fastened to the idol's
cap, and green, yellow, blue, violet, wine-coloured, and blood-coloured
fires suddenly illuminated the hall. It was filled with gems which were
either in gold calabashes fastened like sconces upon sheets of brass,
or were ranged in native masses at the foot of the wall. There were
callaides shot away from the mountains with slings, carbuncles formed
by the urine of the lynx, glossopetrae which had fallen from the moon,
tyanos, diamonds, sandastra, beryls, with the three kinds of rubies, the
four kinds of sapphires, and the twelve kinds of emeralds. They gleamed
like splashes of milk, blue icicles, and silver dust, and shed their
light in sheets, rays, and stars. Ceraunia, engendered by the thunder,
sparkled by the side of chalcedonies, which are a cure for poison. There
were topazes from Mount Zabarca to avert terrors, opals from Bactriana
to prevent abortions, and horns of Ammon, which are placed under the bed
to induce dreams.

The fires from the stones and the flames from the lamp were mirrored in
the great golden shields. Hamilcar stood smiling with folded arms, and
was less delighted by the sight of his riches than by the consciousness
of their possession. They were inaccessible, exhaustless, infinite.
His ancestors sleeping beneath his feet transmitted something of their
eternity to his heart. He felt very near to the subterranean deities.
It was as the joy of one of the Kabiri; and the great luminous rays
striking upon his face looked like the extremity of an invisible net
linking him across the abysses with the centre of the world.

A thought came which made him shudder, and placing himself behind the
idol he walked straight up to the wall. Then among the tattooings on his
arm he scrutinised a horizontal line with two other perpendicular ones
which in Chanaanitish figures expressed the number thirteen. Then he
counted as far as the thirteenth of the brass plates and again raised
his ample sleeve; and with his right hand stretched out he read other
more complicated lines on his arm, at the same time moving his fingers
daintily about like one playing on a lyre. At last he struck seven blows
with his thumb, and an entire section of the wall turned about in a
single block.

It served to conceal a sort of cellar containing mysterious things which
had no name and were of incalculable value. Hamilcar went down the three
steps, took up a llama's skin which was floating on a black liquid in a
si