the sea breeze, shone in the sunlight with its colours, its gems, and
the figures of its gods. Matho bore it thus across the whole plain as
far as the soldiers' tents, and the people on the walls watched the
fortune of Carthage depart.

CHAPTER VI

HANNO

"I ought to have carried her off!" Matho said in the evening to
Spendius. "I should have seized her, and torn her from her house! No one
would have dared to touch me!"

Spendius was not listening to him. Stretched on his back he was taking
delicious rest beside a large jar filled with honey-coloured water, into
which he would dip his head from time to time in order to drink more
copiously.

Matho resumed:

"What is to be done? How can we re-enter Carthage?"

"I do not know," said Spendius.

Such impassibility exasperated Matho and he exclaimed:

"Why! the fault is yours! You carry me away, and then you forsake me,
coward that you are! Why, pray, should I obey you? Do you think that you
are my master? Ah! you prostituter, you slave, you son of a slave!" He
ground his teeth and raised his broad hand above Spendius.

The Greek did not reply. An earthen lamp was burning gently against the
tent-pole, where the zaimph shone amid the hanging panoply. Suddenly
Matho put on his cothurni, buckled on his brazen jacket of mail, and
took his helmet.

"Where are you going?" asked Spendius.

"I am returning! Let me alone! I will bring her back! And if they show
themselves I will crush them like vipers! I will put her to death,
Spendius! Yes," he repeated, "I will kill her! You shall see, I will
kill her!"

But Spendius, who was listening eagerly, snatched up the zaimph abruptly
and threw it into a corner, heaping up fleeces above it. A murmuring of
voices was heard, torches gleamed, and Narr' Havas entered, followed by
about twenty men.

They wore white woollen cloaks, long daggers, copper necklaces, wooden
earrings, and boots of hyena skin; and standing on the threshold they
leaned upon their lances like herdsmen resting themselves. Narr' Havas
was the handsomest of all; his slender arms were bound with straps
ornamented with pearls. The golden circlet which fastened his ample
garment about his head held an ostrich feather which hung down behind
his shoulder; his teeth were displayed in a continual smile; his eyes
seemed sharpened like arrows, and there was something observant and airy
about his whole demeanour.

He declared that he had come to join the Mer