CHAPTER XI
IN THE TENT
The man who guided Salammbo made her ascend again beyond the pharos in
the direction of the Catacombs, and then go down the long suburb of
Molouya, which was full of steep lanes. The sky was beginning to grow
grey. Sometimes palm-wood beams jutting out from the walls obliged
them to bend their heads. The two horses which were at the walk would
often slip; and thus they reached the Teveste gate.
Its heavy leaves were half open; they passed through, and it closed
behind them.
At first they followed the foot of the ramparts for a time, and at the
height of the cisterns they took their way along the Taenia, a narrow
strip of yellow earth separating the gulf from the lake and extending
as far as Rhades.
No one was to be seen around Carthage, whether on the sea or in the
country. The slate-coloured waves chopped softly, and the light wind
blowing their foam hither and thither spotted them with white rents.
In spite of all her veils, Salammbo shivered in the freshness of the
morning; the motion and the open air dazed her. Then the sun rose; it
preyed on the back of her head, and she involuntarily dozed a little.
The two animals rambled along side by side, their feet sinking into
the silent sand.
When they had passed the mountain of the Hot Springs, they went on at
a more rapid rate, the ground being firmer.
But although it was the season for sowing and ploughing, the fields
were as empty as the desert as far as the eye could reach. Here and
there were scattered heaps of corn; at other places the barley was
shedding its reddened ears. The villages showed black upon the clear
horizon, with shapes incoherently carved.
From time to time a half-calcined piece of wall would be found
standing on the edge of the road. The roofs of the cottages were
falling in, and in the interiors might be distinguished fragments of
pottery, rags of clothing, and all kinds of unrecognisable utensils
and broken things. Often a creature clothed in tatters, with earthy
face and flaming eyes would emerge from these ruins. But he would very
quickly begin to run or would disappear into a hole. Salammbo and her
guide did not stop.
Deserted plains succeeded one another. Charcoal dust which was raised
by their feet behind them, stretched in unequal trails over large
spaces of perfectly white soil. Sometimes they came upon little
peaceful spots, where a brook flowed amid the long grass; and as they
ascended the other bank Salammbo would pluck damp leaves to cool her
hands. At the corner of a wood of rose-bays her horse shied violently
at the corpse of a man which lay extended on the ground.
The slave immediately settled her again on the cushions. He was one of
the servants of the Temple, a man whom Schahabarim used to employ on
perilous missions.
With extreme precaution he now went on foot beside her and between the
horses; he would whip the animals with the end of a leathern lace
wound round his arm, or would perhaps take balls made of wheat, dates,
and yolks of eggs wrapped in lotus leaves from a scrip hanging against
his breast, and offer them to Salammbo without speaking, and running
all the time.
In the middle of the day three Barbarians clad in animals' skins
crossed their path. By degrees others appeared wandering in troops of
ten, twelve, or twenty-five men; many were driving goats or a limping
cow. Their heavy sticks bristled with brass points; cutlasses gleamed
in their clothes, which were savagely dirty, and they opened their
eyes with a look of menace and amazement. As they passed some sent
them a vulgar benediction; others obscene jests, and Schahabarim's man
replied to each in his own idiom. He told them that this was a sick
youth going to be cured at a distant temple.
However, the day was closing in. Barkings were heard, and they
approached them.
Then in the twilight they perceived an enclosure of dry stones
shutting in a rambling edifice. A dog was running along the top of the
wall. The slave threw some pebbles at him and they entered a lofty
vaulted hall.
A woman was crouching in the centre warming herself at a fire of
brushwood, the smoke of which escaped through the holes in the
ceiling. She was half hidden by her white hair which fell to her
knees; and unwilling to answer, she muttered with idiotic look words
of vengeance against the Barbarians and the Carthaginians.
The runner ferreted right and left. Then he returned to her and
demanded something to eat. The old woman shook her head, and murmured
with her eyes fixed upon the charcoal:
"I was the hand. The ten fingers are cut off. The mouth eats no more."
