Excepting his eyes he had no appearance of humanity left; he was a long,
perfectly red shape; his broken bonds hung down his thighs, but they
could not be distinguished from the tendons of his wrists, which were
laid quite bare; his mouth remained wide open; from his eye-sockets
there darted flames which seemed to rise up to his hair;--and the wretch
still walked on!

He reached the foot of the terrace. Salammbo was leaning over the
balustrade; those frightful eyeballs were scanning her, and there rose
within her a consciousness of all that he had suffered for her. Although
he was in his death agony she could see him once more kneeling in his
tent, encircling her waist with his arms, and stammering out gentle
words; she thirsted to feel them and hear them again; she did not want
him to die! At this moment Matho gave a great start; she was on the
point of shrieking aloud. He fell backwards and did not stir again.

Salammbo was borne back, nearly swooning, to her throne by the priests
who flocked about her. They congratulated her; it was her work. All
clapped their hands and stamped their feet, howling her name.

A man darted upon the corpse. Although he had no beard he had the cloak
of a priest of Moloch on his shoulder, and in his belt that species
of knife which they employed for cutting up the sacred meat, and which
terminated, at the end of the handle, in a golden spatula. He cleft
Matho's breast with a single blow, then snatched out the heart and laid
it upon the spoon; and Schahabarim, uplifting his arm, offered it to the
sun.

The sun sank behind the waves; his rays fell like long arrows upon the
red heart. As the beatings diminished the planet sank into the sea; and
at the last palpitation it disappeared.

Then from the gulf to the lagoon, and from the isthmus to the pharos, in
all the streets, on all the houses, and on all the temples, there was
a single shout; sometimes it paused, to be again renewed; the buildings
shook with it; Carthage was convulsed, as it were, in the spasm of
Titanic joy and boundless hope.

Narr' Havas, drunk with pride, passed his left arm beneath Salammbo's
waist in token of possession; and taking a gold patera in his right
hand, he drank to the Genius of Carthage.

Salammbo rose like her husband, with a cup in her hand, to drink
also. She fell down again with her head lying over the back of the
throne,--pale, stiff, with parted lips,--and her loosened hair hung to
the ground.