face covered with
strange flies which glinted in the sunshine with metallic reflections.
Farther on at a cross street, some women were trying to raise to his
feet a naked youth beside whom lay his abandoned bow. The Greek noted
with horror his sunken, inward-curving abdomen, a palpitating whirlpool
of skin between the protruding hip bones which threatened to burst from
the body. It was a mummy still showing a flickering spark of life in the
eyes, opening and shutting its parched and blackened lips as if feeding
on the unnourishing air.

He continued on his way down the lengthy streets, but no more people
joined the group. The doors of many houses remained closed, despite the
clamor of the crowd, and Actaeon contrasted this solitude with the great
multitude of people during the early days of the siege. Dead dogs lying
in the gullies, as emaciated as the people themselves, polluted the
atmosphere. At street crossings lay skeletons of horses and mules, clean
and white, holding not even a scrap of flesh to satisfy the repugnant
insects buzzing in the atmosphere of the doomed city.

With his gift of keen observation, the Greek's attention was fixed by
the warriors' weapons. He saw only cuirasses of metal; those made of
leather had disappeared. The shields displayed their texture of osier or
bull-tendon, destitute of their coverings of hide. In one corner he saw
two old men fighting over a black and stringy morsel; it was a bit of
crow boiled in water. Many two-storied houses had been demolished to
obtain stones for use in the new wall which barred the advance of the
enemy.

Desolating hunger had swept everything with cruel touch. Even the most
fetid and repugnant matter had been turned to account. It was as if the
besiegers had already broken into the city and had carried off
everything of worth, leaving nothing but the buildings behind as silent
witnesses to their rapine. Hunger and death stalked hand in hand beside
the desperate Saguntines.

On approaching the Forum a woman pushed her way through the people
toward the Greek and flung her arms around his neck.

"Actaeon, my love!" cried Sonnica.

The privations of the siege had left deep marks upon her. She did not
present the appearance of extreme emaciation as did most, but she was
thin and pale, her nose sharpened, her cheeks transmitting an interior
light, the arms which clung to him thin and hot with fever. A blue
circle surrounded her eyes, and her rich tunic