The slave showed her a handful of gold pieces. She rushed upon them,
but soon resumed her immobility.
At last he placed a dagger which he had in his girdle beneath her
throat. Then, trembling, she went and raised a large stone, and
brought back an amphora of wine with fish from Hippo-Zarytus preserved
in honey.
Salammbo turned away from this unclean food, and fell asleep on the
horses' caparisons which were spread in a corner of the hall.
He awoke her before daylight.
The dog was howling. The slave went up to it quietly, and struck off
its head with a single blow of his dagger. Then he rubbed the horses'
nostrils with blood to revive them. The old woman cast a malediction
at him from behind. Salammbo perceived this, and pressed the amulet
which she wore above her heart.
They resumed their journey.
From time to time she asked whether they would not arrive soon. The
road undulated over little hills. Nothing was to be heard but the
grating of the grasshoppers. The sun heated the yellowed grass; the
ground was all chinked with crevices which in dividing formed, as it
were, monstrous paving-stones. Sometimes a viper passed, or eagles
flew by; the slave still continued running. Salammbo mused beneath her
veils, and in spite of the heat did not lay them aside through fear of
soiling her beautiful garments.
At regular distances stood towers built by the Carthaginians for the
purpose of keeping watch upon the tribes. They entered these for the
sake of the shade, and then set out again.
For prudence sake they had made a wide detour the day before. But they
met with no one just now; the region being a sterile one, the
Barbarians had not passed that way.
Gradually the devastation began again. Sometimes a piece of mosaic
would be displayed in the centre of a field, the sole remnant of a
vanished mansion; and the leafless olive trees looked at a distance
like large bushes of thorns. They passed through a town in which
houses were burnt to the ground. Human skeletons might be seen along
the walls. There were some, too, of dromedaries and mules. Half-gnawed
carrion blocked the streets.
Night fell. The sky was lowering and cloudy.
They ascended again for two hours in a westerly direction, when
suddenly they perceived a quantity of little flames before them.
These were shining at the bottom of an ampitheatre. Gold plates, as
they displaced one another, glanced here and there. These were the
cuirasses of the Clinabarians in the Punic camp; then in the
neighbourhood they distinguished other and more numerous lights, for
the armies of the Mercenaries, now blended together, extended over a
great space.
Salammbo made a movement as though to advance. But Schahabarim's man
took her further away, and they passed along by the terrace which
enclosed the camp of the Barbarians. A breach became visible in it,
and the slave disappeared.
A sentry was walking upon the top of the entrenchment with a bow in
his hand and a pike on his shoulder.
Salammbo drew still nearer; the Barbarian knelt and a long arrow
pierced the hem of her cloak. Then as she stood motionless and
shrieking, he asked her what she wanted.
"To speak to Matho," she replied. "I am a fugitive from Carthage."
He gave a whistle, which was repeated at intervals further away.
Salammbo waited; her frightened horse moved round and round, sniffing.
When Matho arrived the moon was rising behind her. But she had a
yellow veil with black flowers over her face, and so many draperies
about her person, that it was impossible to make any guess about her.
From the top of the terrace he gazed upon this vague form standing up
like a phantom in the penumbrae of the evening.
At last she said to him:
"Lead me to your tent! I wish it!"
A recollection which he could not define passed through his memory. He
felt his heart beating. The air of command intimidated him.
"Follow me!" he said.
The barrier was lowered, and immediately she was in the camp of the
Barbarians.
It was filled with a great tumult and a great throng. Bright fires
were burning beneath hanging pots; and their purpled reflections
illuminating some places left others completely in the dark. There was
shouting and calling; shackled horses formed long straight lines amid
the tents; the latter were round and square, of leather or of canvas;
there were huts of reeds, and holes in the sand such as are made by
dogs. Soldiers were carting faggots, resting on their elbows on the
ground, or wrapping themselves up in mats and preparing to sleep; and
Salammbo's horse sometimes stretched out a leg and jumped in order to
pass over them.
