is feelings. Like a mother finding her
first-born that was lost, he threw himself upon his son; he clasped him
to his breast, he laughed and wept at the same time, he called him
by the fondest names and covered him with kisses; little Hannibal was
frightened by this terrible tenderness and was silent now.

Hamilcar returned with silent steps, feeling the walls around him, and
came into the great hall where the moonlight entered through one of the
apertures in the dome; in the centre the slave lay sleeping after his
repast, stretched at full length upon the marble pavement. He looked at
him and was moved with a sort of pity. With the tip of his cothurn he
pushed forward a carpet beneath his head. Then he raised his eyes and
gazed at Tanith, whose slender crescent was shining in the sky, and felt
himself stronger than the Baals and full of contempt for them.

The arrangements for the sacrifice were already begun.

Part of a wall in the temple of Moloch was thrown down in order to draw
out the brazen god without touching the ashes of the altar. Then as
soon as the sun appeared the hierodules pushed it towards the square of
Khamon.

It moved backwards sliding upon cylinders; its shoulders overlapped the
walls. No sooner did the Carthaginians perceive it in the distance than
they speedily took to flight, for the Baal could be looked upon with
impunity only when exercising his wrath.

A smell of aromatics spread through the streets. All the temples
had just been opened simultaneously, and from them there came forth
tabernacles borne upon chariots, or upon litters carried by the
pontiffs. Great plumes swayed at the corners of them, and rays were
emitted from their slender pinnacles which terminated in balls of
crystal, gold, silver or copper.

These were the Chanaanitish Baalim, offshoots of the supreme Baal, who
were returning to their first cause to humble themselves before his
might and annihilate themselves in his splendour.

Melkarth's pavilion, which was of fine purple, sheltered a petroleum
flare; on Khamon's, which was of hyacinth colour, there rose an ivory
phallus bordered with a circle of gems; between Eschmoun's curtains,
which were as blue as the ether, a sleeping python formed a circle with
his tail, and the Pataec gods, held in the arms of their priests, looked
like great infants in swaddling clothes with their heels touching the
ground.

Then came all the inferior forms of the Divinity: Baal-Samin, god