Hamilcar, it is true, might have lost his velites, only half of
whom remained, but he would have sacrificed twenty times as many for the
success of such an enterprise.
The Barbarians pressed forward until morning, in compact files, from one
end of the plain to the other. They felt the mountain with their hands,
seeking to discover a passage.
At last day broke; and they perceived all about them a great white wall
hewn with the pick. And no means of safety, no hope! The two natural
outcomes from this blind alley were closed by the portcullis and the
heaps of rocks.
Then they all looked at one another without speaking. They sank down in
collapse, feeling an icy coldness in their loins, and an overwhelming
weight upon their eyelids.
They rose, and bounded against the rocks. But the lowest were weighted
by the pressure of the others, and were immovable. They tried to cling
to them so as to reach the top, but the bellying shape of the great
masses rendered all hold impossible. They sought to cleave the ground on
both sides of the gorge, but their instruments broke. They made a large
fire with the tent poles, but the fire could not burn the mountain.
They returned to the portcullis; it was garnished with long nails as
thick as stakes, as sharp as the spines of a porcupine, and closer than
the hairs of a brush.
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