Soon the two crowds formed but one great chain of human bodies; it
overflowed into the intervals in the terrace, and, somewhat looser at
the two extremities, swayed perpetually without advancing. They clasped
one another, lying flat on the ground like wrestlers. They crushed one
another. The women leaned over the battlements and shrieked. They
were dragged away by their veils, and the whiteness of their suddenly
uncovered sides shone in the arms of the Negroes as the latter buried
their daggers in them. Some corpses did not fall, being too much pressed
by the crowd, and, supported by the shoulders of their companions,
advanced for some minutes quite upright and with staring eyes. Some
who had both temples pierced by a javelin swayed their heads about like
bears. Mouths, opened to shout, remained gaping; severed hands flew
through the air. Mighty blows were dealt, which were long talked of by
the survivors.
Meanwhile arrows darted from the towers of wood and stone. The tollenos
moved their long yards rapidly; and as the Barbarians had sacked the
old cemetery of the aborigines beneath the Catacombs, they hurled the
tombstones against the Carthaginians. Sometimes the cables broke under
the weight of too heavy baskets, and masses of men, all with uplifted
arms, would fall from the sky.
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