There were people in the square of Khamon shouting for arms.The Ancients would not provide them, esteeming such an effort useless;others who had set out without a general had been massacred.At last they were permitted to depart, and as a sort of homage to Moloch, or from a vague need of destruction, they tore up tall cypress trees in the woods of the temples, and having kindled them at the torches of the Kabiri, were carrying them through the streets singing.These monstrous flames advanced swaying gently; they transmitted fires to the glass balls on the crests of the temples, to the ornaments of the colossuses and the beaks of the ships, passed beyond the terraces and formed suns as it were, which rolled through the town.They descended the Acropolis.The gate of Malqua opened.
"Are you ready?" exclaimed Schahabarim, "or have you asked them to tell your father that you abandoned him?" She hid her face in her veils, and the great lights retired, sinking gradually the while to the edge of the waves.
An indeterminate dread restrained her; she was afraid of Moloch and of Matho.This man, with his giant stature, who was master of the zaimph, ruled Rabbetna as much as did Baal, and seemed to her to be surrounded by the same fulgurations; and then the souls of the gods sometimes visited the bodies of men.Did not Schahabarim in speaking of him say that she was to vanquish Moloch? They were mingled with each other;she confused them together; both of them were pursuing her.
She wished to learn the future, and approached the serpent, for auguries were drawn from the attitudes of serpents.But the basket was empty; Salammbo was disturbed.
She found him with his tail rolled round one of the silver balustrades beside the hanging bed, which he was rubbing in order to free himself from his old yellowish skin, while his body stretched forth gleaming and clear like a sword half out of the sheath.
Then on the days following, in proportion as she allowed herself to be convinced, and was more disposed to succour Tanith, the python recovered and grew; he seemed to be reviving.
The certainty that Salammbo was giving expression to the will of the gods then became established in her conscience.One morning she awoke resolved, and she asked what was necessary to make Matho restore the veil.
"To claim it," said Schahabarim.
"But if he refuses?" she rejoined.
The priest scanned her fixedly with a smile such as she had never seen.
"Yes, what is to be done?" repeated Salammbo.
He rolled between his fingers the extremities of the bands which fell from his tiara upon his shoulders, standing motionless with eyes cast down.At last seeing that she did not understand:
"You will be alone with him."
"Well?" she said.
"Alone in his tent."
"What then?"
Schahabarim bit his lips.He sought for some phrase, some circumlocution.
"If you are to die, that will be later," he said; "later! fear nothing! and whatever he may undertake to do, do not call out! do not be frightened! You will be humble, you understand, and submissive to his desire, which is ordained of heaven!""But the veil?"
"The gods will take thought for it," replied Schahabarim.
"Suppose you were to accompany me, O father?" she added.
"No!"
1
He indicated to her all the purifications and fastings that she was to observe, and how she was to reach Matho.Moreover, a man acquainted with the routes would accompany her.
She felt as if she had been set free.She thought only of the happiness of seeing the zaimph again, and she now blessed Schahabarim for his exhortations.
It was the period at which the doves of Carthage migrated to Sicily to the mountain of Eryx and the temple of Venus.For several days before their departure they sought out and called to one another so as to collect together; at last one evening they flew away; the wind blew them along, and the big white cloud glided across the sky high above the sea.
The horizon was filled with the colour of blood.They seemed to descend gradually to the waves; then they disappeared as though swallowed up, and falling of themselves into the jaws of the sun.
Salammbo, who watched them retiring, bent her head, and then Taanach, believing that she guessed her sorrow, said gently to her:
"But they will come back, Mistress."
"Yes! I know."
"And you will see them again."
"Perhaps!" she said, sighing.
She had not confided her resolve to any one; in order to carry it out with the greater discretion she sent Taanach to the suburb of Kinisdo to buy all the things that she required instead of requesting them from the stewards: vermilion, aromatics, a linen girdle, and new garments.The old slave was amazed at these preparations, without daring, however, to ask any questions; and the day, which had been fixed by Schahabarim, arrived when Salammbo was to set out.
About the twelfth hour she perceived, in the depths of the sycamore trees, a blind old man with one hand resting on the shoulder of a child who walked before him, while with the other he carried a kind of cithara of black wood against his hip.The eunuchs, slaves, and women had been scrupulously sent away; no one might know the mystery that was preparing.
Taanach kindled four tripods filled with strobus and cadamomum in the corners of the apartment; then she unfolded large Babylonian hangings, and stretched them on cords all around the room, for Salammbo did not wish to be seen even by the walls.The kinnor-player squatted behind the door and the young boy standing upright applied a reed flute to his lips.In the distance the roar of the streets was growing feebler, violet shadows were lengthening before the peristyles of the temples, and on the other side of the gulf the mountain bases, the fields of olive-trees, and the vague yellow lands undulated indefinitely, and were blended together in a bluish haze; not a sound was to be heard, and an unspeakable depression weighed in the air.
