The two armies, having left their tents,
stood gazing; the people of Utica were massing on the ramparts to have a
better view.
At last they distinguished several transverse bars bristling with level
points. They became thicker, larger; black hillocks swayed to and fro;
square thickets suddenly appeared; they were elephants and lances. A
single shout went up: "The Carthaginians!" and without signal or command
the soldiers at Utica and those at the bridge ran pell-mell to fall in a
body upon Hamilcar.
Spendius shuddered at the name. "Hamilcar! Hamilcar!" he repeated,
panting, and Matho was not there! What was to be done? No means of
flight! The suddenness of the event, his terror of the Suffet, and above
all, the urgent need of forming an immediate resolution, distracted him;
he could see himself pierced by a thousand swords, decapitated, dead.
Meanwhile he was being called for; thirty thousand men would follow him;
he was seized with fury against himself; he fell back upon the hope of
victory; it was full of bliss, and he believed himself more intrepid
than Epaminondas. He smeared his cheeks with vermilion in order to
conceal his paleness, then he buckled on his knemids and his cuirass,
swallowed a patera of pure wine, and ran after his troops, who were
hastening towards those from Utica.
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