She remembered that she had seen them before; but their beards were
longer now, their faces still blacker, and their voices hoarser.
Matho, who walked before her, waved them off with a gesture of his arm
which raised his red mantle. Some kissed his hands; others bending
their spines approached him to ask for orders, for he was now
veritable and sole chief of the Barbarians; Spendius, Autaritus, and
Narr' Havas had become disheartened, and he had displayed so much
audacity and obstinacy that all obeyed him.
Salammbo followed him through the entire camp. His tent was at the
end, three hundred feet from Hamilcar's entrenchments.
She noticed a wide pit on the right, and it seemed to her that faces
were resting against the edge of it on a level with the ground, as
decapitated heads might have done. However, their eyes moved, and from
these half-opened mouths groanings escaped in the Punic tongue.
Two Negroes holding resin lights stood on both sides of the door.
Matho drew the canvas abruptly aside. She followed him. It was a deep
tent with a pole standing up in the centre. It was lighted by a large
lamp-holder shaped like a lotus and full of a yellow oil wherein
floated handfuls of burning tow, and military things might be
distinguished gleaming in the shade. A naked sword leaned against a
stool by the side of a shield; whips of hippopotamus leather, cymbals,
bells, and necklaces were displayed pell-mell on baskets of esparto-
grass; a felt rug lay soiled with crumbs of black bread; some copper
money was carelessly heaped upon a round stone in a corner, and
through the rents in the canvas the wind brought the dust from
without, together with the smell of the elephants, which might be
heard eating and shaking their chains.
"Who are you?" said Matho.
She looked slowly around her without replying; then her eyes were
arrested in the background, where something bluish and sparkling fell
upon a bed of palm-branches.
She advanced quickly. A cry escaped her. Matho stamped his foot behind
her.
"Who brings you here? why do you come?"
"To take it!" she replied, pointing to the zaimph, and with the other
hand she tore the veils from her head. He drew back with his elbows
behind him, gaping, almost terrified.
She felt as if she were leaning on the might of the gods; and looking
at him face to face she asked him for the zaimph; she demanded it in
words abundant and superb.
Matho did not hear; he was gazing at her, and in his eyes her garments
were blended with her body. The clouding of the stuffs, like the
splendour of her skin, was something special and belonging to her
alone. Her eyes and her diamonds sparkled; the polish of her nails
continued the delicacy of the stones which loaded her fingers; the two
clasps of her tunic raised her breasts somewhat and brought them
closer together, and he in thought lost himself in the narrow interval
between them whence there fell a thread holding a plate of emeralds
which could be seen lower down beneath the violet gauze. She had as
earrings two little sapphire scales, each supporting a hollow pearl
filled with liquid scent. A little drop would fall every moment
through the holes in the pearl and moisten her naked shoulder. Matho
watched it fall.
He was carried away by ungovernable curiosity; and, like a child
laying his hand upon a strange fruit, he tremblingly and lightly
touched the top of her chest with the tip of his finger: the flesh,
which was somewhat cold, yielded with an elastic resistance.
This contact, though scarcely a sensible one, shook Matho to the very
depths of his nature. An uprising of his whole being urged him towards
her. He would fain have enveloped her, absorbed her, drunk her. His
bosom was panting, his teeth were chattering.
Taking her by the wrists he drew her gently to him, and then sat down
upon a cuirass beside the palm-tree bed which was covered with a
lion's skin. She was standing. He looked up at her, holding her thus
between his knees, and repeating:
"How beautiful you are! how beautiful you are!"
His eyes, which were continually fixed upon hers, pained her; and the
uncomfortableness, the repugnance increased in so acute a fashion that
Salammbo put a constraint upon herself not to cry out. The thought of
Schahabarim came back to her, and she resigned herself.
Matho still kept her little hands in his own; and from time to time,
in spite of the priest's command, she turned away her face and tried
to thrust him off by jerking her arms. He opened his nostrils the
better to breathe in the perfume which exhaled from her person. It was
a fresh, indefinable emanation, which nevertheless made him dizzy,
like the smoke from a perfuming-pan. She smelt of honey, pepper,
incense, roses, with another odour still.
