The news of the victory had arrived in some inexplicable way at the third hour of the night; the clepsydra of Khamon had just completed the fifth as they reached Malqua; then Matho opened his eyes.There were so many lights in the houses that the town appeared to be all in flames.
An immense clamour reached him dimly; and lying on his back he looked at the stars.
Then a door closed and he was wrapped in darkness.
On the morrow, at the same hour, the last of the men left in the Pass of the Hatchet expired.
On the day that their companions had set out, some Zuaeces who were returning had tumbled the rocks down, and had fed them for some time.
The Barbarians constantly expected to see Matho appear,--and from discouragement, from languor, and from the obstinacy of sick men who object to change their situation, they would not leave the mountain;at last the provisions were exhausted and the Zuaeces went away.It was known that they numbered scarcely more than thirteen hundred men, and there was no need to employ soldiers to put an end to them.
Wild beasts, especially lions, had multiplied during the three years that the war had lasted.Narr' Havas had held a great battue, and--after tying goats at intervals--had run upon them and so driven them towards the Pass of the Hatchet;--and they were now all living in it when a man arrived who had been sent by the Ancients to find out what there was left of the Barbarians.
Lions and corpses were lying over the tract of the plain, and the dead were mingled with clothes and armour.Nearly all had the face or an arm wanting; some appeared to be still intact; others were completely dried up, and their helmets were filled with powdery skulls; feet which had lost their flesh stood out straight from the knemides;skeletons still wore their cloaks; and bones, cleaned by the sun, made gleaming spots in the midst of the sand.
The lions were resting with their breasts against the ground and both paws stretched out, winking their eyelids in the bright daylight, which was heightened by the reflection from the white rocks.Others were seated on their hind-quarters and staring before them, or else were sleeping, rolled into a ball and half hidden by their great manes; they all looked well fed, tired, and dull.They were as motionless as the mountain and the dead.Night was falling; the sky was striped with broad red bands in the west.
In one of the heaps, which in an irregular fashion embossed the plain, something rose up vaguer than a spectre.Then one of the lions set himself in motion, his monstrous form cutting a black shadow on the background of the purple sky, and when he was quite close to the man, he knocked him down with a single blow of his paw.
Then, stretching himself flat upon him, he slowly drew out the entrails with the edge of his teeth.
Afterwards he opened his huge jaws, and for some minutes uttered a lengthened roar which was repeated by the echoes in the mountain, and was finally lost in the solitude.
Suddenly some small gravel rolled down from above.The rustling of rapid steps was heard, and in the direction of the portcullis and of the gorge there appeared pointed muzzles and straight ears, with gleaming, tawny eyes.These were the jackals coming to eat what was left.
The Carthaginian, who was leaning over the top of the precipice to look, went back again.
