extremity to the other.

Far in the background stood the palace, built of yellow mottled Numidian
marble, broad courses supporting its four terraced stories. With its
large, straight, ebony staircase, bearing the prow of a vanquished
galley at the corners of every step, its red doors quartered with black
crosses, its brass gratings protecting it from scorpions below, and its
trellises of gilded rods closing the apertures above, it seemed to the
soldiers in its haughty opulence as solemn and impenetrable as the face
of Hamilcar.

The Council had appointed his house for the holding of this feast; the
convalescents lying in the temple of Eschmoun had set out at daybreak
and dragged themselves thither on their crutches. Every minute others
were arriving. They poured in ceaselessly by every path like torrents
rushing into a lake; through the trees the slaves of the kitchens might
be seen running scared and half-naked; the gazelles fled bleating on the
lawns; the sun was setting, and the perfume of citron trees rendered the
exhalation from the perspiring crowd heavier still.

Men of all nations were there, Ligurians, Lusitanians, Balearians,
Negroes, and fugitives from Rome. Beside the heavy Dorian dialect were
audible the resonant Celtic syllables rattling like chariots of war,
while Ionian terminations conflicted with consonants of the desert as
harsh as the jackal's cry. The Greek might be recognised by his slender
figure, the Egyptian by his elevated shoulders, the Cantabrian by his
broad calves. There were Carians proudly nodding their helmet plumes,
Cappadocian archers displaying large flowers painted on their bodies
with the juice of herbs, and a few Lydians in women's robes, dining in
slippers and earrings. Others were ostentatiously daubed with vermilion,