Those who had been born in towns recalled the resounding streets, the taverns, theatres, baths, and the barbers' shops where there are tales to be heard.Others could once more see country districts at sunset, when the yellow corn waves, and the great oxen ascend the hills again with the ploughshares on their necks.Travellers dreamed of cisterns, hunters of their forests, veterans of battles; and in the somnolence that benumbed them their thoughts jostled one another with the precipitancy and clearness of dreams.Hallucinations came suddenly upon them; they sought for a door in the mountain in order to flee, and tried to pass through it.Others thought that they were sailing in a storm and gave orders for the handling of a ship, or else fell back in terror, perceiving Punic battalions in the clouds.There were some who imagined themselves at a feast, and sang.
Many through a strange mania would repeat the same word or continually make the same gesture.Then when they happened to raise their heads and look at one another they were choked with sobs on discovering the horrible ravages made in their faces.Some had ceased to suffer, and to while away the hours told of the perils which they had escaped.
Death was certain and imminent to all.How many times had they not tried to open up a passage! As to implore terms from the conqueror, by what means could they do so? They did not even know where Hamilcar was.
The wind was blowing from the direction of the ravine.It made the sand flow perpetually in cascades over the portcullis; and the cloaks and hair of the Barbarians were being covered with it as though the earth were rising upon them and desirous of burying them.Nothing stirred; the eternal mountain seemed still higher to them every morning.
Sometimes flights of birds darted past beneath the blue sky in the freedom of the air.The men closed their eyes that they might not see them.
At first they felt a buzzing in their ears, their nails grew black, the cold reached to their breasts; they lay upon their sides and expired without a cry.
On the nineteenth day two thousand Asiatics were dead, with fifteen hundred from the Archipelago, eight thousand from Libya, the youngest of the Mercenaries and whole tribes--in all twenty thousand soldiers, or half of the army.
Autaritus, who had only fifty Gauls left, was going to kill himself in order to put an end to this state of things, when he thought he saw a man on the top of the mountain in front of him.
Owing to his elevation this man did not appear taller than a dwarf.
However, Autaritus recognised a shield shaped like a trefoil on his left arm."A Carthaginian!" he exclaimed, and immediately throughout the plain, before the portcullis and beneath the rocks, all rose.The soldier was walking along the edge of the precipice; the Barbarians gazed at him from below.
Spendius picked up the head of an ox; then having formed a diadem with two belts, he fixed it on the horns at the end of a pole in token of pacific intentions.The Carthaginian disappeared.They waited.
At last in the evening a sword-belt suddenly fell from above like a stone loosened from the cliff.It was made of red leather covered with embroidery, with three diamond stars, and stamped in the centre, it bore the mark of the Great Council: a horse beneath a palm-tree.This was Hamilcar's reply, the safe-conduct that he sent them.
They had nothing to fear; any change of fortune brought with it the end of their woes.They were moved with extravagant joy, they embraced one another, they wept.Spendius, Autaritus, and Zarxas, four Italiotes, a Negro and two Spartans offered themselves as envoys.They were immediately accepted.They did not know, however, by what means they should get away.
But a cracking sounded in the direction of the rocks; and the most elevated of them, after rocking to and fro, rebounded to the bottom.
In fact, if they were immovable on the side of the Barbarians--for it would have been necessary to urge them up an incline plane, and they were, moreover, heaped together owing to the narrowness of the gorge--on the others, on the contrary, it was sufficient to drive against them with violence to make them descend.The Carthaginians pushed them, and at daybreak they projected into the plain like the steps of an immense ruined staircase.
The Barbarians were still unable to climb them.Ladders were held out for their assistance; all rushed upon them.The discharge of a catapult drove the crowd back; only the Ten were taken away.
They walked amid the Clinabarians, leaning their hands on the horses'
croups for support.
Now that their first joy was over they began to harbour anxieties.
Hamilcar's demands would be cruel.But Spendius reassured them.
"I will speak!" And he boasted that he knew excellent things to say for the safety of the army.
Behind all the bushes they met with ambushed sentries, who prostrated themselves before the sword-belt which Spendius had placed over his shoulder.
When they reached the Punic camp the crowd flocked around them, and they thought that they could hear whisperings and laughter.The door of a tent opened.
Hamilcar was at the very back of it seated on a stool beside a table on which there shone a naked sword.He was surrounded by captains, who were standing.
He started back on perceiving these men, and then bent over to examine them.
Their pupils were strangely dilated, and there was a great black circle round their eyes, which extended to the lower parts of their ears; their bluish noses stood out between their hollow cheeks, which were chinked with deep wrinkles; the skin of their bodies was too large for their muscles, and was hidden beneath a slate-coloured dust;their lips were glued to their yellow teeth; they exhaled an infectious odour; they might have been taken for half-opened tombs, for living sepulchres.
