walls with their vacant battlements cut out against the edge of the sky.

Then the Barbarians heard a great shout. They thought that some from
among them (for they did not know their own number) had remained in the
town, and were amusing themselves by pillaging a temple. They laughed a
great deal at the idea of this, and then continued their journey.

They were rejoiced to find themselves, as in former days, marching all
together in the open country, and some of the Greeks sang the old song
of the Mamertines:

"With my lance and sword I plough and reap; I am master of the house!
The disarmed man falls at my feet and calls me Lord and Great King."

They shouted, they leaped, the merriest began to tell stories; the
time of their miseries was past. As they arrived at Tunis, some of
them remarked that a troop of Balearic slingers was missing. They were
doubtless not far off; and no further heed was paid to them.

Some went to lodge in the houses, others camped at the foot of the
walls, and the townspeople came out to chat with the soldiers.

During the whole night fires were seen burning on the horizon in the
direction of Carthage; the light stretched like giant torches across the
motionless lake. No one in the army could tell what festival was being
celebrated.

On the following day the Barbarian's passed through a region that was
covered with cultivation. The domains of the patricians succeeded one
another along the border of the route; channels of water flowed