he could see himself pierced by a thousand swords, decapitated, dead.
Meanwhile he was being called for; thirty thousand men would follow him;
he was seized with fury against himself; he fell back upon the hope of
victory; it was full of bliss, and he believed himself more intrepid
than Epaminondas. He smeared his cheeks with vermilion in order to
conceal his paleness, then he buckled on his knemids and his cuirass,
swallowed a patera of pure wine, and ran after his troops, who were
hastening towards those from Utica.

They united so rapidly that the Suffet had not time to draw up his
men in battle array. By degrees he slackened his speed. The elephants
stopped; they rocked their heavy heads with their chargings of ostrich
feathers, striking their shoulders the while with their trunks.

Behind the intervals between them might be seen the cohorts of the
velites, and further on the great helmets of the Clinabarians,
with steel heads glancing in the sun, cuirasses, plumes, and waving
standards. But the Carthaginian army, which amounted to eleven thousand
three hundred and ninety-six men, seemed scarcely to contain them, for
it formed an oblong, narrow at the sides and pressed back upon itself.

Seeing them so weak, the Barbarians, who were thrice as numerous, were
seized with extravagant joy. Hamilcar was not to be seen. Perhaps he
had remained down yonder? Moreover what did it matter? The disdain
which they felt for these traders strengthened their courage; and before
Spendius could command a manoeuvre they had all understood it, and
already executed it.

They were deployed in a long, straight line, overlapping the wings of
the Punic army in order to completely encompass it. But when there
was an interval of only three hundred paces between the armies, the
elephants turned round instead of advancing; then the Clinabarians were
seen to face about and follow them; and the surprise of the Mercenaries
increased when they saw the archers running to join them. So the
Carthaginians were afraid, they were fleeing! A tremendous hooting broke
out from among the Barbarian troops, and Spendius exclaimed from the top
of his dromedary: "Ah! I knew it! Forward! forward!"

Then javelins, darts, and sling-bullets burst forth simultaneously. The
elephants feeling their croups stung by the arrows began to gallop more
quickly; a great dust enveloped them, and they vanished like shadows in
a cloud.

But from the distance there came a l