nica to her
house. The beautiful Greek woman was living almost alone. Many of her
servants had been killed on the walls; others had perished in the
streets, victims of pestilence. Some slaves, unable to resist the
torments of hunger, had run away to the besieging camp. Two aged
slave-women lay groaning in a corner, amidst stacks of luxurious
furniture and chests filled with riches. The great warehouses in the
lower story were empty. A gang of boys had taken possession, and passed
the time watching cat-like in hopes of some stray rat issuing from a
corner, that they might fall upon it as an animal of inestimable value.

"Tell me of Rhanto!" the Greek said to his beloved.

"Poor child! I see her only occasionally. She will not stay here; I have
her brought to me so that I can watch over her, but at the first
opportunity she slips away. Grief over Erotion's death has caused her to
lose her reason. Day and night she wanders along the walls. She goes
where the battle rages fiercest, and she passes among flying missiles as
if she does not see them. By night I hear from afar the strange dirges
which she chants to her Erotion; sometimes she appears crowned with a
wreath of those flowers which grow on the walls, and she asks for the
son of Mopsus, as if he were hidden among the defenders. The people
believe that she is in communication with the gods, and they look upon
her with awe and ask her what will be the fate of Saguntum."

The two spent the night amidst the piled up riches in the warehouse
wrapped in costly tapestries, insensible to their surroundings, as if
they were still in the rich villa on the domain, at the end of one of
those banquets which had so scandalized many of the Saguntines.

Days passed. The city was growing weaker, but the people, still firm in
their resolution, continued the defense, with stomachs faint from
starvation. The besiegers made no violent assaults. Hannibal guessed the
condition of the city, and, desirous of avoiding further shedding of
the blood of his troops, he allowed time to pass, maintaining only a
rigid blockade, waiting for hunger and pestilence to complete his
triumph.

The mortality in the streets increased. There was no longer any one left
to gather up the dead; the crematory fire on the Acropolis had gone out.
Corpses, abandoned in the doorways of their homes, were covered with
loathsome insects, and birds of rapine audaciously came down by night
into the heart of the city dis