s of
other men! Have you seen her great eyes beneath her great eyebrows, like
suns beneath triumphal arches? Think: when she appeared all the torches
grew pale. Her naked breast shone here and there through the diamonds of
her necklace; behind her you perceived as it were the odour of a temple,
and her whole being emitted something that was sweeter than wine and
more terrible than death. She walked, however, and then she stopped."

He remained gaping with his head cast down and his eyeballs fixed.

"But I want her! I need her! I am dying for her! I am transported with
frenzied joy at the thought of clasping her in my arms, and yet I hate
her, Spendius! I should like to beat her! What is to be done? I have a
mind to sell myself and become her slave! YOU have been that! You were
able to get sight of her; speak to me of her! Every night she ascends
to the terrace of her palace, does she not? Ah! the stones must quiver
beneath her sandals, and the stars bend down to see her!"

He fell back in a perfect frenzy, with a rattling in his throat like a
wounded bull.

Then Matho sang: "He pursued into the forest the female monster, whose
tail undulated over the dead leaves like a silver brook." And with
lingering tones he imitated Salammbo's voice, while his outspread hands
were held like two light hands on the strings of a lyre.

To all the consolations offered by Spendius, he repeated the same words;
their nights were spent in these wailings and exhortations.

Matho sought to drown his thoughts in wine. After his fits of
drunkenness he was more melancholy still. He tried to divert himself at
huckle-bones, and lost the gold plates of his necklace one by one. He
had himself taken to the servants of the Goddess; but he came down the
hill sobbing, like one returning from a funeral.

Spendius, on the contrary, became more bold and gay. He was to be seen
in the leafy taverns discoursing in the midst of the soldiers. He mended
old cuirasses. He juggled with daggers. He went and gathered herbs in
the fields for the sick. He was facetious, dexterous, full of invention
and talk; the Barbarians grew accustomed to his services, and he came to
be loved by them.

However, they were awaiting an ambassador from Carthage to bring
them mules laden with baskets of gold; and ever beginning the same
calculation over again, they would trace figures with their fingers in
the sand. Every one was arranging his life beforehand; they would have
c