They called for more light. The smoky atmosphere of the inn was constantly growing denser, and the frames of the lamps were scarcely more distinctly visible than drops of blood on the soot-blackened walls. From the kitchen floated an odor of piquant sauces and smoky wood which made many of the customers cough and weep. Some were drunk soon after beginning dinner, and they asked the slaves for crowns of flowers to adorn themselves as in the banquets of the rich. Others growled applause as they saw the den illuminated by the lurid flame of the candlewood which the proprietor lighted. The slaves passed behind the stone counter overturning great amphoræ, and ran into the kitchen only to rush back again immediately, red with suffocation, bearing great platters. Wine ran across the floor as a crater was overturned. When there appeared at the window the painted faces of some of the prostitutes--she-wolves of the port--who were awaiting the moment for making an irruption into the inn, the mariners greeted them with hoarse laughter, imitating the howl of the beast after whom they were nicknamed, and throwing them a portion of their food, over which the women fought, scratching and shrieking. The food was all thirst-giving, so that each mouthful should be accompanied by a sip. The Greeks ate snails floating in a sauce of saffron; fresh sardines from the gulf appeared arranged in circles around the dishes, festooned with laurel leaves; birds' heads were served covered with green sauce; the Iberian shepherds were satisfied with dried fish and hard cheese; the Romans and Gauls devoured great chunks of lamb dripping blood, and eels from the basins of the port decorated with hard-boiled eggs. All these dishes and many others were loaded with salt, pepper, and herbs of acrid odor, to which the strangest qualities were attributed. Everybody was eager to spend his money, to satisfy his hunger and thirst, and to roll on the floor drunk, consoling himself thus for the hard life of privation which awaited him on shipboard. The Romans who were to sail the next day had collected their back pay and were determined to leave their sestertii in the port of Saguntum; the Carthaginians boasted of their Republic, the richest in the world, and other mariners praised their masters, ever generous when they touched that port where business was excellent. The innkeeper was continually throwing into an empty amphora coins of all kinds, those from Zacynthus, bearing the prow of a ship, with Victory flying above it; those from Carthage with the legendary horse and the frightful Cabiric deities; and Alexandrian coins with their elegant Ptolemaic profile.