But how was she thus with him in his tent, and at his disposal? Some
one no doubt had urged her. She had not come for the zaimph. His arms
fell, and he bent his head whelmed in sudden reverie.
To soften him Salammbo said to him in a plaintive voice:
"What have I done to you that you should desire my death?"
"Your death!"
She resumed:
"I saw you one evening by the light of my burning gardens amid fuming
cups and my slaughtered slaves, and your anger was so strong that you
bounded towards me and I was obliged to fly! Then terror entered into
Carthage. There were cries of the devastation of the towns, the
burning of the country-seats, the massacre of the soldiery; it was you
who had ruined them, it was you who had murdered them! I hate you!
Your very name gnaws me like remorse! You are execrated more than the
plague, and the Roman war! The provinces shudder at your fury, the
furrows are full of corpses! I have followed the traces of your fires
as though I were travelling behind Moloch!"
Matho leaped up; his heart was swelling with colossal pride; he was
raised to the stature of a god.
With quivering nostrils and clenched teeth she went on:
"As if your sacrilege were not enough, you came to me in my sleep
covered with the zaimph! Your words I did not understand; but I could
see that you wished to drag me to some terrible thing at the bottom of
an abyss."
Matho, writhing his arms, exclaimed:
"No! no! it was to give it to you! to restore it to you! It seemed to
me that the goddess had left her garment for you, and that it belonged
to you! In her temple or in your house, what does it matter? are you
not all-powerful, immaculate, radiant and beautiful even as Tanith?"
And with a look of boundless adoration he added:
"Unless perhaps you are Tanith?"
"I, Tanith!" said Salammbo to herself.
They left off speaking. The thunder rolled in the distance. Some sheep
bleated, frightened by the storm.
"Oh! come near!" he went on, "come near! fear nothing!
"Formerly I was only a soldier mingled with the common herd of the
Mercenaries, ay, and so meek that I used to carry wood on my back for
the others. Do I trouble myself about Carthage! The crowd of its
people move as though lost in the dust of your sandals, and all its
treasures, with the provinces, fleets, and islands, do not raise my
envy like the freshness of your lips and the turn of your shoulders.
But I wanted to throw down its walls that I might reach you to possess
you! Moreover, I was revenging myself in the meantime! At present I
crush men like shells, and I throw myself upon phalanxes; I put aside
the sarissae with my hands, I check the stallions by the nostrils; a
catapult would not kill me! Oh! if you knew how I think of you in the
midst of war! Sometimes the memory of a gesture or of a fold of your
garment suddenly seizes me and entwines me like a net! I perceive your
eyes in the flames of the phalaricas and on the gilding of the
shields! I hear your voice in the sounding of the cymbals. I turn
aside, but you are not there! and I plunge again into the battle!"
He raised his arms whereon his veins crossed one another like ivy on
the branches of a tree. Sweat flowed down his breast between his
square muscles; and his breathing shook his sides with his bronze
girdle all garnished with thongs hanging down to his knees, which were
firmer than marble. Salammbo, who was accustomed to eunuchs, yielded
to amazement at the strength of this man. It was the chastisement of
the goddess or the influence of Moloch in motion around her in the
five armies. She was overwhelmed with lassitude; and she listened in a
state of stupor to the intermittent shouts of the sentinels as they
answered one another.
The flames of the lamp kindled in the squalls of hot air. There came
at times broad lightning flashes; then the darkness increased; and she
could only see Matho's eyeballs like two coals in the night. However,
she felt that a fatality was surrounding her, that she had reached a
supreme and irrevocable moment, and making an effort she went up again
towards the zaimph and raised her hands to seize it.
"What are you doing?" exclaimed Matho.
"I am going back to Carthage," she placidly replied.
He advanced folding his arms and with so terrible a look that her
heels were immediately nailed, as it were, to the spot.
