from the ground delivered
them over their heads to the soldiers in the towers; with their tusks
they disembowelled them, and hurled them into the air, and long entrails
hung from their ivory fangs like bundles of rope from a mast. The
Barbarians strove to blind them, to hamstring them; others would slip
beneath their bodies, bury a sword in them up to the hilt, and perish
crushed to death; the most intrepid clung to their straps; they would go
on sawing the leather amid flames, bullets, and arrows, and the wicker
tower would fall like a tower of stone. Fourteen of the animals on the
extreme right, irritated by their wounds, turned upon the second rank;
the Indians seized mallet and chisel, applied the latter to a joint in
the head, and with all their might struck a great blow.

Down fell the huge beasts, falling one above another. It was like
a mountain; and upon the heap of dead bodies and armour a monstrous
elephant, called "The Fury of Baal," which had been caught by the leg in
some chains, stood howling until the evening with an arrow in its eye.

The others, however, like conquerors, delighting in extermination,
overthrew, crushed, stamped, and raged against the corpses and the
debris. To repel the maniples in serried circles around them, they
turned about on their hind feet as they advanced, with a continual
rotatory motion. The Carthaginians felt their energy increase, and the
battle begin again.

The Barbarians were growing weak; some Greek hoplites threw away all
their arms, and terror seized upon the rest. Spendius was seen stooping
upon his dromedary, and spurring it on the shoulders with two javelins.
Then they all rushed away from the wings and ran towards Utica.

The Clinabarians, whose horses were exhausted, did not try to overtake
them. The Ligurians, who were weakened by thirst, cried out for an
advance towards the river. But the Carthaginians, who were posted in the
centre of the syntagmata, and had suffered less, stamped their feet
with longing for the vengeance which was flying from them; and they
were already darting forward in pursuit of the Mercenaries when Hamilcar
appeared.

He held in his spotted and sweat-covered horse with silver reins. The
bands fastened to the horns on his helmet flapped in the wind behind
him, and he had placed his oval shield beneath his left thigh. With a
motion of his triple-pointed pike he checked the army.

The Tarentines leaped quickly upon their spare horses,