Others had returned from
India with peacocks, pepper, and new textures. As to those who go by way
of the Syrtes and the temple of Ammon to purchase chalcedony, they had
no doubt perished in the sands. The caravans from Gaetulia and Phazzana
had furnished their usual supplies; but he, the Chief of the Journeys,
did not venture to fit one out just now.
Hamilcar understood; the Mercenaries were in occupation of the country.
He leaned upon his other elbow with a hollow groan; and the Chief of
Farms was so afraid to speak that he trembled horribly in spite of
his thick shoulders and his big red eyeballs. His face, which was as
snub-nosed as a mastiff's, was surmounted by a net woven of threads of
bark. He wore a waist-belt of hairy leopard's skin, wherein gleamed two
formidable cutlasses.
As soon as Hamilcar turned away he began to cry aloud and invoke all the
Baals. It was not his fault! he could not help it! He had watched the
temperature, the soil, the stars, had planted at the winter solstice and
pruned at the waning of the moon, had inspected the slaves and had been
careful of their clothes.
But Hamilcar grew angry at this loquacity. He clacked his tongue, and
the man with the cutlasses went on in rapid tones:
"Ah, Master! they have pillaged everything! sacked everything! destroyed
everything! Three thousand trees have been cut down at Maschala, and
at Ubada the granaries have been looted and the cisterns filled up! At
Tedes they have carried off fifteen hundred gomors of meal; at Marrazana
they have killed the shepherds, eaten the flocks, burnt your house--your
beautiful house with its cedar beams, which you used to visit in the
summer! The slaves at Tuburbo who were reaping barley fled to the
mountains; and the asses, the mules both great and small, the oxen from
Taormina, and the antelopes,--not a single one left! all carried away!
It is a curse! I shall not survive it!" He went on again in tears: "Ah!
if you knew how full the cellars were, and how the ploughshares shone!
Ah! the fine rams! ah! the fine bulls!--"
Hamilcar's wrath was choking him.
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