re seen on the mountain of the Hot Springs. Then
so deep was the despair that many people, especially women, flung
themselves headlong from the top of the Acropolis.

Hamilcar's designs were not known. He lived alone in his tent with
none near him but a young boy, and no one ever ate with them, not even
excepting Narr' Havas. Nevertheless he showed great deference to the
latter after Hanno's defeat; but the king of the Numidians had too great
an interest in becoming his son not to distrust him.

This inertness veiled skilful manoeuvres. Hamilcar seduced the heads of
the villages by all sorts of artifices; and the Mercenaries were hunted,
repulsed, and enclosed like wild beasts. As soon as they entered a wood,
the trees caught fire around them; when they drank of a spring it was
poisoned; the caves in which they hid in order to sleep were walled up.
Their old accomplices, the populations who had hitherto defended them,
now pursued them; and they continually recognised Carthaginian armour in
these bands.

Many had their faces consumed with red tetters; this, they thought, had
come to them through touching Hanno. Others imagined that it was because
they had eaten Salammbo's fishes, and far from repenting of it, they
dreamed of even more abominable sacrileges, so that the abasement of
the Punic Gods might be still greater. They would fain have exterminated
them.

In this way they lingered for three months along the eastern coast, and
then behind the mountain of Selloum, and as far as the first sands of
the desert. They sought for a place of refuge, no matter where.
Utica and Hippo-Zarytus alone had not betrayed them; but Hamilcar was
encompassing these two towns. Then they went northwards at haphazard
without even knowing the various routes. Their many miseries had
confused their understandings.

The only feeling left them was one of exasperation, which went on
developing; and one day they found themselves again in the gorges of
Cobus and once more before Carthage!

Then the actions multiplied. Fortune remained equal; but both sides were
so wearied that they would willingly have exchanged these skirmishes for
a great battle, provided that it were really the last.

Matho was inclined to carry this proposal himself to the Suffet. One of
his Libyans devoted himself for the purpose. All were convinced as they
saw him depart that he would not return.

He returned the same evening.

Hamilcar accepted the challenge. The