ght, and it was impossible to
distinguish them in the giddy motion of the horrible arms. This lasted
for a long, indefinite time until the evening. Then the partitions
inside assumed a darker glow, and burning flesh could be seen. Some even
believed that they could descry hair, limbs, and whole bodies.

Night fell; clouds accumulated above the Baal. The funeral-pile, which
was flameless now, formed a pyramid of coals up to his knees; completely
red like a giant covered with blood, he looked, with his head
thrown back, as though he were staggering beneath the weight of his
intoxication.

In proportion as the priests made haste, the frenzy of the people
increased; as the number of the victims was diminishing, some cried
out to spare them, others that still more were needful. The walls, with
their burden of people, seemed to be giving way beneath the howlings
of terror and mystic voluptuousness. Then the faithful came into the
passages, dragging their children, who clung to them; and they beat them
in order to make them let go, and handed them over to the men in red.
The instrument-players sometimes stopped through exhaustion; then the
cries of the mothers might be heard, and the frizzling of the fat as it
fell upon the coals. The henbane-drinkers crawled on all fours around
the colossus, roaring like tigers; the Yidonim vaticinated, the Devotees
sang with their cloven lips; the trellis-work had been broken through,
all wished for a share in the sacrifice;--and fathers, whose children
had died previously, cast their effigies, their playthings, their
preserved bones into the fire. Some who had knives rushed upon the rest.
They slaughtered one another. The hierodules took the fallen ashes at
the edge of the flagstone in bronze fans, and cast them into the air
that the sacrifice might be scattered over the town and even to the
region of the stars.

The loud noise and great light had attracted the Barbarians to the foot
of the walls; they clung to the wreck of the helepolis to have a better
view, and gazed open-mouthed in horror.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PASS OF THE HATCHET

The Carthaginians had not re-entered their houses when the clouds
accumulated more thickly; those who raised their heads towards the
colossus could feel big drops on their foreheads, and the rain fell.

It fell the whole night plentifully, in floods; the thunder growled; it
was the voice of Moloch; he had vanquished Tanith; and she, being now
fecunda