There were two thousand young men, each equipped with a sling, a dagger, and sandals.  He reinforced them with eight hundred others armed with round shields and Roman swords.

The heavy cavalry was composed of the nineteen hundred remaining guardsmen of the Legion, covered with plates of vermilion bronze, like the Assyrian Clinabarians.  He had further four hundred mounted archers, of those that were called Tarentines, with caps of weasel’s skin, two-edged axes, and leathern tunics.  Finally there were twelve hundred Negroes from the quarter of the caravans, who were mingled with the Clinabarians, and were to run beside the stallions with one hand resting on the manes.  All was ready, and yet Hamilcar did not start.

Often at night he would go out of Carthage alone and make his way beyond the lagoon towards the mouths of the Macaras.  Did he intend to join the Mercenaries?  The Ligurians encamped in the Mappalian district surrounded his house.

The apprehensions of the rich appeared justified when, one day, three hundred Barbarians were seen approaching the walls.  The Suffet opened the gates to them; they were deserters; drawn by fear or by fidelity, they were hastening to their master.

Hamilcar’s return had not surprised the Mercenaries; according to their ideas the man could not die.  He was returning to fulfil his promise;—­a hope by no means absurd, so deep was the abyss between Country and Army.  Moreover they did not believe themselves culpable; the feast was forgotten.

The spies whom they surprised undeceived them.  It was a triumph for the bitter; even the lukewarm grew furious.  Then the two sieges overwhelmed then with weariness; no progress was being made; a battle would be better!  Thus many men had left the ranks and were scouring the country.  But at news of the arming they returned; Matho leaped for joy.  “At last! at last!” he cried.

Then the resentment which he cherished against Salammbo was turned against Hamilcar.  His hate could now perceive a definite prey; and as his vengeance grew easier of conception he almost believed that he had realised it and he revelled in it already.  At the same time he was seized with a loftier tenderness, and consumed by more acrid desire.  He saw himself alternately in the midst of the soldiers brandishing the Suffet’s head on a pike, and then in the room with the purple bed, clasping the maiden in his arms, covering her face with kisses, passing his hands over her long, black hair; and the imagination of this, which he knew could never be realised, tortured him.  He swore to himself that, since his companions had appointed him schalishim, he would conduct the war; the certainty that he would not return from it urged him to render it a pitiless one.

He came to Spendius and said to him: 

“You will go and get your men!  I will bring mine!  Warn Autaritus!  We are lost if Hamilcar attacks us!  Do you understand me?  Rise!”