ove, and of the sumptuous dwelling crowded with memories. Moreover, she
was nervous from the insufferable deprivation of this new life within
the beleaguered city, where she was obliged to eat coarse food and to
sleep in a room in her warehouse among the valuables piled together in
the disorder of flight, almost mingling with her slaves, and deprived of
her bath. There was no water in the city, except that in the cisterns
which the magistrates distributed with great parsimony, foreseeing an
approaching scarcity.

This wretched life excited her, making her distinguished for warlike
audacity. Occasionally she saw her lover, the soul of the defense;
sometimes on the walls directing the slaves who were repairing them, at
others on the Acropolis with Mopsus to examine the situation of the
enemy. He wished to take advantage of the lull caused by Hannibal's
wound to put the city into a better state of defense, and meanwhile
Sonnica strolled along the wall talking with the young men, promising
handsome rewards to those who most distinguished themselves, and
exciting them to make an extraordinary sally in which the city should
hurl itself en masse beyond the walls, crushing the enemy and sweeping
them onward into the sea.

She went everywhere escorted by Erotion and Rhanto. Life in the narrow
limits, and a community of danger, had drawn her to the two children,
and they followed in her wake listening to her words with enthusiastic
smiles, and applauding the rich woman's warlike suggestions.

Rhanto was no longer a shepherdess. One after another her goats had been
devoured in Sonnica's house, and with no other occupation than following
her mistress, clinging always to Erotion's hand, she regarded the
situation as one of joy, and had no desire that it should ever cease.
Even the frowning Mopsus, the father of her beloved, unprotesting found
them together, and often smiled at seeing them tranquil and happy,
walking along the walls without fear of the besiegers.

Danger had developed kindness in the people. Rich merchants elbowed
slaves as they shot their arrows from the cover of the merlons; more
than one opulent Grecian woman was seen to tear her linen tunic to bind
the wounds of rude mercenaries, and Sonnica the rich, she who used to
scorn the women of the city, now talked of forming a troop like that of
the Amazons who followed Hannibal. Rhanto, content with this new
situation, so blinded by joy that she could not see the ang