THE WALLS OF SAGUNTUM
The wounding of Hannibal gave the city some days of respite. The besiegers remained non-combatant in their camp, watching Saguntum from afar. The slingers came out in the mornings to exercise their arms by shooting against the wall, but aside from this, and from the arrow-shots with which they replied from the city, there was no further exchange of hostilities between the besiegers and the besieged.
Bands of cavalry overran the domain foraging, and the immense multitude of ferocious tribes finished the work of destruction, sacking the villas and country-houses. The groves were cleared away; each day they chopped down new trees in order to supply the camp with wood, and in these denuded spaces the tiled roofs and towers could no longer be seen. Only smoking and blackened ruins appeared here and there through the deserted fields. A mosaic on a level with the ground was often the only vestige of an elegant villa razed to its foundations by the invaders.
The beleaguered people saw Hannibal's army rapidly swelling. Each day new tribes arrived. It seemed as if all Iberia, subjugated by the prestige of Hannibal, were coming to camp around Saguntum, fired by the fame of its riches. They came on foot or on horseback, dirty, savage, covered with skins or dressed in esparto, carrying crescent-shaped shields and short two-edged swords, eager to fight, and bringing with them showy presents for the African, whose glory dazzled them.
Such of the Saguntines as had trafficked with the tribes of the interior recognized the new arrivals from the walls. They came from very far; some there were who had marched more than a month to reach Saguntum, and they pointed out the Lusitanians, athletic of figure, of whom horrible tales of ferocity were told; the Galicians, who lived on fish and by washing and melting the gold of their rivers; the Asturians, who worked in iron; and the gloomy Basques whose language other nations could not understand. Mixed with them came fresh tribes from Bætica, who had been slow in answering the Carthaginian's call; agile infantry, of olive skin, their hair hanging down their backs, dressed in short white skirts with broad purple borders, and carrying large round shields which served them as floats in crossing streams. The camp stretched along the river and spread over the extensive valley, scattering finally in groups of tents and huts as far as the eye could see. It was a veritable city, larger than Saguntum, which advanced and advanced as if it would swallow her walls.
The day following their courageous sally the Saguntines noticed great activity in the besieging camp—the funeral honors to the queen of the Amazons. They saw Asbyte's body borne in parade on a shield by the women-warriors; then, in the centre of the camp rose a column of smoke from the enormous pyre which consumed her remains.
The beleaguered people guessed the mood of the enemy. Hannibal was lying on his couch, and the army seemed depressed by the hero's suffering. The wizards came and went through the tent, examining the wound, and then they searched the surrounding mountains for mysterious herbs to compound miraculous poultices.
In Saguntum some of the most daring urged another sally to take advantage of that moment of depression for falling upon the enemy and putting them to flight. But the besieging camp was well guarded; Hannibal's brother with the principal captains were on the watch to avoid a surprise; the army lay behind earthen breastworks thrown up around the camp as in a strong city, and they took advantage of this opportunity to accomplish new work for protecting it from the danger of attack. On the other hand the city was no less disheartened by the loss of the priest of Hercules. The people could not explain to themselves how the African chieftain had put the gigantic Theron to death before the eyes of all Saguntum, and the more superstitious saw in this a celestial sign, the omen that the tutelary gods of the city were about to abandon it.
The same determination as at the beginning was still displayed; all were resolved to defend themselves; but the mocking joviality of the early days of the siege had disappeared. They believed that they scented adversity round about them, and the ever swelling numbers of the enemy dispirited them. Each morning they beheld the besieging camp increased. When would Hannibal's allies cease to come?
The merry Grecian city of rich merchants and of pompous Panathenaic festivals presented the solemn aspect of every beleaguered town. The people from the fields who had sought refuge in the city camped in the streets and squares, distilling the odor of a sick and suffering flock. In the temples the wounded dragged themselves to the bases of the columns, groaning; above, on the Acropolis, a funeral pyre smoked day and night consuming the bodies of those who had died on the walls, or had fallen in the streets victims of strange diseases engendered by the congestion of the population.
There were still enough provisions, but there was lack of fruits and vegetables; and the rich, divining the future, gathered in all they could, seeing days of want ahead.
In the poor wards they killed the horses and beasts of burden, roasting the meat over flames kindled in the streets for the roofless refugees.
On the walls, as well as on the Acropolis, all gazed impatiently out to sea. When would the auxiliaries come from Rome? What were the legates from Saguntum to the great Republic doing?
