Narr' Havas had drained his forests of these animals, taking young and
old, male and female, to keep up the war, and the military force of
his kingdom could not repair the loss. The people who had seen them
perishing at a distance were grieved at it; men lamented in the streets,
calling them by their names like deceased friends: "Ah! the Invincible!
the Victory! the Thunderer! the Swallow!" On the first day, too, there
was no talk except of the dead citizens. But on the morrow the tents of
the Mercenaries were seen on the mountain of the Hot Springs. Then
so deep was the despair that many people, especially women, flung
themselves headlong from the top of the Acropolis.
Hamilcar's designs were not known. He lived alone in his tent with
none near him but a young boy, and no one ever ate with them, not even
excepting Narr' Havas. Nevertheless he showed great deference to the
latter after Hanno's defeat; but the king of the Numidians had too great
an interest in becoming his son not to distrust him.
This inertness veiled skilful manoeuvres. Hamilcar seduced the heads of
the villages by all sorts of artifices; and the Mercenaries were hunted,
repulsed, and enclosed like wild beasts. As soon as they entered a wood,
the trees caught fire around them; when they drank of a spring it was
poisoned; the caves in which they hid in order to sleep were walled up.
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