Soon the road was empty. The last of the refugees were left behind, and Actæon saw before him only the narrow tongue of red earth winding along the mountain slopes, without a solitary being to break the monotony of the road with his shadow. The gallop of his horse resounded like distant thunder through the profound silence. It seemed as if Nature had expired as she guessed the approach of war. Even the ancient trees, the twisted olives which had stood for centuries, the great fig trees which rose like green cupolas against the mountain slopes, remained motionless, as if terrified at the approach of that something which caused the people to abandon their homes and to flee into the city. Actæon rode through a village. Closed doors! Silent streets! From the interior of a cabin he thought he heard a faint groan--some sick person forsaken by his kindred in their haste to escape. Then he passed a great closed villa. Behind the high mud walls a dog was howling in despair. Then once more solitude, silence, absence of life, a paralysis that seemed to creep over the fields. Night began to fall. From afar, as if diffused and mellowed by the distance, he heard a muffled booming; something like the surging of an invisible sea, the swelling roar of an inundation. The Greek left the road; his horse began to climb a cultivated hill, his hoofs sinking into the red soil of the vineyards. From the height he could dominate the landscape for a great distance. The sun's last rays dyed the mountain slopes a brilliant orange. On the winding red road shone like a rivulet of sparks the cuirasses of a group of horsemen approaching cautiously on a trot, as if exploring the way. Actæon recognized them; they were the Numidian cavalry with white and floating mantles, while, mingled with them galloped other warriors of less imposing stature, waving lances and making their small horses caracole. The Greek smiled as he recognized Hannibal's Amazons, the famous squadron he had seen in New Carthage, formed of the wives and daughters of soldiers, commanded by the valorous Asbyte, daughter of Iarbas, the Garamantan of Fezzan. Behind this group, the road was deserted for some distance. Against the background, like a dark monster moving with serpentine undulations, loomed the army, an immense girdle upon which glittered the lances like a line of fire broken at intervals by square bulks, which advanced like moving towers. These were the elephants.