he siege-engines sent by the Tyrian towns
coming straight towards them like monsters and like buildings--with
their masts, arms, ropes, articulations, capitals and carapaces, sixty
carroballistas, eighty onagers, thirty scorpions, fifty tollenos, twelve
rams, and three gigantic catapults which hurled pieces of rock of the
weight of fifteen talents. Masses of men clinging to their bases pushed
them on; at every step a quivering shook them, and in this way they
arrived in front of the walls.

But several days were still needed to finish the preparations for
the siege. The Mercenaries, taught by their defeats, would not risk
themselves in useless engagements; and on both sides there was no haste,
for it was well known that a terrible action was about to open, and that
the result of it would be complete victory or complete extermination.

Carthage might hold out for a long time; her broad walls presented a
series of re-entrant and projecting angles, an advantageous arrangement
for repelling assaults.

Nevertheless a portion had fallen down in the direction of the
Catacombs, and on dark nights lights could be seen in the dens of Malqua
through the disjointed blocks. These in some places overlooked the top
of the ramparts. It was here that the Mercenaries' wives, who had been
driven away by Matho, were living with their new husbands. On seeing the
men again their hearts could stand it no longer. They waved their scarfs
at a distance; then they came and chatted in the darkness with the
soldiers through the cleft in the wall, and one morning the Great
Council learned that they had all fled. Some had passed through between
the stones; others with greater intrepidity had let themselves down with
ropes.

At last Spendius resolved to accomplish his design.

The war, by keeping him at a distance, had hitherto prevented him;
and since the return to before Carthage, it seemed to him that the
inhabitants suspected his enterprise. But soon they diminished the
sentries on the aqueduct. There were not too many people for the defence
of the walls.

The former slave practised himself for some days in shooting arrows at
the flamingoes on the lake. Then one moonlight evening he begged Matho
to light a great fire of straw in the middle of the night, while all his
men were to shout at the same time; and taking Zarxas with him, he went
away along the edge of the gulf in the direction of Tunis.

When on a level with the last arches they r