At the corner of the street of
Satheb he leaned his back against the wall beneath the pent-house of a
shop, and advanced no further.
The slaves of the Council struck him with their whips of hippopotamus
leather, so furiously and long that the fringes of their tunics were
drenched with sweat. Matho appeared insensible; suddenly he started
off and began to run at random, making a noise with his lips like one
shivering with severe cold. He threaded the street of Boudes, and the
street of Soepo, crossed the Green Market, and reached the square of
Khamon.
He now belonged to the priests; the slaves had just dispersed the crowd,
and there was more room. Matho gazed round him and his eyes encountered
Salammbo.
At the first step that he had taken she had risen; then, as he
approached, she had involuntarily advanced by degrees to the edge of the
terrace; and soon all external things were blotted out, and she saw only
Matho. Silence fell in her soul,--one of those abysses wherein the whole
world disappears beneath the pressure of a single thought, a memory, a
look. This man who was walking towards her attracted her.
Excepting his eyes he had no appearance of humanity left; he was a long,
perfectly red shape; his broken bonds hung down his thighs, but they
could not be distinguished from the tendons of his wrists, which were
laid quite bare; his mouth remained wide open; from his eye-sockets
there darted flames which seemed to rise up to his hair;--and the wretch
still walked on!
He reached the foot of the terrace.
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