Salammbô | Page 9

blackened by the sunburn of battles. Hoarse cries issued from
their thick bears, their tattered coats of mail flapped upon the pommels
of their swords, and through the holes in the brass might be seen their
naked limbs, as frightful as engines of war. Sarissae, axes, spears, felt
caps and bronze helmets, all swung together with a single motion. They
filled the street thickly enough to have made the walls crack, and the
long mass of armed soldiers overflowed between the lofty
bitumen-smeared houses six storys high. Behind their gratings of iron
or reed the women, with veiled heads, silently watched the Barbarians
pass.
The terraces, fortifications, and walls were hidden beneath the crowd of
Carthaginians, who were dressed in garments of black. The sailors'
tunics showed like drops of blood among the dark multitude, and nearly
naked children, whose skin shone beneath their copper bracelets,
gesticulated in the foliage of the columns, or amid the branches of a
palm tree. Some of the Ancients were posted on the platform of the
towers, and people did not know why a personage with a long beard
stood thus in a dreamy attitude here and there. He appeared in the
distance against the background of the sky, vague as a phantom and
motionless as stone.
All, however, were oppressed with the same anxiety; it was feared that
the Barbarians, seeing themselves so strong, might take a fancy to stay.
But they were leaving with so much good faith that the Carthaginians
grew bold and mingled with the soldiers. They overwhelmed them with
protestations and embraces. Some with exaggerated politeness and
audacious hypocrisy even sought to induce them not to leave the city.
They threw perfumes, flowers, and pieces of silver to them. They gave
them amulets to avert sickness; but they had spit upon them three times
to attract death, or had enclosed jackal's hair within them to put
cowardice into their hearts. Aloud, they invoked Melkarth's favour, and
in a whisper, his curse.

Then came the mob of baggage, beasts of burden, and stragglers. The
sick groaned on the backs of dromedaries, while others limped along
leaning on broken pikes. The drunkards carried leathern bottles, and the
greedy quarters of meat, cakes, fruits, butter wrapped in fig leaves, and
snow in linen bags. Some were to be seen with parasols in their hands,
and parrots on their shoulders. They had mastiffs, gazelles, and
panthers following behind them. Women of Libyan race, mounted on
asses, inveighed against the Negresses who had forsaken the lupanaria
of Malqua for the soldiers; many of them were suckling children
suspended on their bosoms by leathern thongs. The mules were goaded
out at the point of the sword, their backs bending beneath the load of
tents, while there were numbers of serving-men and water-carriers,
emaciated, jaundiced with fever, and filthy with vermin, the scum of
the Carthaginian populace, who had attached themselves to the
Barbarians.
When they had passed, the gates were shut behind them, but the people
did not descend from the walls. The army soon spread over the breadth
of the isthmus.
It parted into unequal masses. Then the lances appeared like tall blades
of grass, and finally all was lost in a train of dust; those of the soldiers
who looked back towards Carthage could now only see its long walls
with their vacant battlements cut out against the edge of the sky.
Then the Barbarians heard a great shout. They thought that some from
among them (for they did not know their own number) had remained in
the town, and were amusing themselves by pillaging a temple. They
laughed a great deal at the idea of this, and then continued their
journey.
They were rejoiced to find themselves, as in former days, marching all
together in the open country, and some of the Greeks sang the old song
of the Mamertines:
"With my lance and sword I plough and reap; I am master of the house!
The disarmed man falls at my feet and calls me Lord and Great King."

They shouted, they leaped, the merriest began to tell stories; the time of
their miseries was past. As they arrived at Tunis, some of them
remarked that a troop of Balearic slingers was missing. They were
doubtless not far off; and no further heed was paid to them.
Some went to lodge in the houses, others camped at the foot of the
walls, and the townspeople came out to chat with the soldiers.
During the whole night fires were seen burning on the horizon in the
direction of Carthage; the light stretched like giant torches across the
motionless lake. No one in the army could tell what festival was being
celebrated.
On the following day the Barbarian's passed through a region that was
covered with