In the middle of the night some of these approached, and, dissembling
their eagerness, asked for a small mouthful, merely to try, they said.
Bolder ones came up; their number increased; there was soon a crowd. But
almost all of them let their hands fall on feeling the cold flesh on the
edge of their lips; others, on the contrary, devoured it with delight.
That they might be led away by example, they urged one another on
mutually. Such as had at first refused went to see the Garamantians, and
returned no more. They cooked the pieces on coals at the point of the
sword; they salted them with dust, and contended for the best morsels.
When nothing was left of the three corpses, their eyes ranged over the
whole plain to find others.
But were they not in possession of Carthaginians--twenty captives taken
in the last encounter, whom no one had noticed up to the present? These
disappeared; moreover, it was an act of vengeance. Then, as they must
live, as the taste for this food had become developed, and as they were
dying, they cut the throats of the water-carriers, grooms, and all the
serving-men belonging to the Mercenaries. They killed some of them every
day. Some ate much, recovered strength, and were sad no more.
Soon this resource failed.
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