beards were
longer now, their faces still blacker, and their voices hoarser. Matho,
who walked before her, waved them off with a gesture of his arm which
raised his red mantle. Some kissed his hands; others bending their
spines approached him to ask for orders, for he was now veritable and
sole chief of the Barbarians; Spendius, Autaritus, and Narr' Havas had
become disheartened, and he had displayed so much audacity and obstinacy
that all obeyed him.

Salammbo followed him through the entire camp. His tent was at the end,
three hundred feet from Hamilcar's entrenchments.

She noticed a wide pit on the right, and it seemed to her that faces
were resting against the edge of it on a level with the ground, as
decapitated heads might have done. However, their eyes moved, and from
these half-opened mouths groanings escaped in the Punic tongue.

Two Negroes holding resin lights stood on both sides of the door. Matho
drew the canvas abruptly aside. She followed him. It was a deep tent
with a pole standing up in the centre. It was lighted by a large
lamp-holder shaped like a lotus and full of a yellow oil wherein floated
handfuls of burning tow, and military things might be distinguished
gleaming in the shade. A naked sword leaned against a stool by the
side of a shield; whips of hippopotamus leather, cymbals, bells, and
necklaces were displayed pell-mell on baskets of esparto-grass; a
felt rug lay soiled with crumbs of black bread; some copper money was
carelessly heaped upon a round stone in a corner, and through the rents
in the canvas the wind brought the dust from without, together with the
smell of the elephants, which might be heard eating and shaking their
chains.

"Who are you?" said Matho.

She looked slowly around her without replying; then her eyes were
arrested in the background, where something bluish and sparkling fell
upon a bed of palm-branches.

She advanced quickly. A cry escaped her. Matho stamped his foot behind
her.

"Who brings you here? why do you come?"

"To take it!" she replied, pointing to the zaimph, and with the other
hand she tore the veils from her head. He drew back with his elbows
behind him, gaping, almost terrified.

She felt as if she were leaning on the might of the gods; and looking at
him face to face she asked him for the zaimph; she demanded it in words
abundant and superb.

Matho did not hear; he was gazing at her, and in his eyes her garments
were blended with her body.