d. One morning the sentries perceived that
they were all gone.

At last some members of the Great Council arrived at a decision. They
came to the camp without necklaces or girdles, and in open sandals
like neighbours. They walked at a quiet pace, waving salutations to
the captains, or stopped to speak to the soldiers, saying that all was
finished and that justice was about to be done to their claims.

Many of them saw a camp of Mercenaries for the first time. Instead of
the confusion which they had pictured to themselves, there prevailed
everywhere terrible silence and order. A grassy rampart formed a lofty
wall round the army immovable by the shock of catapults. The ground in
the streets was sprinkled with fresh water; through the holes in the
tents they could perceive tawny eyeballs gleaming in the shade. The
piles of pikes and hanging panoplies dazzled them like mirrors. They
conversed in low tones. They were afraid of upsetting something with
their long robes.

The soldiers requested provisions, undertaking to pay for them out of
the money that was due.

Oxen, sheep, guinea fowl, fruit and lupins were sent to them, with
smoked scombri, that excellent scombri which Carthage dispatched to
every port. But they walked scornfully around the magnificent cattle,
and disparaging what they coveted, offered the worth of a pigeon for
a ram, or the price of a pomegranate for three goats. The Eaters of
Uncleanness came forward as arbitrators, and declared that they were
being duped. Then they drew their swords with threats to slay.

Commissaries of the Great Council wrote down the number of years for
which pay was due to each soldier. But it was no longer possible to know
how many Mercenaries had been engaged, and the Ancients were dismayed at
the enormous sum which they would have to pay. The reserve of silphium
must be sold, and the trading towns taxed; the Mercenaries would grow
impatient; Tunis was already with them; and the rich, stunned by Hanno's
ragings and his colleague's reproaches, urged any citizens who might
know a Barbarian to go to see him immediately in order to win back
his friendship, and to speak him fair. Such a show of confidence would
soothe them.

Traders, scribes, workers in the arsenal, and whole families visited the
Barbarians.

The soldiers allowed all the Carthaginians to come in, but by a single
passage so narrow that four men abreast jostled one another in it.
Spendius, standing against the