This inertness veiled skilful manoeuvres.Hamilcar seduced the heads of the villages by all sorts of artifices; and the Mercenaries were hunted, repulsed, and enclosed like wild beasts.As soon as they entered a wood, the trees caught fire around them; when they drank of a spring it was poisoned; the caves in which they hid in order to sleep were walled up.Their old accomplices, the populations who had hitherto defended them, now pursued them; and they continually recognised Carthaginian armour in these bands.
Many had their faces consumed with red tetters; this, they thought, had come to them through touching Hanno.Others imagined that it was because they had eaten Salammbo's fishes, and far from repenting of it, they dreamed of even more abominable sacrileges, so that the abasement of the Punic Gods might be still greater.They would fain have exterminated them.
In this way they lingered for three months along the eastern coast, and then behind the mountain of Selloum, and as far as the first sands of the desert.They sought for a place of refuge, no matter where.
Utica and Hippo-Zarytus alone had not betrayed them; but Hamilcar was encompassing these two towns.Then they went northwards at haphazard without even knowing the various routes.Their many miseries had confused their understandings.
The only feeling left them was one of exasperation, which went on developing; and one day they found themselves again in the gorges of Cobus and once more before Carthage!
Then the actions multiplied.Fortune remained equal; but both sides were so wearied that they would willingly have exchanged these skirmishes for a great battle, provided that it were really the last.
Matho was inclined to carry this proposal himself to the Suffet.One of his Libyans devoted himself for the purpose.All were convinced as they saw him depart that he would not return.
He returned the same evening.
Hamilcar accepted the challenge.The encounter should take place the following day at sunrise, in the plain of Rhades.
The Mercenaries wished to know whether he had said anything more, and the Libyan added:
"As I remained in his presence, he asked me what I was waiting for.
'To be killed!' I replied.Then he rejoined: 'No! begone! that will be to-morrow with the rest.'"This generosity astonished the Barbarians; some were terrified by it, and Matho regretted that the emissary had not been killed.
He had still remaining three thousand Africans, twelve hundred Greeks, fifteen hundred Campanians, two hundred Iberians, four hundred Etruscans, five hundred Samnites, forty Gauls, and a troop of Naffurs, nomad bandits met with in the date region--in all seven thousand two hundred and nineteen soldiers, but not one complete syntagmata.They had stopped up the holes in their cuirasses with the shoulder-blades of quadrupeds, and replaced their brass cothurni with worn sandals.
Their garments were weighted with copper or steel plates; their coats of mail hung in tatters about them, and scars appeared like purple threads through the hair on their arms and faces.
The wraiths of their dead companions came back to their souls and increased their energy; they felt, in a confused way, that they were the ministers of a god diffused in the hearts of the oppressed, and were the pontiffs, so to speak, of universal vengeance! Then they were enraged with grief at what was extravagant injustice, and above all by the sight of Carthage on the horizon.They swore an oath to fight for one another until death.
The beasts of burden were killed, and as much as possible was eaten so as to gain strength; afterwards they slept.Some prayed, turning towards different constellations.
The Carthaginians arrived first in the plain.They rubbed the edges of their shields with oil to make the arrows glide off them easily; the foot-soldiers who wore long hair took the precaution of cutting it on the forehead; and Hamilcar ordered all bowls to be inverted from the fifth hour, knowing that it is disadvantageous to fight with the stomach too full.His army amounted to fourteen thousand men, or about double the number of the Barbarians.Nevertheless, he had never felt such anxiety; if he succumbed it would mean the annihilation of the Republic, and he would perish on the cross; if, on the contrary, he triumphed, he would reach Italy by way of the Pyrenees, the Gauls, and the Alps, and the empire of the Barcas would become eternal.Twenty times during the night he rose to inspect everything himself, down to the most trifling details.As to the Carthaginians, they were exasperated by their lengthened terror.Narr' Havas suspected the fidelity of his Numidians.Moreover, the Barbarians might vanquish them.A strange weakness had come upon him; every moment he drank large cups of water.
But a man whom he did not know opened his tent and laid on the ground a crown of rock-salt, adorned with hieratic designs formed with sulphur, and lozenges of mother-of-pearl; a marriage crown was sometimes sent to a betrothed husband; it was a proof of love, a sort of invitation.
Nevertheless Hamilcar's daughter had no tenderness for Narr' Havas.
The recollection of Matho disturbed her in an intolerable manner; it seemed to her that the death of this man would unburden her thoughts, just as people to cure themselves of the bite of a viper crush it upon the wound.The king of the Numidians was depending upon her; he awaited the wedding with impatience, and, as it was to follow the victory, Salammbo made him this present to stimulate his courage.Then his distress vanished, and he thought only of the happiness of possessing so beautiful a woman.