Frequently impatience caused the whole city to be cruelly deceived. Some mornings the lookouts posted in the tower of Hercules on the Acropolis raised a furious clangor of cymbals on spying sails upon the horizon. The people rushed to the crest of the hill, following with anxious eyes the course of the white or red sails over the blue surface of the Sucronian gulf. It was they! The Romans! The advance ships of the succoring fleet bound for the port! But after hours of anguishing expectancy, their hopes were crushed on seeing that they were passing merchant ships from Massilia or Emporion, or hostile triremes which Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was sending from New Carthage with provisions for the army.
Each disappointment increased the melancholy of the Saguntines. The enemy's ranks were ever swelling, and the allies failed to come! The city would be lost! The enthusiasm of the defenders was revived only when they found old Mopsus on the walls, who because of his sure aim at Hannibal was the hero of the city, and the valorous Actæon, who with the light spirits of an Athenian, jesting and merry in the presence of danger, knew how to inspire fresh courage.
Sónnica also appeared among them at the points of combat. She ran along the walls amidst the hissing arrows, and the poor citizens marveled at the bravery of the opulent Greek woman who scorned the missiles of the enemy.
Love for Actæon and hatred of the besiegers made her bold. She was enraged at the Carthaginians. From the height of the Acropolis one afternoon she had seen the flames pouring from the roof of her villa. She saw the red tower of the dovecote topple, the beautiful groves which surrounded her house cut down, leaving nothing but a mound of rubbish and charred trunks; and she longed to be avenged, not for her lost riches, but for the destruction of the secluded retreat sacred to her love, and of the sumptuous dwelling crowded with memories. Moreover, she was nervous from the insufferable deprivation of this new life within the beleaguered city, where she was obliged to eat coarse food and to sleep in a room in her warehouse among the valuables piled together in the disorder of flight, almost mingling with her slaves, and deprived of her bath. There was no water in the city, except that in the cisterns which the magistrates distributed with great parsimony, foreseeing an approaching scarcity.
This wretched life excited her, making her distinguished for warlike audacity. Occasionally she saw her lover, the soul of the defense; sometimes on the walls directing the slaves who were repairing them, at others on the Acropolis with Mopsus to examine the situation of the enemy. He wished to take advantage of the lull caused by Hannibal's wound to put the city into a better state of defense, and meanwhile Sónnica strolled along the wall talking with the young men, promising handsome rewards to those who most distinguished themselves, and exciting them to make an extraordinary sally in which the city should hurl itself en masse beyond the walls, crushing the enemy and sweeping them onward into the sea.
She went everywhere escorted by Erotion and Rhanto. Life in the narrow limits, and a community of danger, had drawn her to the two children, and they followed in her wake listening to her words with enthusiastic smiles, and applauding the rich woman's warlike suggestions.
Rhanto was no longer a shepherdess. One after another her goats had been devoured in Sónnica's house, and with no other occupation than following her mistress, clinging always to Erotion's hand, she regarded the situation as one of joy, and had no desire that it should ever cease. Even the frowning Mopsus, the father of her beloved, unprotesting found them together, and often smiled at seeing them tranquil and happy, walking along the walls without fear of the besiegers.
Danger had developed kindness in the people. Rich merchants elbowed slaves as they shot their arrows from the cover of the merlons; more than one opulent Grecian woman was seen to tear her linen tunic to bind the wounds of rude mercenaries, and Sónnica the rich, she who used to scorn the women of the city, now talked of forming a troop like that of the Amazons who followed Hannibal. Rhanto, content with this new situation, so blinded by joy that she could not see the anguish and misery which the town endured, pulled her lover away in moments of combat, snatched the bow from his hands, and dragging him from the battlements, they hid beneath the hollow of a stairway at the foot of the rampart, and made love with fresh ardor, their pleasure seeming the more intense because threatened by the singing arrows and the cries and exclamations of pain and fury overhead.
The respite lasted only twenty days. Breaking the silence of the camp the carpenters' hammers rung ceaselessly and the besieged saw gradually rising a great wooden tower several stories high, taller than the walls of the city.
Hannibal regained his strength, and was eager to continue the siege. In his desire that the enemy should see him without delay, he left his tent, in spite of his still open wound, he mounted his horse, and rode out of the camp to gallop along the walls, followed by his captains.