"Going back to Carthage!" He stammered, and, grinding his teeth,
repeated:
"Going back to Carthage! Ah! you came to take the zaimph, to conquer
me, and then disappear! No, no! you belong to me! and no one now shall
tear you from here! Oh! I have not forgotten the insolence of your
large tranquil eyes, and how you crushed me with the haughtiness of
your beauty! 'Tis my turn now! You are my captive, my slave, my
servant! Call, if you like, on your father and his army, the Ancients,
the rich, and your whole accursed people! I am the master of three
hundred thousand soldiers! I will go and seek them in Lusitania, in
the Gauls, and in the depths of the desert, and I will overthrow your
town and burn all its temples; the triremes shall float on the waves
of blood! I will not have a house, a stone, or a palm tree remaining!
And if men fail me I will draw the bears from the mountains and urge
on the lions! Seek not to fly or I kill you!"
Pale and with clenched fists he quivered like a harp whose strings are
about to burst. Suddenly sobs stifled him, and he sank down upon his
hams.
"Ah! forgive me! I am a scoundrel, and viler than scorpions, than mire
and dust! Just now while you were speaking your breath passed across
my face, and I rejoiced like a dying man who drinks lying flat on the
edge of a stream. Crush me, if only I feel your feet! curse me, if
only I hear your voice! Do not go! have pity! I love you! I love you!"
He was on his knees on the ground before her; and he encircled her
form with both his arms, his head thrown back, and his hands
wandering; the gold discs hanging from his ears gleamed upon his
bronzed neck; big tears rolled in his eyes like silver globes; he
sighed caressingly, and murmured vague words lighter than a breeze and
sweet as a kiss.
Salammbo was invaded by a weakness in which she lost all consciousness
of herself. Something at once inward and lofty, a command from the
gods, obliged her to yield herself; clouds uplifted her, and she fell
back swooning upon the bed amid the lion's hair. The zaimph fell, and
enveloped her; she could see Matho's face bending down above her
breast.
"Moloch, thou burnest me!" and the soldier's kisses, more devouring
than flames, covered her; she was as though swept away in a hurricane,
taken in the might of the sun.
He kissed all her fingers, her arms, her feet, and the long tresses of
her hair from one end to the other.
"Carry it off," he said, "what do I care? take me away with it! I
abandon the army! I renounce everything! Beyond Gades, twenty days'
journey into the sea, you come to an island covered with gold dust,
verdure, and birds. On the mountains large flowers filled with smoking
perfumes rock like eternal censers; in the citron trees, which are
higher than cedars, milk-coloured serpents cause the fruit to fall
upon the turf with the diamonds in their jaws; the air is so mild that
it keeps you from dying. Oh! I shall find it, you will see. We shall
live in crystal grottoes cut out at the foot of the hills. No one
dwells in it yet, or I shall become the king of the country."
He brushed the dust off her cothurni; he wanted her to put a quarter
of a pomegranate between her lips; he heaped up garments behind her
head to make a cushion for her. He sought for means to serve her, and
to humble himself, and he even spread the zaimph over her feet as if
it were a mere rug.
"Have you still," he said, "those little gazelle's horns on which your
necklaces hang? You will give them to me! I love them!" For he spoke
as if the war were finished, and joyful laughs broke from him. The
Mercenaries, Hamilcar, every obstacle had now disappeared. The moon
was gliding between two clouds. They could see it through an opening
in the tent. "Ah, what nights have I spent gazing at her! she seemed
to me like a veil that hid your face; you would look at me through
her; the memory of you was mingled with her beams; then I could no
longer distinguish you!" And with his head between her breasts he wept
copiously.
"And this," she thought, "is the formidable man who makes Carthage
tremble!"
He fell asleep. Then disengaging herself from his arm she put one foot
to the ground, and she perceived that her chainlet was broken.
The maidens of the great families were accustomed to respect these
shackles as something that was almost religious, and Salammbo,
blushing, rolled the two pieces of the golden chain around her ankles.
