"As to
the ships chartered in common, it has often been necessary to throw the
cargo into the seas, and so the unequal losses have been divided among
the partners. For the ropes which were borrowed from the arsenals, and
which it was impossible to restore, the Syssitia exacted eight hundred
kesitahs before the expedition to Utica."
"They again!" said Hamilcar, hanging his head; and he remained for a
time as if quite crushed by the weight of all the hatreds that he could
feel upon him. "But I do not see the Megara expenses?"
Abdalonim, turning pale, went to another set of pigeon-holes, and
took from them some planchettes of sycamore wood strung in packets on
leathern strings.
Hamilcar, curious about these domestic details, listened to him and
grew calm with the monotony of the tones in which the figures were
enumerated. Abdalonim became slower. Suddenly he let the wooden sheets
fall to the ground and threw himself flat on his face with his arms
stretched out in the position of a condemned criminal. Hamilcar picked
up the tablets without any emotion; and his lips parted and his eyes
grew larger when he perceived an exorbitant consumption of meat, fish,
birds, wines, and aromatics, with broken vases, dead slaves, and spoiled
carpets set down as the expense of a single day.
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