father, the servant of the Baals! It was he who withheld from Lutatius
those arms of yours, red now with the blood of his slaves! Know you of
any in your own lands more skilled in the conduct of battles? Look!
our palace steps are encumbered with our victories! Ah! desist not!
burn it! I will carry away with me the genius of my house, my black
serpent slumbering up yonder on lotus leaves! I will whistle and he
will follow me, and if I embark in a galley he will speed in the wake
of my ship over the foam of the waves."

Her delicate nostrils were quivering. She crushed her nails against
the gems on her bosom. Her eyes drooped, and she resumed:

"Ah! poor Carthage! lamentable city! No longer hast thou for thy
protection the strong men of former days who went beyond the oceans to
build temples on their shores. All the lands laboured about thee, and
the sea-plains, ploughed by thine oars, rocked with thy harvests."
Then she began to sing the adventures of Melkarth, the god of the
Sidonians, and the father of her family.

She told of the ascent of the mountains of Ersiphonia, the journey to
Tartessus, and the war against Masisabal to avenge the queen of the
serpents:

"He pursued the female monster, whose tail undulated over the dead
leaves like a silver brook, into the forest, and came to a plain where
women with dragon-croups were round a great fire, standing erect on
the points of their tails. The blood-coloured moon was shining within
a pale circle, and their scarlet tongues, cloven like the harpoons of
fishermen, reached curling forth to the very edge of the flame."

Then Salammbo, without pausing, related how Melkarth, after
vanquishing Masisabal, placed her severed head on the prow of his
ship. "At each throb of the waves it sank beneath the foam, but the
sun embalmed it; it became harder than gold; nevertheless the eyes
ceased not to weep, and the tears fell into the water continually."

She sang all this in an old Chanaanite idiom, which the Barbarians did
not understand. They asked one another what she could be saying to
them with those frightful gestures which accompanied her speech, and
mounted round about her on the tables, beds, and sycamore boughs, they
strove with open mouths and craned necks to grasp the vague stories
hovering before their imaginations, through the dimness of the
theogonies, like phantoms wrapped in cloud.

Only the beardless priests understood Salammbo; their wrinkled hands,
which hung over the strings of their lyres, quivered, and from time to
time they would draw forth a mournful chord; for, feebler than old
women, they trembled at once with mystic emotion, and with the fear
inspired by men. The Barbarians heeded them not, but listened
continually to the maiden's song.

None gazed at her like a young Numidian chief, who was placed at the
captains' tables among soldiers of his own nation. His girdle so
bristled with darts that it formed a swelling in his ample cloak,
which was fastened on his temples with a leather lace. The cloth
parted asunder as it fell upon his shoulders, and enveloped his
countenance in shadow, so that only the fires of his two fixed eyes
could be seen. It was by chance that he was at the feast, his father
having domiciled him with the Barca family, according to the custom by
which kings used to send their children into the households of the
great in order to pave the way for alliances; but Narr' Havas had
lodged there fox six months without having hitherto seen Salammbo, and
now, seated on his heels, with his head brushing the handles of his
javelins, he was watching her with dilated nostrils, like a leopard
crouching among the bamboos.

On the other side of the tables was a Libyan of colossal stature, and
with short black curly hair. He had retained only his military jacket,
the brass plates of which were tearing the purple of the couch. A
necklace of silver moons was tangled in his hairy breast. His face was
stained with splashes of blood; he was leaning on his left elbow with
a smile on his large, open mouth.

Salammbo had abandoned the sacred rhythm. With a woman's subtlety she
was simultaneously employing all the dialects of the Barbarians in
order to appease their anger. To the Greeks she spoke Greek; then she
turned to the Ligurians, the Campanians, the Negroes, and listening to
her each one found again in her voice the sweetness of his native
land. She now, carried away by the memories of Carthage, sang of the
ancient battles against Rome; they applauded. She kindled at the
gleaming of the naked swords, and cried aloud with outstretched arms.
Her lyre fell, she was silent; and, pressing both hands upon her
heart, she remained for some minutes with closed eyelids enjoying the
agitation of all these men.

Matho, the Libyan, leaned over towards her. Involuntarily she
approached him, and impelled by grateful pride, poured him a long
stream of wine into a golden cup in order to conciliate the army.

"Drink!" she said.

He took the cup, and was carrying it to his lips when a Gaul, the same
that had been hurt by Gisco, struck him on the shoulder, while in a
jovial manner he gave utterance to pleasantries in his native tongue.
Spendius was not far off, and he volunteered to interpret them.

"Speak!" said Matho.

"The gods protect you; you are going to become rich. When will the
nuptials be?"

"What nuptials?"

"Yours! for with us," said the Gaul, "when a woman gives drink to a
soldier, it means that she offers him her couch."

He had not finished when Narr' Havas, with a bound, drew a javelin
from his girdle, and, leaning his right foot upon the edge of the
table, hurled it against Matho.

The javelin whistled among the cups, and piercing the Lybian's arm,
pinned it so firmly to the cloth, that the shaft quivered in the air.

Matho quickly plucked it out; but he was weaponless and naked; at last
he lifted the over-laden table with both arms, and flung it against
Narr' Havas into the very centre of the crowd that rushed between
them. The soldiers and Numidians pressed together so closely that they
were unable to draw their swords. Matho advanced dealing great blows
with his head. When he raised it, Narr' Havas had disappeared. He
sought for him with his eyes. Salammbo also was gone.

Then directing his looks to the palace he perceived the red door with
the black cross closing far above, and he darted away.

They saw him run between the prows of the galleys, and then reappear
along the three staircases until he reached the red door against which
he dashed his whole body. Panting, he leaned against the wall to keep
himself from falling.

But a man had followed him, and through the darkness, for the lights
of the feast were hidden by the corner of the palace, he recognised
Spendius.

"Begone!" said he.

The slave without replying began to tear his tunic with his teeth;
then kneeling beside Matho he tenderly took his arm, and felt it in
the shadow to discover the wound.

By a ray of the moon which was then gliding between the clouds,
Spendius perceived a gaping wound in the middle of the arm. He rolled
the piece of stuff about it, but the other said irritably, "Leave me!
leave me!"

"Oh no!" replied the slave. "You released me from the ergastulum. I am
yours! you are my master! command me!"

Matho walked round the terrace brushing against the walls. He strained
his ears at every step, glancing down into the silent apartments
through the spaces between the gilded reeds. At last he stopped with a
look of despair.

"Listen!" said the slave to him. "Oh! do not despise me for my
feebleness! I have lived in the palace. I can wind like a viper
through the walls. Come! in the Ancestor's Chamber there is an ingot
of gold beneath every flagstone; an underground path leads to their
tombs."

"Well! what matters it?" said Matho.

Spendius was silent.

They were on the terrace. A huge mass of shadow stretched before them,
appearing as if it contained vague accumulations, like the gigantic
billows of a black and petrified ocean.

But a luminous bar rose towards the East; far below, on the left, the
canals of Megara were beginning to stripe the verdure of the gardens
with their windings of white. The conical roofs of the heptagonal
temples, the staircases, terraces, and ramparts were being carved by
degrees upon the paleness of the dawn; and a girdle of white foam
rocked around the Carthaginian peninsula, while the emerald sea
appeared as if it were curdled in the freshness of the morning. Then
as the rosy sky grew larger, the lofty houses, bending over the
sloping soil, reared and massed themselves like a herd of black goats
coming down from the mountains. The deserted streets lengthened; the
palm-trees that topped the walls here and there were motionless; the
brimming cisterns seemed like silver bucklers lost in the courts; the
beacon on the promontory of Hermaeum was beginning to grow pale. The
horses of Eschmoun, on the very summit of the Acropolis in the cypress
wood, feeling that the light was coming, placed their hoofs on the
marble parapet, and neighed towards the sun.

It appeared, and Spendius raised his arms with a cry.

Everything stirred in a diffusion of red, for the god, as if he were
rending himself, now poured full-rayed upon Carthage the golden rain
of his veins. The beaks of the galleys sparkled, the roof of Khamon
appeared to be all in flames, while far within the temples, whose
doors were opening, glimmerings of light could be seen. Large
chariots, arriving from the country, rolled their wheels over the
flagstones in the streets. Dromedaries, baggage-laden, came down the
ramps. Money-changers raised the pent-houses of their shops at the
cross ways, storks took to flight, white sails fluttered. In the wood
of Tanith might be heard the tabourines of the sacred courtesans, and
the furnaces for baking the clay coffins were beginning to smoke on
the Mappalian point.

Spendius leaned over the terrace; his teeth chattered and he repeated: