第93章

Hamilcar walked on; the other followed him with stooping loins, bent hams, and head thrust forward.His face was convulsed with unspeakable anguish, and he was choking with suppressed sobs, so eager was he at once to question him, and to cry: "Mercy!"At last he ventured to touch him lightly with one finger on the elbow.

"Are you going to--?" He had not the strength to finish, and Hamilcar stopped quite amazed at such grief.

He had never thought--so immense was the abyss separating them from each other--that there could be anything in common between them.It even appeared to him a sort of outrage, an encroachment upon his own privileges.He replied with a look colder and heavier than an executioner's axe; the slave swooned and fell in the dust at his feet.

Hamilcar strode across him.

The three black-robed men were waiting in the great hall, and standing against the stone disc.Immediately he tore his garments, and rolled upon the pavement uttering piercing cries.

"Ah! poor little Hannibal! Oh! my son! my consolation! my hope! my life! Kill me also! take me away! Woe! Woe!" He ploughed his face with his nails, tore out his hair, and shrieked like the women who lament at funerals."Take him away then! my suffering is too great! begone!

kill me like him!" The servants of Moloch were astonished that the great Hamilcar was so weak-spirited.They were almost moved by it.

A noise of naked feet became audible, with a broken throat-rattling like the breathing of a wild beast speeding along, and a man, pale, terrible, and with outspread arms appeared on the threshold of the third gallery, between the ivory pots; he exclaimed:

"My child!"

Hamilcar threw himself with a bound upon the slave, and covering the man's mouth with his hand exclaimed still more loudly:

"It is the old man who reared him! he calls him 'my child!' it will make him mad! enough! enough!" And hustling away the three priests and their victim he went out with them and with a great kick shut the door behind him.

Hamilcar strained his ears for some minutes in constant fear of seeing them return.He then thought of getting rid of the slave in order to be quite sure that he would see nothing; but the peril had not wholly disappeared, and, if the gods were provoked at the man's death, it might be turned against his son.Then, changing his intention, he sent him by Taanach the best from his kitchens--a quarter of a goat, beans, and preserved pomegranates.The slave, who had eaten nothing for a long time, rushed upon them; his tears fell into the dishes.

Hamilcar at last returned to Salammbo, and unfastened Hannibal's cords.The child in exasperation bit his hand until the blood came.He repelled him with a caress.

To make him remain quiet Salammbo tried to frighten him with Lamia, a Cyrenian ogress.

"But where is she?" he asked.

He was told that brigands were coming to put him into prison."Let them come," he rejoined, "and I will kill them!"Then Hamilcar told him the frightful truth.But he fell into a passion with his father, contending that he was quite able to annihilate the whole people, since he was the master of Carthage.

At last, exhausted by his exertions and anger, he fell into a wild sleep.He spoke in his dreams, his back leaning against a scarlet cushion; his head was thrown back somewhat, and his little arm, outstretched from his body, lay quite straight in an attitude of command.

When the night had grown dark Hamilcar lifted him up gently, and, without a torch, went down the galley staircase.As he passed through the mercantile house he took up a basket of grapes and a flagon of pure water; the child awoke before the statue of Aletes in the vault of gems, and he smiled--like the other--on his father's arm at the brilliant lights which surrounded him.

Hamilcar felt quite sure that his son could not be taken from him.It was an impenetrable spot communicating with the beach by a subterranean passage which he alone knew, and casting his eyes around he inhaled a great draught of air.Then he set him down upon a stool beside some golden shields.No one at present could see him; he had no further need for watching; and he relieved his feelings.Like a mother finding her first-born that was lost, he threw himself upon his son;he clasped him to his breast, he laughed and wept at the same time, he called him by the fondest names and covered him with kisses; little Hannibal was frightened by this terrible tenderness and was silent now.

Hamilcar returned with silent steps, feeling the walls around him, and came into the great hall where the moonlight entered through one of the apertures in the dome; in the centre the slave lay sleeping after his repast, stretched at full length upon the marble pavement.He looked at him and was moved with a sort of pity.With the tip of his cothurn he pushed forward a carpet beneath his head.Then he raised his eyes and gazed at Tanith, whose slender crescent was shining in the sky, and felt himself stronger than the Baals and full of contempt for them.

The arrangements for the sacrifice were already begun.

Part of a wall in the temple of Moloch was thrown down in order to draw out the brazen god without touching the ashes of the altar.Then as soon as the sun appeared the hierodules pushed it towards the square of Khamon.

It moved backwards sliding upon cylinders; its shoulders overlapped the walls.No sooner did the Carthaginians perceive it in the distance than they speedily took to flight, for the Baal could be looked upon with impunity only when exercising his wrath.

A smell of aromatics spread through the streets.All the temples had just been opened simultaneously, and from them there came forth tabernacles borne upon chariots, or upon litters carried by the pontiffs.Great plumes swayed at the corners of them, and rays were emitted from their slender pinnacles which terminated in balls of crystal, gold, silver or copper.