Behind pressed a tattered populace. They lived without employment remote
from the apartments, slept at night in the gardens, ate the refuse
from the kitchens,--a human mouldiness vegetating in the shadow of
the palace. Hamilcar tolerated them from foresight even more than from
scorn. They had all put a flower in the ear in token of their joy, and
many of them had never seen him.
But men with head-dresses like the Sphinx's, and furnished with great
sticks, dashed into the crowd, striking right and left. This was to
drive back the slaves, who were curious to see their master, so that he
might not be assailed by their numbers or inconvenienced by their smell.
Then they all threw themselves flat on the ground, crying:
"Eye of Baal, may your house flourish!" And through these people as they
lay thus on the ground in the avenue of cypress trees, Abdalonim, the
Steward of the stewards, waving a white miter, advanced towards Hamilcar
with a censer in his hand.
Salammbo was then coming down the galley staircases. All her slave women
followed her; and, at each of her steps, they also descended. The heads
of the Negresses formed big black spots on the line of the bands of
the golden plates clasping the foreheads of the Roman women. Others had
silver arrows, emerald butterflies, or long bodkins set like suns in
their hair.
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