Then the slave spoke to her of her father. It was thought that he had
gone towards the amber country, behind the pillars of Melkarth. "But if
he does not return," she said, "you must nevertheless, since it was his
will, choose a husband among the sons of the Ancients, and then your
grief will pass away in a man's arms."

"Why?" asked the young girl. All those that she had seen had horrified
her with their fallow-deer laughter and their coarse limbs.

"Sometimes, Tanaach, from the depths of my being there exhale as it were
hot fumes heavier than the vapours from a volcano. Voices call me, a
globe of fire rolls and mounts within my bosom, it stifles me, I am at
the point of death; and then, something sweet, flowing from my brow to
my feet, passes through my flesh--it is a caress enfolding me, and I
feel myself crushed as if some god were stretched upon me. Oh! would
that I could lose myself in the mists of the night, the waters of the
fountains, the sap of the trees, that I could issue from my body, and be
but a breath, or a ray, and glide, mount up to thee, O Mother!"

She raised her arms to their full length, arching her form, which in
its long garment was as pale and light as the moon. Then she fell back,
panting, on the ivory couch; but Taanach passed an amber necklace with
dolphin's teeth about her neck to banish terrors, and Salammbo said in
an almost stifled voice: "Go and bring me Schahabarim."

Her father had not wished her to enter the college of priestesses,
nor even to be made at all acquainted with the popular Tanith. He was
reserving her for some alliance that might serve his political ends;
so that Salammbo lived alone in the midst of the palace. Her mother was
long since dead.