nces, to take his
vengeance in the very places which had witnessed his shame. But the
inhabitants and the Barbarians were dead, hidden, or fled. Then his
anger was vented upon the country. He burnt the ruins of the ruins, he
did not leave a single tree nor a blade of grass; the children and the
infirm, that were met with, were tortured; he gave the women to his
soldiers to be violated before they were slaughtered.

Often, on the crests of the hills, black tents were struck as though
overturned by the wind, and broad, brilliantly bordered discs, which
were recognised as being chariot-wheels, revolved with a plaintive sound
as they gradually disappeared in the valleys. The tribes, which had
abandoned the siege of Carthage, were wandering in this way through the
provinces, waiting for an opportunity, or for some victory to be gained
by the Mercenaries, in order to return. But, whether from terror or
famine, they all took the roads to their native lands, and disappeared.

Hamilcar was not jealous of Hanno's successes. Nevertheless he was in
a hurry to end matters; he commanded him to fall back upon Tunis; and
Hanno, who loved his country, was under the walls of the town on the
appointed day.

For its protection it had its aboriginal population, twelve thousand
Mercenaries, and, in addition, all the Eaters of Uncleanness, for
like Matho they were riveted to the horizon of Carthage, and plebs and
schalischim gazed at its lofty walls from afar, looking back in thought
to boundless enjoyments. With this harmony of hatred, resistance was
briskly organised. Leathern bottles were taken to make helmets; all the
palm-trees in the gardens were cut down for lances; cisterns were dug;
while for provisions they caught on the shores of the lake big white
fish, fed on corpses and filth. Their ramparts, kept in ruins now by the
jealousy of Carthage, were so weak that they could be thrown down with a
push of the shoulder. Matho stopped up the holes in them with the stones
of the houses. It was the last struggle; he hoped for nothing, and yet
he told himself that fortune was fickle.

As the Carthaginians approached they noticed a man on the rampart who
towered over the battlements from his belt upwards. The arrows that
flew about him seemed to frighten him no more than a swarm of swallows.
Extraordinary to say, none of them touched him.

Hamilcar pitched his camp on the south side; Narr' Havas, to his right,
occupied the plain of Rhades