The Suffet, meanwhile, had bored through the walls and reached
the citadel. The smoke suddenly disappeared before a gust of wind,
discovering the horizon as far as the walls of Carthage; he even thought
that he could distinguish people watching on the platform of Eschmoun;
then, bringing back his eyes, he perceived thirty crosses of extravagant
size on the shore of the Lake, to the left.
In fact, to render them still more frightful, they had been constructed
with tent-poles fastened end to end, and the thirty corpses of the
Ancients appeared high up in the sky. They had what looked like white
butterflies on their breasts; these were the feathers of the arrows
which had been shot at them from below.
A broad gold ribbon shone on the summit of the highest; it hung down
to the shoulder, there being no arm on that side, and Hamilcar had some
difficulty in recognising Hanno. His spongy bones had given way under
the iron pins, portions of his limbs had come off, and nothing was left
on the cross but shapeless remains, like the fragments of animals that
are hung up on huntsmen's doors.
The Suffet could not have known anything about it; the town in front of
him masked everything that was beyond and behind; and the captains who
had been successively sent to the two generals had not re-appeared.
Pages:
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431