He was no doubt dead. The Barbarians found themselves alone.
The dust around them fell and they were beginning to sing, when Hanno
himself appeared on the top of an elephant. He sat bare-headed beneath a
parasol of byssus which was carried by a Negro behind him. His necklace
of blue plates flapped against the flowers on his black tunic; his huge
arms were compressed within circles of diamonds, and with open mouth he
brandished a pike of inordinate size, which spread out at the end like a
lotus, and flashed more than a mirror. Immediately the earth shook,--and
the Barbarians saw all the elephants of Carthage, with their gilt tusks
and blue-painted ears, hastening up in single line, clothed with bronze
and shaking the leathern towers which were placed above their scarlet
caparisons, in each of which were three archers bending large bows.
The soldiers were barely in possession of their arms; they had taken
up their positions at random. They were frozen with terror; they stood
undecided.
Javelins, arrows, phalaricas, and masses of lead were already being
showered down upon them from the towers. Some clung to the fringes of
the caparisons in order to climb up, but their hands were struck off
with cutlasses and they fell backwards upon the swords' points.
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