Calamity should help to make us cleverer. By dint of work we
may make fortune bend. She loves politicians. She will yield!"
He returned to Matho and took him by the arm.
"Master, at present the Carthaginians are sure of their victory. You
have quite an army which has not fought, and your men obey YOU. Place
them in the front: mine will follow to avenge themselves. I have still
three thousand Carians, twelve hundred slingers and archers, whole
cohorts! A phalanx even might be formed; let us return!"
Matho, who had been stunned by the disaster, had hitherto thought of
no means of repairing it. He listened with open mouth, and the bronze
plates which circled his sides rose with the leapings of his heart. He
picked up his sword, crying:
"Follow me; forward!"
But when the scouts returned, they announced that the Carthaginian dead
had been carried off, that the bridge was in ruins, and that Hamilcar
had disappeared.
CHAPTER IX
IN THE FIELD
Hamilcar had thought that the Mercenaries would await him at Utica, or
that they would return against him; and finding his forces insufficient
to make or to sustain an attack, he had struck southwards along the
right bank of the river, thus protecting himself immediately from a
surprise.
He intended first to wink at the revolt of the tribes and to detach them
all from the cause of the Barbarians; then when they were quite isolated
in the midst of the provinces he would fall upon them and exterminate
them.
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