-changers raised the pent-houses of their shops at the cross ways,
storks took to flight, white sails fluttered. In the wood of Tanith
might be heard the tabourines of the sacred courtesans, and the furnaces
for baking the clay coffins were beginning to smoke on the Mappalian
point.

Spendius leaned over the terrace; his teeth chattered and he repeated:

"Ah! yes--yes--master! I understand why you scorned the pillage of the
house just now."

Matho was as if he had just been awaked by the hissing of his voice, and
did not seem to understand. Spendius resumed:

"Ah! what riches! and the men who possess them have not even the steel
to defend them!"

Then, pointing with his right arm outstretched to some of the populace
who were crawling on the sand outside the mole to look for gold dust:

"See!" he said to him, "the Republic is like these wretches: bending on
the brink of the ocean, she buries her greedy arms in every shore, and
the noise of the billows so fills her ear that she cannot hear behind
her the tread of a master's heel!"

He drew Matho to quite the other end of the terrace, and showed him the
garden, wherein the soldiers' swords, hanging on the trees, were like
mirrors in the sun.

"But here there are strong men whose hatred is roused! and nothing binds
them to Carthage, neither families, oaths nor gods!"

Matho remained leaning against the wall; Spendius came close, and
continued in a low voice:

"Do you understand me, soldier? We should walk purple-clad like satraps.
We should bathe in perfumes; and I should in turn have slaves! Are you
not weary of sleeping on hard ground, of drinking the vinegar of the
camps, and of continually hearing the trumpet? But you will rest later,
will you not? When they pull off your cuirass to cast your corpse to
the vultures! or perhaps blind, lame, and weak you will go, leaning on
a stick, from door to door to tell of your youth to pickle-sellers and
little children. Remember all the injustice of your chiefs, the campings
in the snow, the marchings in the sun, the tyrannies of discipline, and
the everlasting menace of the cross! And after all this misery they have
given you a necklace of honour, as they hang a girdle of bells round
the breast of an ass to deafen it on its journey, and prevent it from
feeling fatigue. A man like you, braver than Pyrrhus! If only you had
wished it! Ah! how happy will you be in large cool halls, with the sound
of lyres, lying on flowers