the knemides; skeletons still
wore their cloaks; and bones, cleaned by the sun, made gleaming spots in
the midst of the sand.

The lions were resting with their breasts against the ground and both
paws stretched out, winking their eyelids in the bright daylight, which
was heightened by the reflection from the white rocks. Others were
seated on their hind-quarters and staring before them, or else were
sleeping, rolled into a ball and half hidden by their great manes; they
all looked well fed, tired, and dull. They were as motionless as the
mountain and the dead. Night was falling; the sky was striped with broad
red bands in the west.

In one of the heaps, which in an irregular fashion embossed the plain,
something rose up vaguer than a spectre. Then one of the lions set
himself in motion, his monstrous form cutting a black shadow on the
background of the purple sky, and when he was quite close to the man, he
knocked him down with a single blow of his paw.

Then, stretching himself flat upon him, he slowly drew out the entrails
with the edge of his teeth.

Afterwards he opened his huge jaws, and for some minutes uttered a
lengthened roar which was repeated by the echoes in the mountain, and
was finally lost in the solitude.

Suddenly some small gravel rolled down from above. The rustling of rapid
steps was heard, and in the direction of the portcullis and of the gorge
there appeared pointed muzzles and straight ears, with gleaming, tawny
eyes. These were the jackals coming to eat what was left.

The Carthaginian, who was leaning over the top of the precipice to look,
went back again.

CHAPTER XV

MATHO

There were rejoicings at Carthage,--rejoicings deep, universal,
extravagant, frantic; the holes of the ruins had been stopped up, the
statues of the gods had been repainted, the streets were strewn with
myrtle branches, incense smoked at the corners of the crossways, and the
throng on the terraces looked, in their variegated garments, like heaps
of flowers blooming in the air.

The shouts of the water-carriers watering the pavement rose above the
continual screaming of voices; slaves belonging to Hamilcar offered
in his name roasted barley and pieces of raw meat; people accosted one
another, and embraced one another with tears; the Tyrian towns were
taken, the nomads dispersed, and all the Barbarians annihilated.
The Acropolis was hidden beneath coloured velaria; the beaks of the
triremes, drawn up in lin