right and left. Then he returned to her and demanded
something to eat. The old woman shook her head, and murmured with her
eyes fixed upon the charcoal:

"I was the hand. The ten fingers are cut off. The mouth eats no more."

The slave showed her a handful of gold pieces. She rushed upon them, but
soon resumed her immobility.

At last he placed a dagger which he had in his girdle beneath her
throat. Then, trembling, she went and raised a large stone, and brought
back an amphora of wine with fish from Hippo-Zarytus preserved in honey.

Salammbo turned away from this unclean food, and fell asleep on the
horses' caparisons which were spread in a corner of the hall.

He awoke her before daylight.

The dog was howling. The slave went up to it quietly, and struck off
its head with a single blow of his dagger. Then he rubbed the horses'
nostrils with blood to revive them. The old woman cast a malediction at
him from behind. Salammbo perceived this, and pressed the amulet which
she wore above her heart.

They resumed their journey.

From time to time she asked whether they would not arrive soon. The road
undulated over little hills. Nothing was to be heard but the grating of
the grasshoppers. The sun heated the yellowed grass; the ground was all
chinked with crevices which in dividing formed, as it were, monstrous
paving-stones. Sometimes a viper passed, or eagles flew by; the slave
still continued running. Salammbo mused beneath her veils, and in spite
of the heat did not lay them aside through fear of soiling her beautiful
garments.

At regular distances stood towers built by the Carthaginians for the
purpose of keeping watch upon the tribes. They entered these for the
sake of the shade, and then set out again.

For prudence sake they had made a wide detour the day before. But they
met with no one just now; the region being a sterile one, the Barbarians
had not passed that way.

Gradually the devastation began again. Sometimes a piece of mosaic would
be displayed in the centre of a field, the sole remnant of a vanished
mansion; and the leafless olive trees looked at a distance like large
bushes of thorns. They passed through a town in which houses were burnt
to the ground. Human skeletons might be seen along the walls. There were
some, too, of dromedaries and mules. Half-gnawed carrion blocked the
streets.

Night fell. The sky was lowering and cloudy.

They ascended again for two hours in a westerly direction,