembered himself:  “Ah! in his house, no doubt! surrounded by his sons, commanding his slaves, happy, and counting on the wall the necklaces of honour which his country has given to him!”

They moved about raising their shoulders as if they were being scourged with thongs.  “You do not even know whether he is living or dead!” And without giving any heed to their clamours he said that in deserting the Suffet they had deserted the Republic.  So, too, the peace with Rome, however advantageous it might appear to them, was more fatal than twenty battles.  A few—­those who were the least rich of the Council and were suspected of perpetual leanings towards the people or towards tyranny—­applauded.  Their opponents, chiefs of the Syssitia and administrators, triumphed over them in point of numbers; and the more eminent of them had ranged themselves close to Hanno, who was sitting at the other end of the hall before the lofty door, which was closed by a hanging of hyacinth colour.

He had covered the ulcers on his face with paint.  But the gold dust in his hair had fallen upon his shoulders, where it formed two brilliant sheets, so that his hair appeared whitish, fine, and frizzled like wool.  His hands were enveloped in linen soaked in a greasy perfume, which dripped upon the pavement, and his disease had no doubt considerably increased, for his eyes were hidden beneath the folds of his eyelids.  He had thrown back his head in order to see.  His partisans urged him to speak.  At last in a hoarse and hideous voice he said: 

“Less arrogance, Barca!  We have all been vanquished!  Each one supports his own misfortune!  Be resigned!”

“Tell us rather,” said Hamilcar, smiling, “how it was that you steered your galleys into the Roman fleet?”