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Thereupon they threw back their heads and laughed loud and long; and then the Africans noted it, and hoarse cries of joy broke from their ranks. "The schalischim must be sure of victory. Praise be to Melkarth!" Sergius saw a captain of one of the squares run out and touch his forehead to the earth before his commander; but no Roman heard the man's words pregnant with fate.
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.
So the word ran around and through the African squares. Suddenly peals of laughter broke from the group of Carthaginian officers that had ridden behind and who now clustered around him. The calm that no devotion, no suffering, no danger of men could move, was gone; the schalischim had turned from his measuring of the enemy to smile and jest with his friends.
She said that the schalischim appeared furious, that he had shouted a great deal, and that he had then fallen asleep. Salammbo told no more, through shame perhaps, or else because she was led by her extreme ingenuousness to attach but little importance to the soldier's kisses.
I ride under orders of the schalischim," said the Roman, again speaking low and rapidly. The officer turned and shouted to his men, and several ran to unbar the gate with such speed as their condition warranted. The other occupants of the guard-house were now grouped at the door, five men, half armed, and two dishevelled women with painted faces and flower-embroidered pallas.
But he raised his voice still higher; and in the names of their gods he called upon them to lead him to the schalischim, because he wished to confide to him something on which their safety depended. They paused, some asserting that it was right to summon Matho. He was sent for.
That the officer was pretty well sobered seemed apparent. A fugitive bearing the ring of the schalischim the seal of the Great Council must be a man of importance, or else the possession of such a talisman augured the commission of some terrible crime.
Spendius made no acknowledgement of his terror, and persisted in maintaining that his leg was broken. At last the three chiefs and the schalischim asked one another what decision should now be adopted.
After a moment's silence he began again: "What is an old man, and weak a sport of foreigners to me who am young and strong, and by whose word even the schalischim of Carthage must march or halt? I, the favoured one of Melkarth, beseech you, a Roman, for favour, because Adonis wills it. See how I come to you, unpermitted, from those who cajole each other, and I show you my heart.
I have done all as you wished, but there was a council to-day in the camp before Casilinum, and Maharbal fell on his knees, as he did after Cannae, and begged to march north, not with the cavalry alone, as then; he knew it was too late for that: and the schalischim knit his brows and frowned.
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