The Saguntines were dazed at the sight of him. He shone like a coal of fire upon his black horse; the sun wrapped him in a splendor which blinded, as if he were a divinity. He wore the cuirass and helmet made of gold from the rivers which the Galician tribes had brought him as a present. The chieftain preferred the bronze armor which he had ever worn in his battles, but his parade around Saguntum was like a resurrection, and he wished the besieged to behold him dazzling and majestic as a god.
With the reappearance of Hannibal the siege began fiercer than before. The Saguntines understood from the first moment that the besiegers had taken advantage of the cessation of hostilities to augment their offensive power. With great effort they dragged up the enormous wooden tower which they had constructed. Archers were stationed in the different stories to shoot through the loopholes in the sides. The upper platform dominated the wall in such wise that its catapult hurled great stones over the merlons, sowing death among the defenders.
Hannibal seemed everywhere at once, irritated by the tenacity of the Saguntines, and eager to terminate the siege without delay.
It was impossible to remain uncovered on the walls. The tower had been placed near the projecting part of the city which Hannibal considered the weakest. Darts and stones fell ceaselessly and while the defenders sought refuge behind the merlons, unable to step out into the crenels, the battering-rams pounded at the base under the protection of the tower, hammering against the walls, and gradually weakening them; and the Africans who had outlived the first assault now attacked the blocks of stone with more security, little by little opening a breach.
The Saguntines, pale with the rage of impotence, endeavored in vain to stay the destruction. The besieging tower, rolling over a level tract impelled by men hidden behind it, moved from place to place, scattering death, and at times it drew so near that the besieged could hear the voices of the bowmen who shot through the loopholes. Meanwhile, down below, at the base of the walls, the slow and obstinate work of undermining continued.
The more excitable citizens, raging with indignation at seeing their walls destroyed with impunity, leaned out into the crenels to shoot at those who operated the battering-ram and worked with pickaxes; but no sooner did they appear than a stone fell upon them, or they tumbled over with their bodies pierced by an arrow. The wall was strewn with the dead and dying. The wounded dragged themselves along contemplating with clouded gaze the shaft of the arrow sunk in their flesh.
In vain the besieged shot against the tower. Stones rebounded from its walls of logs with hollow clatter but without piercing them. It was bristling with arrows, moving like a monstrous elephant, insensible to wounds, and in vain the phalarics whistled through the air with their trail of sparks and smoke, for they could not set fire to the wet hides with which the upper part of the tower was covered.
The more prudent fled from those places where the besiegers concentrated their efforts, and the more audacious took their places ignorant how to repel the enemy, but with the stubborn determination of dying before he should advance a step.
Mopsus, the bowman, was the only one in the difficult situation who inflicted damage upon the Carthaginians. With drawn bow he thrust his head outside the merlons for an instant and shot, managing to send his arrows into the loopholes of the tower, scattering death among the soldiers who thought themselves secure. Erotion was at his side. Seeing his father in a place of danger he repelled Rhanto at the foot of the steps leading to the wall, paying no heed to her tears, and grasping his bow he tried to imitate the old archer, challenging the men in the tower.
But with the imprudence of youth he exposed almost his entire body beyond the merlon, and when he managed to plunge an arrow into the tower he laughed, standing in the open crenel insulting the besiegers with his boisterous peals of boyish laughter.
A stone from a catapult in the tower came whizzing and struck his head with a mournful crash. Blood and torn flesh spattered over those nearest him, and the boy, doubling up as if made of rags, rolled through the crenel and fell outside the wall. The arrows from his quiver struck roundabout his body with a metallic ring.
"Mopsus! Mopsus!" shouted Actæon, striving to restrain the bowman.
The old man had rushed out upon the wall, wholly unprotected, his eyes glassy, his gray beard quivering, impotent from grief and rage.
Three times he tried to draw his bow to shoot at the platform in the tower which held the catapult, but in spite of his efforts he could not bend his weapon. Grief, surprise, despair, at being unable to exterminate his enemies with a single blow deprived him of his strength.
While he stood struggling with the rigid bow which seemed to rebel against him, the enemy's projectiles were hissing around his head. Finding himself powerless, aged in an instant by grief, gazing down upon the mangled body of his son, and unable to avenge him, he uttered a moan, and summoning all the strength of his will he sprang outside the wall, and fell upon the corpse of Erotion. His head struck against the stones with a resounding thud, a stream of blood ran from it, and father and son formed a motionless pile a short distance from the assailants, who continued pounding with the battering-rams, and digging at the base of the wall.
The unequal struggle lasted almost throughout the day. The Saguntines defending this part of the wall could not repulse the advance of the enemy. They felt the dull thud of the pickaxes, the wall seemed to reel beneath their feet, and they could do nothing to prevent the progress of the besiegers.
Slowly the defenders began to retire. Actæon, saddened by the tragic death of his compatriot, and convinced that it was useless to remain at that point, advised them to retreat into the interior of the city. He fell back with some of his men, and soon a tower, eaten away at its base by the battering-ram, tottered and fell to the ground with a great roar of rubbish, and filled the air with dust. After this two other towers were battered down, and a long stretch of wall collapsed, burying in the débris the most obstinate defenders who had remained at their posts until the last moment.
An awe-inspiring acclamation, a howl of savage joy from without greeted the overthrow of the walls. From the city streets the desolated fields and one end of the camp could be seen through the open breach. Arms glittered in the dense atmosphere, reddened by the dust of the shattered walls; dark bodies of troops could be seen advancing, and trumpet blasts resounded.
"The assault! The Carthaginians are coming!"
From all sides of the city armed men gathered. The narrow streets near the wall vomited groups and more groups who came shouting and brandishing swords and axes, with the determined mien of those who had decided to die. Clambering over the rubbish they began to take position in the breach, and this open space, this broad gash in the city's girdle of stone, was protected by a motley crowd which flourished weapons and formed a solid unbreakable mass.
Actæon was in the first rank; near him he saw the prudent Alcon, who had exchanged his staff for a sword, and many of the peace-loving merchants whose astute faces seemed ennobled by the heroic resolution to die rather than give passage to the enemy.
When the besiegers advanced to the assault they had to clash with the entire city. The walking-tower, the battering-rams, and the catapults, availed them nothing; the struggle was hand to hand, and the besieged no longer used the phalaric, but the sword and the axe.
Hannibal, on foot, guided the phalanxes, which marched with lowered lance or lifted sword. He was fighting like a soldier, anxious to end this siege which was delaying his plans, believing this to be the decisive moment, and that a supreme effort might make him master of the city. With sharp words he encouraged the soldiers in the different idioms of their tribes, reminding them of the great riches within the city, of the beauty of the Greek women, of the large numbers of slaves inside those walls, and the Balearians attacked with lowered head, holding before them their wooden spears with points hardened by fire; the Celtiberians roared their war songs, beating on their breasts as on sonorous drums, drawing their sharp two-edged swords, and the Numidians and Mauritanians, dismounting from their horses, moved from place to place, cautious and sly, hurling upon the besieged the missiles which they carried in their girdles hidden beneath their white vestments.
All in vain. The breach was a narrow throat. The Carthaginian army, in spite of superior numbers, had to contract its front to fight in such a constricted space, and in this equalizing of forces, the Saguntines retained an advantage, repelling the besiegers as often as they tried to climb over the mound formed by the fallen wall. Swords sunk into flesh producing atrocious wounds characteristic of ancient warfare; breasts were torn open by the brutal force of lances; combatants clinched entwining their arms like tendrils, linking their legs, making their panting chests wheeze like bellows, and rolling on the ground biting each other in the face. Often when the victor arose he proudly displayed a piece of bleeding flesh between his teeth.
Hannibal's troops rushed up the mound like a hurricane, and on its approach the mass of defenders swayed, but none fell back; they must die firm at their post, for behind them was a compact multitude which forced them to be valiant, leaving no space for retreat.
Thus the battle raged for hours. The mounds of dead between besieged and besieger made the advance difficult. The sun had sunk low in the west, and Hannibal was exasperated by the stubborn resistance which mocked his efforts. Still trusting in his lucky star he ordered the trumpets sounded for the final assault; but at that instant an unheard of thing occurred which disconcerted the chieftain and sowed confusion among his troops.
Actæon did not know for a certainty whence came the voice. Perhaps it was an hallucination produced by faith; perhaps the invention of some enthusiast tired of being on the defensive.
"The Romans!" shouted a voice. "Our allies are coming!"
The news spread with the credulity born of danger. From one to another the story ran that the lookouts in the tower of Hercules had sighted a fleet bound for the port, and none asked who had brought the inspiring news to the breach in the walls. Everyone accepted it, adding by their own invention fresh details, and eyes shone with joy, blanched faces flushed, and even the wounded, dragging themselves over the rubbish heap, waved their arms exclaiming:
"The Romans! The Romans are coming!"
