Their hair
had been plucked out in places, leaving bare the ulcers on their
heads, and they were so lean and hideous that they were like mummies in
tattered shrouds. A few trembled and sobbed with a stupid look; the rest
cried out to their friends to fire upon the Barbarians. There was one
who remained quite motionless with face cast down, and without
speaking; his long white beard fell to his chain-covered hands; and the
Carthaginians, feeling as it were the downfall of the Republic in the
bottom of their hearts, recognised Gisco. Although the place was a
dangerous one they pressed forward to see him. On his head had been
placed a grotesque tiara of hippopotamus leather incrusted with pebbles.
It was Autaritus's idea; but it was displeasing to Matho.
Hamilcar in exasperation, and resolved to cut his way through in one way
or another, had the palisades opened; and the Carthaginians went at a
furious rate half way up the hill or three hundred paces. Such a flood
of Barbarians descended upon them that they were driven back to their
lines. One of the guards of the Legion who had remained outside was
stumbling among the stones. Zarxas ran up to him, knocked him down, and
plunged a dagger into his throat; he drew it out, threw himself upon the
wound--and gluing his lips to it with mutterings of joy, and startings
which shook him to the heels, pumped up the blood by breastfuls; then he
quietly sat down upon the corpse, raised his face with his neck thrown
back the better to breathe in the air, like a hind that has just drunk
at a mountain stream, and in a shrill voice began to sing a Balearic
song, a vague melody full of prolonged modulations, with interruptions
and alternations like echoes answering one another in the mountains; he
called upon his dead brothers and invited them to a feast;--then he let
his hands fall between his legs, slowly bent his head, and wept.
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