The peacocks were screeching. Hamilcar walked
along step by step.
"What am I to do with these old creatures?" he said. "Sell them! There
are too many Gauls: they are drunkards! and too many Cretans: they are
liars! Buy me some Cappadocians, Asiatics, and Negroes."
He was astonished that the children were so few. "The house ought to
have births every year, Giddenem. You will leave the huts open every
night to let them mingle freely."
He then had the thieves, the lazy, and the mutinous shown to him. He
distributed punishments, with reproaches to Giddenem; and Giddenem,
ox-like, bent his low forehead, with its two broad intersecting
eyebrows.
"See, Eye of Baal," he said, pointing out a sturdy Libyan, "here is one
who was caught with the rope round his neck."
"Ah! you wish to die?" said the Suffet scornfully.
"Yes!" replied the slave in an intrepid tone.
Then, without heeding the precedent or the pecuniary loss, Hamilcar said
to the serving-men:
"Away with him!"
Perhaps in his thoughts he intended a sacrifice. It was a misfortune
which he inflicted upon himself in order to avert more terrible ones.
Giddenem had hidden those who were mutilated behind the others. Hamilcar
perceived them.
"Who cut off your arm?"
"The soldiers, Eye of Baal.
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