"Oh no!" replied the slave. "You released me from the ergastulum. I am
yours! you are my master! command me!"

Matho walked round the terrace brushing against the walls. He strained
his ears at every step, glancing down into the silent apartments through
the spaces between the gilded reeds. At last he stopped with a look of
despair.

"Listen!" said the slave to him. "Oh! do not despise me for my
feebleness! I have lived in the palace. I can wind like a viper through
the walls. Come! in the Ancestor's Chamber there is an ingot of gold
beneath every flagstone; an underground path leads to their tombs."

"Well! what matters it?" said Matho.

Spendius was silent.

They were on the terrace. A huge mass of shadow stretched before them,
appearing as if it contained vague accumulations, like the gigantic
billows of a black and petrified ocean.

But a luminous bar rose towards the East; far below, on the left, the
canals of Megara were beginning to stripe the verdure of the gardens
with their windings of white. The conical roofs of the heptagonal
temples, the staircases, terraces, and ramparts were being carved by
degrees upon the paleness of the dawn; and a girdle of white foam rocked
around the Carthaginian peninsula, while the emerald sea appeared as if
it were curdled in the freshness of the morning. Then as the rosy sky
grew larger, the lofty houses, bending over the sloping soil, reared
and massed themselves like a herd of black goats coming down from the
mountains. The deserted streets lengthened; the palm-trees that topped
the walls here and there were motionless; the brimming cisterns seemed
like silver bucklers lost in the courts; the beacon on the promontory of
Hermaeum was beginning to grow pale. The horses of Eschmoun, on the very
summit of the Acropolis in the cypress wood, feeling that the light was
coming, placed their hoofs on the marble parapet, and neighed towards
the sun.

It appeared, and Spendius raised his arms with a cry.

Everything stirred in a diffusion of red, for the god, as if he were
rending himself, now poured full-rayed upon Carthage the golden rain
of his veins. The beaks of the galleys sparkled, the roof of Khamon
appeared to be all in flames, while far within the temples, whose
doors were opening, glimmerings of light could be seen. Large chariots,
arriving from the country, rolled their wheels over the flagstones
in the streets. Dromedaries, baggage-laden, came down the ramps.
Money