e ramparts. By
degrees he had drawn near; the smell of blood, the sight of carnage, and
the tumult of clarions had at last made his heart leap. Then he had gone
back into his tent, and throwing off his cuirass had taken his lion's
skin as being more convenient for battle. The snout fitted upon his
head, bordering his face with a circle of fangs; the two fore-paws were
crossed upon his breast, and the claws of the hinder ones fell beneath
his knees.

He had kept on his strong waist-belt, wherein gleamed a two-edged axe,
and with his great sword in both hands he had dashed impetuously through
the breach. Like a pruner cutting willow-branches and trying to strike
off as much as possible so as to make the more money, he marched along
mowing down the Carthaginians around him. Those who tried to seize him
in flank he knocked down with blows of the pommel; when they attacked
him in front he ran them through; if they fled he clove them. Two men
leaped together upon his back; he bounded backwards against a gate and
crushed them. His sword fell and rose. It shivered on the angle of a
wall. Then he took his heavy axe, and front and rear he ripped up the
Carthaginians like a flock of sheep. They scattered more and more, and
he was quite alone when he reached the second enclosure at the foot
of the Acropolis. The materials which had been flung from the summit
cumbered the steps and were heaped up higher than the wall. Matho turned
back amid the ruins to summons his companions.

He perceived their crests scattered over the multitude; they were
sinking and their wearers were about to perish; he dashed towards them;
then the vast wreath of red plumes closed in, and they soon rejoined him
and surrounded him. But an enormous crowd was discharging from the side
streets. He was caught by the hips, lifted up and carried away outside
the ramparts to a spot where the terrace was high.

Matho shouted a command and all the shields sank upon the helmets; he
leaped upon them in order to catch hold somewhere so as to re-enter
Carthage; and, flourishing his terrible axe, ran over the shields, which
resembled waves of bronze, like a marine god, with brandished trident,
over his billows.

However, a man in a white robe was walking along the edge of the
rampart, impassible, and indifferent to the death which surrounded him.
Sometimes he would spread out his right hand above his eyes in order
to find out some one. Matho happened to pass beneath him