Suddenly, without command, by common instinct, as if impelled by an invisible force, they flung themselves through the breach, down the incline, falling like an avalanche upon the besiegers who were massed for the final assault.
The unexpectedness of the shock, the force of the surprise, the cry of "The Romans! The Romans!" which the Saguntines raised with such conviction, wrought disruption among Hannibal's barbarian tribes. They defended themselves, but the whole city fell upon them; even the women and children fought as on that morning when Theron died, and Hannibal's soldiers, broken into scattered groups, neither seeing nor hearing their chiefs, fled precipitately toward their camp.
Hannibal ran bellowing with rage, maddened at seeing that the besieged repelled his troops for the second time. Such was the blindness of his anger that he rushed in among the enemy, and several times came near falling beneath their blows.
The day was almost ended. The Saguntine soldiers reached the vicinity of the camp, while the unarmored citizens scattering throughout the battle field dispatched the wounded and tried to set fire to the besieging engines. They would have destroyed them all had it not been for Maherbal, Hannibal's lieutenant, who came out of the camp with some cohorts of cavalry. The besieged, unable to resist the cavalry on open ground, began slowly to retire. When night closed in they reoccupied the breach, commenting with joyful shouts upon the victory which mitigated their disappointment over the non-appearance of the Romans.
Actæon, with those Saguntines who had most distinguished themselves in the battles, set to work fortifying the city. He explained to the old men of the Senate how difficult it would be long to defend the opening. It was impossible to repeat the prodigy of that afternoon many times; and by the light of torches the people spent the whole night working behind the breach, throwing down tiled roofs and demolishing walls.
Merchants and slaves, rich city dames and women from the suburbs, all mingled together, wielding pickaxes, rolling stones and carrying baskets of clay. Even the Ancients of the Senate took part in this titanic work, which lasted throughout the night and a great part of the following day.
Euphobias the philosopher, who remained idle in spite of the insults of those who worked, ironically recalled the memory of the primitive founders of the city, the Cyclopes who moved stones as big as mountains and had thrown up the base of the Acropolis.
The labor was not finished until the next afternoon, and at the same moment the besieging army began to stir. It marched solidly to the assault, silently, sullenly, revealing the fixed determination of taking possession at the first onset of that breach which had put them to shame the day before.
They passed through the clouds of stones and arrows which the besieged hurled at them, and the cohorts leading on a run climbed up the pile of débris, struggling with the more audacious Saguntines, who still disputed passage through the breach. After a short conflict the besiegers made themselves masters of the entrance to the city, and they burst into exclamations of triumph.
Hannibal marched intrepidly at the head of his soldiers; but on gaining the crest of the pile in the breach he stepped backward with an expression of disgust.
Before him stretched a broad waste of demolished houses, and beyond the hills of débris rose a second monstrous wall, constructed in haste, as if an enormous broom had swept the desolated structures of the interior to the entrance of the city. Great, square-hewn stones, chunks of masonry, broken columns, were laid with the regularity of blocks in a wall, and the interstices were chinked with fresh clay. This wall quickly raised by a supreme effort of the whole city was taller than the previous one, and in the form of a curve it joined with the two curtains of the ancient walls which were still standing.
Hannibal paled with wrath on seeing that all his efforts had served only to make him master of a pitiful little piece of ground covered by heaps of ruins and that by prodigious skill the walls which he had battered down had risen again beyond in a single night. Saguntum would destroy her houses to refortify herself with new barriers, cutting off his passage! He would have to conquer the ground inch by inch, street by street, and it might cost him months and years to narrow it down, first around the Forum, then up to the hill of the Acropolis, before he could succeed in making it surrender.
On the summit of their new wall the Saguntines showed themselves as resolute as the day before, and their bows and slings prevented the assault of the enemy, who ended by falling back, remaining under cover of the débris at the breach.
Hannibal stood outside the city wall, contemplating the heights of the Acropolis. He realized that he might gradually sacrifice his whole army if he continued attacking Saguntum on the level and weaker side where the besieged defended the ground so tenaciously. Calling Maherbal and his brother Mago, he laid before them the necessity of capturing a position on the hill, and of assaulting a portion of the immense Acropolis to attack the city from that direction, obliging it to surrender.