Carthage, Megara, her house, her room, and the country that she had
passed through, whirled in tumultuous yet distinct images through her
memory. But an abyss had yawned and thrown them far back to an
infinite distance from her.
The storm was departing; drops of water splashing rarely, one by one,
made the tent-roof shake.
Matho slept like a drunken man, stretched on his side, and with one
arm over the edge of the couch. His band of pearls was raised
somewhat, and uncovered his brow; his teeth were parted in a smile;
they shone through his black beard, and there was a silent and almost
outrageous gaiety in his half-closed eyelids.
Salammbo looked at him motionless, her head bent and her hands
crossed.
A dagger was displayed on the table of cypress-wood at the head of the
bed; the sight of the gleaming blade fired her with a sanguinary
desire. Mournful voices lingered at a distance in the shade, and like
a chorus of geniuses urged her on. She approached it; she seized the
steel by the handle. At the rustling of her dress Matho half opened
his eyes, putting forth his mouth upon her hands, and the dagger fell.
Shouts arose; a terrible light flashed behind the canvas. Matho raised
the latter; they perceived the camp of the Libyans enveloped in great
flames.
Their reed huts were burning, and the twisting stems burst in the
smoke and flew off like arrows; black shadows ran about distractedly
on the red horizon. They could hear the shrieks of those who were in
the huts; the elephants, oxen, and horses plunged in the midst of the
crowd crushing it together with the stores and baggage that were being
rescued from the fire. Trumpets sounded. There were calls of "Matho!
Matho!" Some people at the door tried to get in.
"Come along! Hamilcar is burning the camp of Autaritus!"
He made a spring. She found herself quite alone.
Then she examined the zaimph; and when she had viewed it well she was
surprised that she had not the happiness which she had once imagined
to herself. She stood with melancholy before her accomplished dream.
But the lower part of the tent was raised, and a monstrous form
appeared. Salammbo could at first distinguish only the two eyes and a
long white beard which hung down to the ground; for the rest of the
body, which was cumbered with the rags of a tawny garment, trailed
along the earth; and with every forward movement the hands passed into
the beard and then fell again. Crawling in this way it reached her
feet, and Salammbo recognised the aged Gisco.
In fact, the Mercenaries had broken the legs of the captive Ancients
with a brass bar to prevent them from taking to flight; and they were
all rotting pell-mell in a pit in the midst of filth. But the
sturdiest of them raised themselves and shouted when they heard the
noise of platters, and it was in this way that Gisco had seen
Salammbo. He had guessed that she was a Carthaginian woman by the
little balls of sandastrum flapping against her cothurni; and having a
presentiment of an important mystery he had succeeded, with the
assistance of his companions, in getting out of the pit; then with
elbows and hands he had dragged himself twenty paces further on as far
as Matho's tent. Two voices were speaking within it. He had listened
outside and had heard everything.
"It is you!" she said at last, almost terrified.
"Yes, it is I!" he replied, raising himself on his wrists. "They think
me dead, do they not?"
She bent her head. He resumed:
"Ah! why have the Baals not granted me this mercy!" He approached so
close he was touching her. "They would have spared me the pain of
cursing you!"
Salammbo sprang quickly back, so much afraid was she of this unclean
being, who was as hideous as a larva and nearly as terrible as a
phantom.
"I am nearly one hundred years old," he said. "I have seen Agathocles;
I have seen Regulus and the eagles of the Romans passing over the
harvests of the Punic fields! I have seen all the terrors of battles
and the sea encumbered with the wrecks of our fleets! Barbarians whom
I used to command have chained my four limbs like a slave that has
committed murder. My companions are dying around me, one after the
other; the odour of their corpses awakes me in the night; I drive away
the birds that come to peck out their eyes; and yet not for a single
day have I despaired of Carthage! Though I had seen all the armies of
the earth against her, and the flames of the siege overtop the height
of the temples, I should have still believed in her eternity! But now
all is over! all is lost! The gods execrate her! A curse upon you who
have quickened her ruin by your disgrace!"
