d an iron dish filled with live coals.

In the middle of the terrace there was a small ivory bed covered
with lynx skins, and cushions made with the feathers of the parrot, a
fatidical animal consecrated to the gods; and at the four corners rose
four long perfuming-pans filled with nard, incense, cinnamomum, and
myrrh. The slave lit the perfumes. Salammbo looked at the polar star;
she slowly saluted the four points of heaven, and knelt down on the
ground in the azure dust which was strewn with golden stars in imitation
of the firmament. Then with both elbows against her sides, her fore-arms
straight and her hands open, she threw back her head beneath the rays of
the moon, and said:

"O Rabetna!--Baalet!--Tanith!" and her voice was lengthened in a
plaintive fashion as if calling to some one. "Anaitis! Astarte! Derceto!
Astoreth! Mylitta! Athara! Elissa! Tiratha!--By the hidden symbols, by
the resounding sistra,--by the furrows of the earth,--by the eternal
silence and by the eternal fruitfulness,--mistress of the gloomy sea and
of the azure shores, O Queen of the watery world, all hail!"

She swayed her whole body twice or thrice, and then cast herself face
downwards in the dust with both arms outstretched.

But the slave nimbly raised her, for according to the rites someone must
catch the suppliant at the moment of his prostration; this told him that
the gods accepted him, and Salammbo's nurse never failed in this pious
duty.

Some merchants from Darytian Gaetulia had brought her to Carthage when
quite young, and after her enfranchisement she would not forsake her old
masters, as was shown by her right ear, which was pierced with a large
hole. A petticoat of many-coloured stripes fitted closely on her hips,
and fell to her ankles, where two tin rings clashed together. Her
somewhat flat face was yellow like her tunic. Silver bodkins of great
length formed a sun behind her head. She wore a coral button on the
nostril, and she stood beside the bed more erect than a Hermes, and with
her eyelids cast down.

Salammbo walked to the edge of the terrace; her eyes swept the horizon
for an instant, and then were lowered upon the sleeping town, while the
sigh that she heaved swelled her bosom, and gave an undulating movement
to the whole length of the long white simar which hung without clasp or
girdle about her. Her curved and painted sandals were hidden beneath
a heap of emeralds, and a net of purple thread was filled with