olchis, and into the countries
of the Jugrians and of the Estians, had carried off fifteen hundred
maidens in the Archipelago, and sunk all the strange vessels sailing
beyond Cape Oestrymon, so that the secret of the routes should not
be known. King Ptolemaeus was detaining the incense from Schesbar;
Syracuse, Elathia, Corsica, and the islands had furnished nothing, and
the old pilot lowered his voice to announce that a trireme was taken at
Rusicada by the Numidians,--"for they are with them, Master."

Hamilcar knit his brows; then he signed to the Chief of the Journeys to
speak. This functionary was enveloped in a brown, ungirdled robe, and
had his head covered with a long scarf of white stuff which passed along
the edge of his lips and fell upon his shoulder behind.

The caravans had set out regularly at the winter equinox. But of fifteen
hundred men directing their course towards the extreme boundaries of
Ethiopia with excellent camels, new leathern bottles, and supplies of
painted cloth, but one had reappeared at Carthage--the rest having died
of fatigue or become mad through the terror of the desert;--and he said
that far beyond the Black Harousch, after passing the Atarantes and the
country of the great apes, he had seen immense kingdoms, wherein the
pettiest utensils were all of gold, a river of the colour of milk and
as broad as the sea, forests of blue trees, hills of aromatics, monsters
with human faces vegetating on the rocks with eyeballs which expanded
like flowers to look at you; and then crystal mountains supporting the
sun behind lakes all covered with dragons. Others had returned from
India with peacocks, pepper, and new textures. As to those who go by way
of the Syrtes and the temple of Ammon to purchase chalcedony, they had
no doubt perished in the sands. The caravans from Gaetulia and Phazzana
had furnished their usual supplies; but he, the Chief of the Journeys,
did not venture to fit one out just now.

Hamilcar understood; the Mercenaries were in occupation of the country.
He leaned upon his other elbow with a hollow groan; and the Chief of
Farms was so afraid to speak that he trembled horribly in spite of
his thick shoulders and his big red eyeballs. His face, which was as
snub-nosed as a mastiff's, was surmounted by a net woven of threads of
bark. He wore a waist-belt of hairy leopard's skin, wherein gleamed two
formidable cutlasses.

As soon as Hamilcar turned away he began to cry aloud and i