ng to relieve them. He showed the unrolled papyrus: "Look at
it! read! see their promises! I do not lie."

Dogs were straying about with their black muzzles all plastered with
red. The men's uncovered heads were growing hot in the burning sun.
A nauseous smell exhaled from the badly buried corpses. Some even
projected from the earth as far as the waist. Spendius called them to
witness what he was saying; then he raised his fists in the direction of
Hamilcar.

Matho, moreover, was watching him, and to cover his cowardice he
displayed an anger by which he gradually found himself carried away.
Devoting himself to the gods he heaped curses upon the Carthaginians.
The torture of the captives was child's play. Why spare them, and be
ever dragging this useless cattle after one? "No! we must put an end to
it! their designs are known! a single one might ruin us! no pity! Those
who are worthy will be known by the speed of their legs and the force of
their blows."

Then they turned again upon the captives. Several were still in the last
throes; they were finished by the thrust of a heel in the mouth or a
stab with the point of a javelin.

Then they thought of Gisco. Nowhere could he be seen; they were
disturbed with anxiety. They wished at once to convince themselves of
his death and to participate in it. At last three Samnite shepherds
discovered him at a distance of fifteen paces from the spot where
Matho's tent lately stood. They recognised him by his long beard and
they called the rest.

Stretched on his back, his arms against his hips, and his knees close
together, he looked like a dead man laid out for the tomb. Nevertheless
his wasted sides rose and fell, and his eyes, wide-opened in his pallid
face, gazed in a continuous and intolerable fashion.

The Barbarians looked at him at first with great astonishment. Since he
had been living in the pit he had been almost forgotten; rendered uneasy
by old memories they stood at a distance and did not venture to raise
their hands against him.

But those who were behind were murmuring and pressed forward when a
Garamantian passed through the crowd; he was brandishing a sickle; all
understood his thought; their faces purpled, and smitten with shame they
shrieked:

"Yes! yes!"

The man with the curved steel approached Gisco. He took his head, and,
resting it upon his knee, sawed it off with rapid strokes; it fell; to
great jets of blood made a hole in the dust. Zarxas leaped