第90章

Hamilcar had a fire of damp straw lit upon the roofing of Khamon, and as the smoke blinded them they fell back to left, and came to swell the horrible rout which was pressing forward in Malqua.Some syntagmata composed of sturdy men, chosen expressly for the purpose, had broken in three gates.They were checked by lofty barriers made of planks studded with nails, but a fourth yielded easily; they dashed over it at a run and rolled into a pit in which there were hidden snares.At the south-west gate Autaritus and his men broke down the rampart, the fissure in which had been stopped up with bricks.The ground behind rose, and they climbed it nimbly.But on the top they found a second wall composed of stones and long beams lying quite flat and alternating like the squares on a chess-board.It was a Gaulish fashion, and had been adapted by the Suffet to the requirements of the situation; the Gauls imagined themselves before a town in their own country.Their attack was weak, and they were repulsed.

All the roundway, from the street of Khamon as far as the Green Market, now belonged to the Barbarians, and the Samnites were finishing off the dying with blows of stakes; or else with one foot on the wall were gazing down at the smoking ruins beneath them, and the battle which was beginning again in the distance.

The slingers, who were distributed through the rear, were still shooting.But the springs of the Acarnanian slings had broken from use, and many were throwing stones with the hand like shepherds; the rest hurled leaden bullets with the handle of a whip.Zarxas, his shoulders covered with his long black hair, went about everywhere, and led on the Barbarians.Two pouches hung at his hips; he thrust his left hand into them continually, while his right arm whirled round like a chariot-wheel.

Matho had at first refrained from fighting, the better to command the Barbarians all at once.He had been seen along the gulf with the Mercenaries, near the lagoon with the Numidians, and on the shores of the lake among the Negroes, and from the back part of the plain he urged forward masses of soldiers who came ceaselessly against the ramparts.By degrees he had drawn near; the smell of blood, the sight of carnage, and the tumult of clarions had at last made his heart leap.Then he had gone back into his tent, and throwing off his cuirass had taken his lion's skin as being more convenient for battle.

The snout fitted upon his head, bordering his face with a circle of fangs; the two fore-paws were crossed upon his breast, and the claws of the hinder ones fell beneath his knees.

He had kept on his strong waist-belt, wherein gleamed a two-edged axe, and with his great sword in both hands he had dashed impetuously through the breach.Like a pruner cutting willow-branches and trying to strike off as much as possible so as to make the more money, he marched along mowing down the Carthaginians around him.Those who tried to seize him in flank he knocked down with blows of the pommel;when they attacked him in front he ran them through; if they fled he clove them.Two men leaped together upon his back; he bounded backwards against a gate and crushed them.His sword fell and rose.It shivered on the angle of a wall.Then he took his heavy axe, and front and rear he ripped up the Carthaginians like a flock of sheep.They scattered more and more, and he was quite alone when he reached the second enclosure at the foot of the Acropolis.The materials which had been flung from the summit cumbered the steps and were heaped up higher than the wall.Matho turned back amid the ruins to summons his companions.

He perceived their crests scattered over the multitude; they were sinking and their wearers were about to perish; he dashed towards them; then the vast wreath of red plumes closed in, and they soon rejoined him and surrounded him.But an enormous crowd was discharging from the side streets.He was caught by the hips, lifted up and carried away outside the ramparts to a spot where the terrace was high.

Matho shouted a command and all the shields sank upon the helmets; he leaped upon them in order to catch hold somewhere so as to re-enter Carthage; and, flourishing his terrible axe, ran over the shields, which resembled waves of bronze, like a marine god, with brandished trident, over his billows.

However, a man in a white robe was walking along the edge of the rampart, impassible, and indifferent to the death which surrounded him.Sometimes he would spread out his right hand above his eyes in order to find out some one.Matho happened to pass beneath him.

Suddenly his eyeballs flamed, his livid face contracted; and raising both his lean arms he shouted out abuse at him.

Matho did not hear it; but he felt so furious and cruel a look entering his heart that he uttered a roar.He hurled his long axe at him; some people threw themselves upon Schahabarim; and Matho seeing him no more fell back exhausted.

A terrible creaking drew near, mingled with the rhythm of hoarse voices singing together.

It was the great helepolis surrounded by a crowd of soldiers.They were dragging it with both hands, hauling it with ropes, and pushing it with their shoulders,--for the slope rising from the plain to the terrace, although extremely gentle, was found impracticable for machines of such prodigious weight.However, it had eight wheels banded with iron, and it had been advancing slowly in this way since the morning, like a mountain raised upon another.Then there appeared an immense ram issuing from its base.The doors along the three fronts which faced the town fell down, and cuirassed soldiers appeared in the interior like pillars of iron.Some might be seen climbing and descending the two staircases which crossed the stories.Some were waiting to dart out as soon as the cramps of the doors touched the walls; in the middle of the upper platform the skeins of the ballistas were turning, and the great beam of the catapult was being lowered.

Hamilcar was at that moment standing upright on the roof of Melkarth.