ceived all about them a great white wall
hewn with the pick. And no means of safety, no hope! The two natural
outcomes from this blind alley were closed by the portcullis and the
heaps of rocks.

Then they all looked at one another without speaking. They sank down in
collapse, feeling an icy coldness in their loins, and an overwhelming
weight upon their eyelids.

They rose, and bounded against the rocks. But the lowest were weighted
by the pressure of the others, and were immovable. They tried to cling
to them so as to reach the top, but the bellying shape of the great
masses rendered all hold impossible. They sought to cleave the ground on
both sides of the gorge, but their instruments broke. They made a large
fire with the tent poles, but the fire could not burn the mountain.

They returned to the portcullis; it was garnished with long nails as
thick as stakes, as sharp as the spines of a porcupine, and closer than
the hairs of a brush. But they were animated by such rage that they
dashed themselves against it. The first were pierced to the backbone,
those coming next surged over them, and all fell back, leaving human
fragments and bloodstained hair on those horrible branches.

When their discouragement was somewhat abated, they made an examination
of the provisions. The Mercenaries, whose baggage was lost, possessed
scarcely enough for two days; and all the rest found themselves
destitute,--for they had been awaiting a convoy promised by the villages
of the South.

However, some bulls were roaming about, those which the Carthaginians
had loosed in the gorge to attract the Barbarians. They killed them with
lance thrusts and ate them, and when their stomachs were filled their
thoughts were less mournful.

The next day they slaughtered all the mules to the number of about
forty; then they scraped the skins, boiled the entrails, pounded the
bones, and did not yet despair; the army from Tunis had no doubt been
warned, and was coming.

But on the evening of the fifth day their hunger increased; they gnawed
their sword-belts, and the little sponges which bordered the bottom of
their helmets.

These forty thousand men were massed into the species of hippodrome
formed by the mountain about them. Some remained in front of the
portcullis, or at the foot of the rocks; the rest covered the plain
confusedly. The strong shunned one another, and the timid sought out the
brave, who, nevertheless, were unable to save them.