lead.
A cloud of brown dust stretching perpendicularly would speed whirling
along; the palm trees would bend and the sky disappear, while stones
would be heard rebounding on the animals' cruppers; and the Gaul, his
lips glued against the holes in his tent, would gasp with exhaustion and
melancholy. His thoughts would be of the scent of the pastures on autumn
mornings, of snowflakes, or of the bellowing of the urus lost in the
fog, and closing his eyelids he would in imagination behold the fires in
long, straw-roofed cottages flickering on the marshes in the depths of
the woods.

Others regretted their native lands as well as he, even though they
might not be so far away. Indeed the Carthaginian captives could
distinguish the velaria spread over the courtyards of their houses,
beyond the gulf on the slopes of Byrsa. But sentries marched round them
continually. They were all fastened to a common chain. Each one wore an
iron carcanet, and the crowd was never weary of coming to gaze at them.
The women would show their little children the handsome robes hanging in
tatters on their wasted limbs.

Whenever Autaritus looked at Gisco he was seized with rage at the
recollection of the insult that he had received, and he would have
killed him but for the oath which he had taken to Narr' Havas. Then
he would go back into his tent and drink a mixture of barley and cumin
until he swooned away from intoxication,--to awake afterwards in broad
daylight consumed with horrible thirst.

Matho, meanwhile, was besieging Hippo-Zarytus. But the town was
protected by a lake, communicating with the sea. It had three lines of
circumvallation, and upon the heights which surrounded it there
extended a wall fortified with towers. He had never commanded in such an
enterprise before. Moreover, he was beset with thoughts of Salammbo, and
he raved in the delight of her beauty as in the sweetness of a vengeance
that transported him with pride. He felt an acrid, frenzied, permanent
want to see her again. He even thought of presenting himself as the
bearer of a flag of truce, in the hope that once within Carthage he
might make his way to her. Often he would cause the assault to be
sounded and waiting for nothing rush upon the mole which it was sought
to construct in the sea. He would snatch up the stones with his hands,
overturn, strike, and deal sword-thrusts everywhere. The Barbarians
would dash on pell-mell; the ladders would break with a loud crash,