provisions were soon scarce. They grew
disheartened. Numerous hordes went away, but the crowd was so great that
the loss was not apparent.

The best of them tried to dig mines, but the earth, being badly
supported, fell in. They began again in other places, but Hamilcar
always guessed the direction that they were taking by holding his ear
against a bronze shield. He bored counter-mines beneath the path along
which the wooden towers were to move, and when they were pushed forward
they sank into the holes.

At last all recognised that the town was impregnable, unless a long
terrace was raised to the same height as the walls, so as to enable them
to fight on the same level. The top of it should be paved so that
the machines might be rolled along. Then Carthage would find it quite
impossible to resist.

The town was beginning to suffer from thirst. The water which was worth
two kesitahs the bath at the opening of the siege was now sold for
a shekel of silver; the stores of meat and corn were also becoming
exhausted; there was a dread of famine, and some even began to speak of
useless mouths, which terrified every one.

From the square of Khamon to the temple of Melkarth the streets were
cumbered with corpses; and, as it was the end of the summer, the
combatants were annoyed by great black flies. Old men carried off the
wounded, and the devout continued the fictitious funerals for their
relatives and friends who had died far away during the war. Waxen
statues with clothes and hair were displayed across the gates. They
melted in the heat of the tapers burning beside them; the paint flowed
down upon their shoulders, and tears streamed over the faces of the
living, as they chanted mournful songs beside them. The crowd meanwhile
ran to and fro; armed bands passed; captains shouted orders, while the
shock of the rams beating against the rampart was constantly heard.

The temperature became so heavy that the bodies swelled and would no
longer fit into the coffins. They were burned in the centre of the
courts. But the fires, being too much confined, kindled the neighbouring
walls, and long flames suddenly burst from the houses like blood
spurting from an artery. Thus Moloch was in possession of Carthage; he
clasped the ramparts, he rolled through the streets, he devoured the
very corpses.

Men wearing cloaks made of collected rags in token of despair, stationed
themselves at the corners of the cross-ways. They declaimed agai