She opened her lips.
"Ah! I was there!" he cried. "I heard you gurgling with love like a
prostitute; then he told you of his desire, and you allowed him to
kiss your hands! But if the frenzy of your unchastity urged you to it,
you should at least have done as do the fallow deer, which hide
themselves in their copulations, and not have displayed your shame
beneath your father's very eyes!"
"What?" she said.
"Ah! you did not know that the two entrenchments are sixty cubits from
each other and that your Matho, in the excess of his pride, has posted
himself just in front of Hamilcar. Your father is there behind you;
and could I climb the path which leads to the platform, I should cry
to him: 'Come and see your daughter in the Barbarian's arms! She has
put on the garment of the goddess to please him; and in yielding her
body to him she surrenders with the glory of your name the majesty of
the gods, the vengeance of her country, even the safety of Carthage!'"
The motion of his toothless mouth moved his beard throughout its
length; his eyes were riveted upon her and devoured her; panting in
the dust he repeated:
"Ah! sacrilegious one! May you be accursed! accursed! accursed!"
Salammbo had drawn back the canvas; she held it raised at arm's
length, and without answering him she looked in the direction of
Hamilcar.
"It is this way, is it not?" she said.
"What matters it to you? Turn away! Begone! Rather crush your face
against the earth! It is a holy spot which would be polluted by your
gaze!"
She threw the zaimph about her waist, and quickly picked up her veils,
mantle, and scarf. "I hasten thither!" she cried; and making her
escape Salammbo disappeared.
At first she walked through the darkness without meeting any one, for
all were betaking themselves to the fire; the uproar was increasing
and great flames purpled the sky behind; a long terrace stopped her.
She turned round to right and left at random, seeking for a ladder, a
rope, a stone, something in short to assist her. She was afraid of
Gisco, and it seemed to her that shouts and footsteps were pursuing
her. Day was beginning to break. She perceived a path in the thickness
of the entrenchment. She took the hem of her robe, which impeded her,
in her teeth, and in three bounds she was on the platform.
A sonorous shout burst forth beneath her in the shade, the same which
she had heard at the foot of the galley staircase, and leaning over
she recognised Schahabarim's man with his coupled horses.
He had wandered all night between the two entrenchments; then
disquieted by the fire, he had gone back again trying to see what was
passing in Matho's camp; and, knowing that this spot was nearest to
his tent, he had not stirred from it, in obedience to the priest's
command.
He stood up on one of the horses. Salammbo let herself slide down to
him; and they fled at full gallop, circling the Punic camp in search
of a gate.
Matho had re-entered his tent. The smoky lamp gave but little light,
and he also believed that Salammbo was asleep. Then he delicately
touched the lion's skin on the palm-tree bed. He called but she did
not answer; he quickly tore away a strip of the canvas to let in some
light; the zaimph was gone.
The earth trembled beneath thronging feet. Shouts, neighings, and
clashing of armour rose in the air, and clarion flourishes sounded the
charge. It was as though a hurricane were whirling around him.
Immoderate frenzy made him leap upon his arms, and he dashed outside.
The long files of the Barbarians were descending the mountain at a
run, and the Punic squares were advancing against them with a heavy
and regular oscillation. The mist, rent by the rays of the sun, formed
little rocking clouds which as they rose gradually discovered
standards, helmets, and points of pikes. Beneath the rapid evolutions
portions of the earth which were still in the shadow seemed to be
displaced bodily; in other places it looked as if huge torrents were
crossing one another, while thorny masses stood motionless between
them. Matho could distinguish the captains, soldiers, heralds, and
even the serving-men, who were mounted on asses in the rear. But
instead of maintaining his position in order to cover the foot-
soldiers, Narr' Havas turned abruptly to the right, as though he
wished himself to be crushed by Hamilcar.
