In the centre of the tent, on a mat on which the captains were about to sit down, there was a dish of smoking gourds.The Barbarians fastened their eyes upon it with a shivering in all their limbs, and tears came to their eyelids; nevertheless they restrained themselves.
Hamilcar turned away to speak to some one.Then they all flung themselves upon it, flat on the ground.Their faces were soaked in the fat, and the noise of their deglutition was mingled with the sobs of joy which they uttered.Through astonishment, doubtless, rather than pity, they were allowed to finish the mess.Then when they had risen Hamilcar with a sign commanded the man who bore the sword-belt to speak.Spendius was afraid; he stammered.
Hamilcar, while listening to him, kept turning round on his finger a big gold ring, the same which had stamped the seal of Carthage upon the sword-belt.He let it fall to the ground; Spendius immediately picked it up; his servile habits came back to him in the presence of his master.The others quivered with indignation at such baseness.
But the Greek raised his voice and spoke for a long time in rapid, insidious, and even violent fashion, setting forth the crimes of Hanno, whom he knew to be Barca's enemy, and striving to move Hamilcar's pity by the details of their miseries and the recollection of their devotion; in the end he became forgetful of himself, being carried away by the warmth of his temper.
Hamilcar replied that he accepted their excuses.Peace, then, was about to be concluded, and now it would be a definitive one! But he required that ten Mercenaries, chosen by himself, should be delivered up to him without weapons or tunics.
They had not expected such clemency; Spendius exclaimed: "Ah! twenty if you wish, master!""No! ten will suffice," replied Hamilcar quietly.
They were sent out of the tent to deliberate.As soon as they were alone, Autaritus protested against the sacrifice of their companions, and Zarxas said to Spendius:
"Why did you not kill him? his sword was there beside you!""Him!" said Spendius."Him! him!" he repeated several times, as though the thing had been impossible, and Hamilcar were an immortal.
They were so overwhelmed with weariness that they stretched themselves on their backs on the ground, not knowing at what resolution to arrive.
Spendius urged them to yield.At last they consented, and went in again.
Then the Suffet put his hand into the hands of the ten Barbarians in turn, and pressed their thumbs; then he rubbed it on his garment, for their viscous skin gave a rude, soft impression to the touch, a greasy tingling which induced horripilation.Afterwards he said to them:
"You are really all the chiefs of the Barbarians, and you have sworn for them?""Yes!" they replied.
"Without constraint, from the bottom of your souls, with the intention of fulfilling your promises?"They assured him that they were returning to the rest in order to fulfil them.
"Well!" rejoined the Suffet, "in accordance with the convention concluded between myself, Barca, and the ambassadors of the Mercenaries, it is you whom I choose and shall keep!"Spendius fell swooning upon the mat.The Barbarians, as though abandoning him, pressed close together; and there was not a word, not a complaint.
Their companions, who were waiting for them, not seeing them return, believed themselves betrayed.The envoys had no doubt given themselves up to the Suffet.
They waited for two days longer; then on the morning of the third, their resolution was taken.With ropes, picks, and arrows, arranged like rungs between strips of canvas, they succeeded in scaling the rocks; and leaving the weakest, about three thousand in number, behind them, they began their march to rejoin the army at Tunis.
Above the gorge there stretched a meadow thinly sown with shrubs; the Barbarians devoured the buds.Afterwards they found a field of beans;and everything disappeared as though a cloud of grasshoppers had passed that way.Three hours later they reached a second plateau bordered by a belt of green hills.
Among the undulations of these hillocks, silvery sheaves shone at intervals from one another; the Barbarians, who were dazzled by the sun, could perceive confusedly below great black masses supporting them; these rose, as though they were expanding.They were lances in towers on elephants terribly armed.
Besides the spears on their breasts, the bodkin tusks, the brass plates which covered their sides, and the daggers fastened to their knee-caps, they had at the extremity of their tusks a leathern bracelet, in which the handle of a broad cutlass was inserted; they had set out simultaneously from the back part of the plain, and were advancing on both sides in parallel lines.
The Barbarians were frozen with a nameless terror.They did not even try to flee.They already found themselves surrounded.
The elephants entered into this mass of men; and the spurs on their breasts divided it, the lances on their tusks upturned it like ploughshares; they cut, hewed, and hacked with the scythes on their trunks; the towers, which were full of phalaricas, looked like volcanoes on the march; nothing could be distinguished but a large heap, whereon human flesh, pieces of brass and blood made white spots, grey sheets and red fuses.The horrible animals dug out black furrows as they passed through the midst of it all.
The fiercest was driven by a Numidian who was crowned with a diadem of plumes.He hurled javelins with frightful quickness, giving at intervals a long shrill whistle.The great beasts, docile as dogs, kept an eye on him during the carnage.
The circle of them narrowed by degrees; the weakened Barbarians offered no resistance; the elephants were soon in the centre of the plain.They lacked space; they thronged half-rearing together, and their tusks clashed against one another.Suddenly Narr' Havas quieted them, and wheeling round they trotted back to the hills.
