第6章

"Oh no!" replied the slave."You released me from the ergastulum.I am yours! you are my master! command me!"Matho walked round the terrace brushing against the walls.He strained his ears at every step, glancing down into the silent apartments through the spaces between the gilded reeds.At last he stopped with a look of despair.

"Listen!" said the slave to him."Oh! do not despise me for my feebleness! I have lived in the palace.I can wind like a viper through the walls.Come! in the Ancestor's Chamber there is an ingot of gold beneath every flagstone; an underground path leads to their tombs.""Well! what matters it?" said Matho.

Spendius was silent.

They were on the terrace.A huge mass of shadow stretched before them, appearing as if it contained vague accumulations, like the gigantic billows of a black and petrified ocean.

But a luminous bar rose towards the East; far below, on the left, the canals of Megara were beginning to stripe the verdure of the gardens with their windings of white.The conical roofs of the heptagonal temples, the staircases, terraces, and ramparts were being carved by degrees upon the paleness of the dawn; and a girdle of white foam rocked around the Carthaginian peninsula, while the emerald sea appeared as if it were curdled in the freshness of the morning.Then as the rosy sky grew larger, the lofty houses, bending over the sloping soil, reared and massed themselves like a herd of black goats coming down from the mountains.The deserted streets lengthened; the palm-trees that topped the walls here and there were motionless; the brimming cisterns seemed like silver bucklers lost in the courts; the beacon on the promontory of Hermaeum was beginning to grow pale.The horses of Eschmoun, on the very summit of the Acropolis in the cypress wood, feeling that the light was coming, placed their hoofs on the marble parapet, and neighed towards the sun.

It appeared, and Spendius raised his arms with a cry.

Everything stirred in a diffusion of red, for the god, as if he were rending himself, now poured full-rayed upon Carthage the golden rain of his veins.The beaks of the galleys sparkled, the roof of Khamon appeared to be all in flames, while far within the temples, whose doors were opening, glimmerings of light could be seen.Large chariots, arriving from the country, rolled their wheels over the flagstones in the streets.Dromedaries, baggage-laden, came down the ramps.Money-changers raised the pent-houses of their shops at the cross ways, storks took to flight, white sails fluttered.In the wood of Tanith might be heard the tabourines of the sacred courtesans, and the furnaces for baking the clay coffins were beginning to smoke on the Mappalian point.

Spendius leaned over the terrace; his teeth chattered and he repeated:

"Ah! yes--yes--master! I understand why you scorned the pillage of the house just now."Matho was as if he had just been awaked by the hissing of his voice, and did not seem to understand.Spendius resumed:

"Ah! what riches! and the men who possess them have not even the steel to defend them!"Then, pointing with his right arm outstretched to some of the populace who were crawling on the sand outside the mole to look for gold dust: