cks, looking with respect at the
chieftain who seemed invulnerable, but complaining of the atrocious
torment of the burns. Some wallowed on the ground kicking with pain,
their lips covered with foam.

Suddenly it seemed as if the city had burst, hurling its inhabitants
forth in all directions. In the distance the Celtiberians were seen to
flee, flinging away their ladders. The populace rushed out en masse
against the besiegers. The gates were too narrow to allow passage to the
armed multitude which swirled through them and then spread out in all
directions like a torrent which, having run boxed in between mountains,
suddenly inundates the plain. Many impatient ones swung from the merlons
to fall more quickly upon the enemy.

In a moment the whole space intervening between the walls and the camp
was covered by attacking Saguntines and by fleeing besiegers. Hannibal
felt himself dragged by the flight of his soldiers. The mantelets began
to burn, and a crowd of women and boys, grasping torches, encircled the
walking-towers, setting fire to their osier walls.

The Saguntines, forming in phalanxes, advanced, sweeping before them the
besiegers who fled in disorder. Before its movable front of pikes and of
arms flourishing broadswords, nothing could be seen but fugitive men who
flung away their arms and leaped into the air pierced by arrows and
lances.

The giant Theron came out in solitary majesty, as if he alone were a
phalanx. The lion skin, and his enormous stature, attracted the gaze of
all. His club rose and fell, crashing into the groups of fugitives and
opening great swaths through their ranks.

"It is Hercules!" the besiegers shouted, with superstitious terror. "The
god of Saguntum has come out against us!"

The presence of the giant accelerated the dispersion even more than the
blows of the Saguntines.

Hannibal tried to advance, to face about; in vain he lifted up his
voice, brandishing his sword. He was swept by the torrent of flight; his
own soldiers crowded him along, blinded by the contagion of terror; they
tramped on his heels, they pressed against his back with their heads
bent low in swift retreat, and he had to make strenuous efforts to keep
from being overwhelmed and trampled down. A moment more and the
Saguntines, having destroyed every engine of war, reached the camp.

The chieftain was snarling curses and threats against his brother and
Maherbal who did not come up with the reserves to stay the