Sometimes a piece of mosaic would
be displayed in the centre of a field, the sole remnant of a vanished
mansion; and the leafless olive trees looked at a distance like large
bushes of thorns. They passed through a town in which houses were burnt
to the ground. Human skeletons might be seen along the walls. There were
some, too, of dromedaries and mules. Half-gnawed carrion blocked the
streets.
Night fell. The sky was lowering and cloudy.
They ascended again for two hours in a westerly direction, when suddenly
they perceived a quantity of little flames before them.
These were shining at the bottom of an ampitheatre. Gold plates, as they
displaced one another, glanced here and there. These were the cuirasses
of the Clinabarians in the Punic camp; then in the neighbourhood they
distinguished other and more numerous lights, for the armies of the
Mercenaries, now blended together, extended over a great space.
Salammbo made a movement as though to advance. But Schahabarim's man
took her further away, and they passed along by the terrace which
enclosed the camp of the Barbarians. A breach became visible in it, and
the slave disappeared.
A sentry was walking upon the top of the entrenchment with a bow in his
hand and a pike on his shoulder.
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