Several days went by without resumption of hostilities on the side toward the river. The engines of war had been moved over to the foot of the hill, and they directed their heavy projectiles against the farthest walls of the Acropolis. These were old and had not been repaired, since the Saguntines trusted in the impregnability of the steeps.
Moreover the number of defenders was insufficient to garrison the extensive precincts of Saguntum, while the besieger had at his disposal an immense armed multitude which could hurl itself against several places at once.
One night in the Forum, Actæon encountered Sónnica, who was seeking him, followed by Alcon the Prudent.
"The Elders have need of you," said the beautiful Greek woman, with a tone of sadness. "Behold Alcon, who wishes to speak with you."
"Listen, Athenian," said the Saguntine gravely. "The days are passing and our needed succor does not come from Rome. Is it because our legates have been unable to reach the territory of the allied nation, and that the Senate of the great Republic is ignorant of our situation? Is it because Rome imagines that Hannibal, repenting of his audacity, has raised the siege? We need to know what our ally thinks concerning us. We wish the Senate of Rome to know in detail what Saguntum is doing, and the Ancients, at my suggestion, have thought of you."
"Of me? And what do they wish?" asked Actæon in surprise, looking at the mournful Sónnica.
"They wish you to start for Rome this very night. Here is gold! Take also these tablets which will serve as credentials, so that the Senate shall recognize you as an embassador extraordinary from Saguntum. We are not sending you to a festival. The exit is difficult, and it will be even more difficult to find, on these enemy-infested shores, anyone to convey you to Rome. You should start to-night; this moment, if possible; letting yourself down from the walls of the Acropolis, on the side toward the mountains where there are fewer enemies; to-morrow may be too late. Fly, and return soon with the aid which we await with anguish!"
Actæon took the gold and the tablets which Alcon offered him, but not without making excuses, realizing the gravity of the undertaking.
"No one can perform the mission better," said the Saguntine; "that is why I have turned to you. Your life has been spent running over the world; you speak many tongues; and you are not lacking in finesse and valor. Are you acquainted with Rome?"
"No, my father's father made war against her, under orders of Pyrrhus."
"Then go to her now as a friend, as an ally, and may the gods grant that some day we shall bless the moment in which you came to Saguntum!"
Actæon was not eager to start. It seemed to him a shameful act to abandon the city at that critical moment, to leave Sónnica within a besieged town.
"I am a stranger, Alcon," he said simply. "No tie of blood unites me to your fate. Are you not afraid that I shall flee forever, leaving you abandoned?"
"No, Athenian, I know you, and that is why I have stood responsible for your fidelity to the Elders. Sónnica also has sworn that you will return if you do not fall into the power of the enemy."
The Greek looked at his beloved as if asking her whether he should go, and she bowed her head, resigned to the sacrifice. Actæon then expressed himself as ready.
"Farewell, Alcon! Tell the Elders that the Athenian Actæon will be crucified in Hannibal's camp or he will appear before the Senate of Rome presenting your suit."
He kissed Sónnica on the eyes again and again, and the beautiful Greek woman, restraining her tears, pleaded to be allowed to follow him along with Alcon as far as the summit of the Acropolis, that she might see him a few moments longer.
The three walked in the dark across the esplanades of the ancient city, along the walls of the Acropolis. They had blown out their torch in order not to attract the attention of the besiegers, and they went on, guided by the diffused light of the stars, which seemed to shine with more brilliancy, as if intensified by the cold of the night which was one of the first of winter.
Alcon was searching for a place on the wall of which he had been told by some of the Elders who were more familiar with the Acropolis. When they had found it the Saguntine groped in the dark until he reached the end of a heavy rope fastened to a merlon, and he flung it over into space.
The departure took place in absolute secret. The very Elders who had planned the journey for their ambassador and had arranged his flight, concealed themselves and did not witness it. Sónnica embraced Actæon, sobbing, and clinging to his neck.
"Go quickly, Athenian," said the Saguntine impatiently. "This first hour of the night is the best; many groups of soldiers are still stirring around the camps before going to sleep. You can pass through now without being observed, while later, in the silence of the night, the sentinels will challenge you."
Actæon freed himself from Sónnica's arms, and leaning over the walls he grasped the rope in the darkness.
