"
Then to a Samnite who was staggering like a wounded heron:
"And you, who did that to you?"
It was the governor, who had broken his leg with an iron bar.
This silly atrocity made the Suffet indignant; he snatched the jet
necklace out of Giddenem's hands.
"Cursed be the dog that injures the flock! Gracious Tanith, to cripple
slaves! Ah! you ruin your master! Let him be smothered in the dunghill.
And those that are missing? Where are they? Have you helped the soldiers
to murder them?"
His face was so terrible that all the women fled. The slaves drew back
and formed a large circle around them; Giddenem was frantically kissing
his sandals; Hamilcar stood upright with his arms raised above him.
But with his understanding as clear as in the sternest of his battles,
he recalled a thousand odious things, ignominies from which he had
turned aside; and in the gleaming of his wrath he could once more see
all his disasters simultaneously as in the lightnings of a storm.
The governors of the country estates had fled through terror of the
soldiers, perhaps through collusion with them; they were all deceiving
him; he had restrained himself too long.
"Bring them here!" he cried; "and brand them on the forehead with
red-hot irons as cowards!"
Then they brought and spread out in the middle of the garden, fetters,
carcanets, knives, chains for those condemned to the mines, cippi for
fastening the legs, numellae for confining the shoulders, and scorpions
or whips with triple thongs terminating in brass claws.
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