tes the whole town was silent as a great
tomb. The soldiers as they leaned on their lances were thinking, and the
others in the houses were sighing.

At sunset the army went out by the western gate; but instead of taking
the road to Tunis or making for the mountains in the direction of Utica,
they continued their march along the edge of the sea; and they soon
reached the Lagoon, where round spaces quite whitened with salt
glittered like gigantic silver dishes forgotten on the shore.

Then the pools of water multiplied. The ground gradually became softer,
and the feet sank in it. Hamilcar did not turn back. He went on still
at their head; and his horse, which was yellow-spotted like a dragon,
advanced into the mire flinging froth around him, and with great
straining of the loins. Night--a moonless light--fell. A few cried out
that they were about to perish; he snatched their arms from them, and
gave them to the serving-men. Nevertheless the mud became deeper and
deeper. Some had to mount the beasts of burden; others clung to the
horses' tails; the sturdy pulled the weak, and the Ligurian corps drove
on the infantry with the points of their pikes. The darkness increased.
They had lost their way. All stopped.

Then some of the Suffet's slaves went on ahead to look for the buoys
which had been placed at intervals by his order. They shouted through
the darkness, and the army followed them at a distance.

At last they felt the resistance of the ground. Then a whitish curve
became dimly visible, and they found themselves on the bank of the
Macaras. In spite of the cold no fires were lighted.

In the middle of the night squalls of wind arose. Hamilcar had the
soldiers roused, but not a trumpet was sounded: their captain tapped
them softly on the shoulder.

A man of lofty stature went down into the water. It did not come up to
his girdle; it was possible to cross.

The Suffet ordered thirty-two of the elephants to be posted in the river
a hundred paces further on, while the others, lower down, would check
the lines of men that were carried away by the current; and holding
their weapons above their heads they all crossed the Macaras as though
between two walls. He had noticed that the western wind had driven the
sand so as to obstruct the river and form a natural causeway across it.

He was now on the left bank in front of Utica, and in a vast plain, the
latter being advantageous for his elephants, which formed the streng