They are growing pale
like the spots on your skin, and you are not to die from them."
"Oh! yes, that is so, is it not?" repeated the Suffet, "I am not to die
from them!" And his violaceous lips gave forth a breath more nauseous
than the exhalation from a corpse. Two coals seemed to burn in the place
of his eyes, which had lost their eyebrows; a mass of wrinkled skin
hung over his forehead; both his ears stood out from his head and were
beginning to increase in size; and the deep lines forming semicircles
round his nostrils gave him a strange and terrifying appearance, the
look of a wild beast. His unnatural voice was like a roar; he said:
"Perhaps you are right, Demonades. In fact there are many ulcers here
which have closed. I feel robust. Here! look how I am eating!"
And less from greediness than from ostentation, and the desire to prove
to himself that he was in good health, he cut into the forcemeats
of cheese and marjoram, the boned fish, gourds, oysters with eggs,
horse-radishes, truffles, and brochettes of small birds. As he looked
at the prisoners he revelled in the imagination of their tortures.
Nevertheless he remembered Sicca, and the rage caused by all his woes
found vent in the abuse of these three men.
"Ah! traitors! ah! wretches! infamous, accursed creatures! And you
outraged me!--me! the Suffet! Their services, the price of their
blood, say they! Ah! yes! their blood! their blood!" Then speaking to
himself:--"All shall perish! not one shall be sold! It would be better
to bring them to Carthage! I should be seen--but doubtless, I have not
brought chains enough? Write: Send me--How many of them are there? go
and ask Muthumbal! Go! no pity! and let all their hands be cut off and
brought to me in baskets!"
But strange cries at once hoarse and shrill penetrated into the hall
above Hanno's voice and the rattling of the dishes that were being
placed around him.
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