"Have confidence in our gods," said Alcon, as a parting word. "Although it may seem as if they have abandoned us, they ever watch over Saguntum. Not long ago a fugitive slave from the camp revealed before the Elders that the Vaccæi and the Carpetani, exasperated by the robbery of the detachments which Hannibal sent to gather supplies, have revolted against him, and have beheaded his emissaries. It seems that Hannibal, with a part of his army, will have to abandon the siege and go to punish them. We shall have fewer enemies before us, and if you return with the legions from Rome, Saguntum will be for the Carthaginians what the Ægates Islands were for them in Sicily. Ah! How much better is peace!"
With this melancholy exclamation Alcon said farewell to the Greek, who descended the rope in silence. His feet soon rested upon a part of the rock on which the wall stood. He let go the rope and began groping his way down, catching hold, in his precipitous descent, of the scrawny olive trees which twisted over the heights as if complaining of the asperity of the rocks.
At the feet of the Greek, in the black solitude of the plain, glittered the light of camp fires. Perhaps they were advance guards of the camp watching that part of the mountain, or marauders who followed the army, and had established themselves there out of Hannibal's sight.
Actæon watched the plain and picked his way cautiously, crouching along by a stony ridge, stopping often to listen, holding his breath. He thought he was being shadowed, that someone was skulking behind him. Not far away blazed a great fire, and against its lurid smoke silhouettes of men and women were outlined.
When he stood erect to explore the dark fields in order to circle away from the fire, someone suddenly caught him by the shoulders, and a hoarse voice murmured in his ears, between peals of loud and stupid laughter:
"Now I have you at last!——You can not hide yourself from me!"
Actæon squirmed from the clutching hands, and tugging at the broad knife he wore in his belt sprang in front of the unknown in an attitude of defense. It was a woman! By the dim starlight the Greek beheld her gesture of indecision and surprise.
"Are you not Geryon the slinger?" she murmured, holding her hands out to the Athenian.
They stared at each other, their faces almost meeting in the darkness, and the Greek recognized in the woman the unhappy lupa who had fed him the first night of his arrival in Saguntum. She seemed even more surprised than the Athenian at the meeting.
"Is it you, Actæon? It seems as if the gods put me in your path, although you scorn me. You are running away from the city, are you not? You must be tired of Sónnica the rich; you do not want to die like those merchants whom Hannibal the invincible will put to the knife! You are doing well! Fly! Fly far away!"
She glanced apprehensively at the camp fire as if she feared the approach of the soldiers who were warming themselves around it, laughing and drinking with a group of lupas from the port.
The miserable harlot, in lowered voice, told the Greek why she was there. She was the favorite of Geryon, a Balearic slinger. He had left his companions a moment before, and had got out of her way so as not to have to give her the wages he had just received, and in searching for him she had stumbled upon Actæon. He might return, or his companions might approach, attracted by their voices; it was dangerous for Actæon to remain where he was.
"What are you going to do?"
"I want to reach the coast, and follow along it until I find a fishing smack which will take me to Emporion or to Denia. I have money to pay my passage. Afterward I will look for a ship to take me away, very far away."
"You will not return, will you? I do not wish you to return. If you only knew how often I have thought of you while men were killing each other on the walls! I shall never see you again, but I would rather not see you than have you remain in the city or become the slave of my lover the slinger. Hannibal will finish all of them! Ah, cruel city! And how I long to see all those rich women fall before Hannibal's troops—those women who used to have us beaten when we came near them at the port!"
The poor harlot, extending her hand to the Greek, began to guide him through the fields.
"Come!" she murmured; "I will conduct you to the beach, and from there you can continue on your way without other help than that of the gods. Seeing you with me they will think you are a Celtiberian soldier with his woman, looking for a place to spend the night. Come! I fed you the first night you came here, and I will save you on this last."
They drew near the shore. As they passed several camp fires they were hailed by obscene calls from the soldiers and the women who thought them an amorous pair in search of a hiding-place. Some armed groups allowed them to pass without the slightest suspicion.
The murmur of the waves on the sand grew louder. They were walking through the rushes, sinking into the warm and oozy bottom of the lagoon formed by the overflow of the tide.
The poor lupa stood still.
"Here I leave you, Actæon. If you wished I would follow you as your slave! But you do not wish it; I know what I am——I can be nothing to you! You are going away forever, but I am content because you are fleeing from Sónnica. Before we part, kiss me, my divinity! No, not on the eyes——on the mouth——thus!"
The Athenian, with tender commiseration, moved by the kindness of the miserable creature, kissed the dry and flaccid lips, from which escaped the insufferable odor of the wine of the Balearic slingers.