whistled over the walls like
a flock of birds. Tiles flew off, bits of plaster sprang from the
merlons, and some fell from the wall with broken heads. From between the
merlons stones and arrows leaped as an impetuous answer.

The defense of the city had begun!

CHAPTER VI

ASBYTE AND HANNIBAL

Hannibal lay tossing between the bright-hued coverings of his couch,
unable to conciliate sleep.

The cocks had announced midnight, breaking the silence of the camp with
their shrill voices, and the chieftain was yet awake, closing his eyes
though unable to sleep. His rest was disturbed by the singing of a
nightingale perched in a great tree from the branches of which hung his
tent.

An earthenware lamp illuminated the mass of objects strewn carelessly
around his bed. On the floor glistened cuirasses, greaves, and helmets,
over which were thrown rich fabrics stolen from the Saguntine villas.
Grecian furniture, delicately wrought toilette amphorae, tapestries with
mythological scenes, lay in a heap mingled with rawhide whips, shields
of hippopotamus hide, and the rags of Hannibal's personal costume, for,
though a lover of glittering arms, he was careless and dirty in his
dress. Elegant Grecian vases he put to the vilest uses. An alabaster
crater covered by a shield served as a seat; a huge terra cotta vase,
decorated by a Grecian artist with the adventures of Achilles, the
African scornfully used in a manner calculated to express the height of
his contempt for refinement. Pieces of statues and columns destroyed
during the tempest of invasion were sunk in the ground, making seats
for Hannibal's captains when a council was held in the chieftain's tent.
It was the spoil of war, looted and thrown about in a fever of robbery.
Only a small portion of it had reached the chief, who felt absolute
scorn for artistic beauty except when stamped on precious metals. He
sneered at the gods of this land as he did at those of his own country
and of the world; he spat upon the marble forms of divinities which
filled the camp, as if they were scraps of worthless stone, good for
nothing but to be hurled by a catapult against the enemy.

Impelled by nervous excitement, which prevented his sleeping, he raised
up in his couch, and the lamplight shone full upon his face. He was no
longer the Celtiberian shepherd, dishevelled and ferocious, whom Actaeon
had met in the port of Saguntum. Divested of his disguise he showed what
he was--a you