第30章

She kept advancing, clothed in her white trailing simar, and with her large eyes fastened on the veil.Matho gazed at her, dazzled by the splendours of her head, and, holding out the zaimph towards her, was about to enfold her in an embrace.She was stretching out her arms.

Suddenly she stopped, and they stood looking at each other, open-mouthed.

Then without understanding the meaning of his solicitation a horror seized upon her.Her delicate eyebrows rose, her lips opened; she trembled.At last she struck one of the brass pateras which hung at the corners of the red mattress, crying:

"To the rescue! to the rescue! Back, sacrilegious man! infamous and accursed! Help, Taanach, Kroum, Ewa, Micipsa, Schaoul!"And the scared face of Spendius, appearing in the wall between the clay flagons, cried out these words:

"Fly! they are hastening hither!"

A great tumult came upwards shaking the staircases, and a flood of people, women, serving-men, and slaves, rushed into the room with stakes, tomahawks, cutlasses, and daggers.They were nearly paralysed with indignation on perceiving a man; the female servants uttered funeral wailings, and the eunuchs grew pale beneath their black skins.

Matho was standing behind the balustrades.With the zaimph which was wrapped about him, he looked like a sidereal god surrounded by the firmament.The slaves were going to fall upon him, but she stopped them:

"Touch it not! It is the mantle of the goddess!"She had drawn back into a corner; but she took a step towards him, and stretched forth her naked arm:

"A curse upon you, you who have plundered Tanith! Hatred, vengeance, massacre, and grief! May Gurzil, god of battles, rend you! may Mastiman, god of the dead, stifle you! and may the Other--he who may not be named--burn you!"Matho uttered a cry as though he had received a sword-thrust.She repeated several times: "Begone! begone!"The crowd of servants spread out, and Matho, with hanging head, passed slowly through the midst of them; but at the door he stopped, for the fringe of the zaimph had caught on one of the golden stars with which the flagstones were paved.He pulled it off abruptly with a movement of his shoulder and went down the staircases.

Spendius, bounding from terrace to terrace, and leaping over the hedges and trenches, had escaped from the gardens.He reached the foot of the pharos.The wall was discontinued at this spot, so inaccessible was the cliff.He advanced to the edge, lay down on his back, and let himself slide, feet foremost, down the whole length of it to the bottom; then by swimming he reached the Cape of the Tombs, made a wide circuit of the salt lagoon, and re-entered the camp of the Barbarians in the evening.

The sun had risen; and, like a retreating lion, Matho went down the paths, casting terrible glances about him.