threw themselves flat on the ground, crying:

"Eye of Baal, may your house flourish!" And through these people as they
lay thus on the ground in the avenue of cypress trees, Abdalonim, the
Steward of the stewards, waving a white miter, advanced towards Hamilcar
with a censer in his hand.

Salammbo was then coming down the galley staircases. All her slave women
followed her; and, at each of her steps, they also descended. The heads
of the Negresses formed big black spots on the line of the bands of
the golden plates clasping the foreheads of the Roman women. Others had
silver arrows, emerald butterflies, or long bodkins set like suns in
their hair. Rings, clasps, necklaces, fringes, and bracelets shone amid
the confusion of white, yellow, and blue garments; a rustling of
light material became audible; the pattering of sandals might be heard
together with the dull sound of naked feet as they were set down on the
wood;--and here and there a tall eunuch, head and shoulders above them,
smiled with his face in air. When the shouting of the men had subsided
they hid their faces in their sleeves, and together uttered a strange
cry like the howling of a she-wolf, and so frenzied and strident was
it that it seemed to make the great ebony staircase, with its thronging
women, vibrate from top to bottom like a lyre.

The wind lifted their veils, and the slender stems of the papyrus plant
rocked gently. It was the month of Schebaz and the depth of winter. The
flowering pomegranates swelled against the azure of the sky, and the
sea disappeared through the branches with an island in the distance half
lost in the mist.

Hamilcar stopped on perceiving Salammbo. She had come to him after the
death of several male children. Moreover, the birth of daughters
was considered a calamity in the religions of the Sun. The gods had
afterwards sent him a son; but he still felt something of the betrayal
of his hope, and the shock, as it were, of the curse which he had
uttered against her. Salammbo, however, continued to advance.

Long bunches of various-coloured pearls fell from her ears to her
shoulders, and as far as her elbows. Her hair was crisped so as to
simulate a cloud. Round her neck she wore little quadrangular plates of
gold, representing a woman between two rampant lions; and her costume
was a complete reproduction of the equipment of the goddess. Her
broad-sleeved hyacinth robe fitted close to her figure, widening out
below. The ve