His horsemen outstripped the elephants, which were slackening their
speed; and all the horses, stretching out their unbridled heads,
galloped at so furious a rate that their bellies seemed to graze the
earth. Then suddenly Narr' Havas went resolutely up to a sentry. He
threw away his sword, lance, and javelins, and disappeared among the
Carthaginians.
The king of the Numidians reached Hamilcar's tent, and pointing to his
men, who were standing still at a distance, he said:
"Barca! I bring them to you. They are yours."
Then he prostrated himself in token of bondage, and to prove his
fidelity recalled all his conduct from the beginning of the war.
First, he had prevented the siege of Carthage and the massacre of the
captives; then he had taken no advantage of the victory over Hanno
after the defeat at Utica. As to the Tyrian towns, they were on the
frontiers of his kingdom. Finally he had not taken part in the battle
of the Macaras; and he had even expressly absented himself in order to
evade the obligation of fighting against the Suffet.
Narr' Havas had in fact wished to aggrandise himself by encroachments
upon the Punic provinces, and had alternately assisted and forsaken
the Mercenaries according to the chances of victory. But seeing that
Hamilcar would ultimately prove the stronger, he had gone over to him;
and in his desertion there was perhaps something of a grudge against
Matho, whether on account of the command or of his former love.
The Suffet listened without interrupting him. The man who thus
presented himself with an army where vengeance was his due was not an
auxiliary to be despised; Hamilcar at once divined the utility of such
an alliance in his great projects. With the Numidians he would get rid
of the Libyans. Then he would draw off the West to the conquest of
Iberia; and, without asking Narr' Havas why he had not come sooner, or
noticing any of his lies, he kissed him, striking his breast thrice
against his own.
It was to bring matters to an end and in despair that he had fired the
camp of the Libyans. This army came to him like a relief from the
gods; dissembling his joy he replied:
"May the Baals favour you! I do not know what the Republic will do for
you, but Hamilcar is not ungrateful."
The tumult increased; some captains entered. He was arming himself as
he spoke.
"Come, return! You will use your horsemen to beat down their infantry
between your elephants and mine. Courage! exterminate them!"
And Narr' Havas was rushing away when Salammbo appeared.
She leaped down quickly from her horse. She opened her ample cloak and
spreading out her arms displayed the zaimph.
The leathern tent, which was raised at the corners, left visible the
entire circuit of the mountain with its thronging soldiers, and as it
was in the centre Salammbo could be seen on all sides. An immense
shouting burst forth, a long cry of triumph and hope. Those who were
marching stopped; the dying leaned on their elbows and turned round to
bless her. All the Barbarians knew now that she had recovered the
zaimph; they saw her or believed that they saw her from a distance;
and other cries, but those of rage and vengeance, resounded in spite
of the plaudits of the Carthaginians. Thus did the five armies in
tiers upon the mountain stamp and shriek around Salammbo.
Hamilcar, who was unable to speak, nodded her his thanks. His eyes
were directed alternately upon the zaimph and upon her, and he noticed
that her chainlet was broken. Then he shivered, being seized with a
terrible suspicion. But soon recovering his impassibility he looked
sideways at Narr' Havas without turning his face.
The king of the Numidians held himself apart in a discreet attitude;
on his forehead he bore a little of the dust which he had touched when
prostrating himself. At last the Suffet advanced towards him with a
look full of gravity.
"As a reward for the services which you have rendered me, Narr' Havas,
I give you my daughter. Be my son," he added, "and defend your
father!"
Narr' Havas gave a great gesture of surprise; then he threw himself
upon Hamilcar's hands and covered them with kisses.
Salammbo, calm as a statue, did not seem to understand. She blushed a
little as she cast down her eyelids, and her long curved lashes made
shadows upon her cheeks.
Hamilcar wished to unite them immediately in indissoluble betrothal. A
lance was placed in Salammbo's hands and by her offered to Narr'
Havas; their thumbs were tied together with a thong of ox-leather;
then corn was poured upon their heads, and the grains that fell around
them rang like rebounding hail.
