formed long rose-coloured lines amid the banks of sand, while further
on beneath the catacombs the great salt lagoon shimmered like a piece
of silver. The blue vault of heaven sank on the horizon in one direction
into the dustiness of the plains, and in the other into the mists of the
sea, and on the summit of the Acropolis, the pyramidal cypress trees,
fringing the temple of Eschmoun, swayed murmuring like the regular waves
that beat slowly along the mole beneath the ramparts.

Salammbo ascended to the terrace of her palace, supported by a female
slave who carried an iron dish filled with live coals.

In the middle of the terrace there was a small ivory bed covered
with lynx skins, and cushions made with the feathers of the parrot, a
fatidical animal consecrated to the gods; and at the four corners rose
four long perfuming-pans filled with nard, incense, cinnamomum, and
myrrh. The slave lit the perfumes. Salammbo looked at the polar star;
she slowly saluted the four points of heaven, and knelt down on the
ground in the azure dust which was strewn with golden stars in imitation
of the firmament. Then with both elbows against her sides, her fore-arms
straight and her hands open, she threw back her head beneath the rays of
the moon, and said:

"O Rabetna!--Baalet!--Tanith!" and her voice was lengthened in a
plaintive fashion as if calling to some one. "Anaitis! Astarte! Derceto!
Astoreth! Mylitta! Athara! Elissa! Tiratha!--By the hidden symbols, by
the resounding sistra,--by the furrows of the earth,--by the eternal
silence and by the eternal fruitfulness,--mistress of the gloomy sea and
of the azure shores, O Queen of the watery world, all hail!"

She swayed her whole body twice or thrice, and then cast herself face