Before his feet touched ground Actæon was surrounded by a horde of slingers who rushed into the water up to their middles to take possession of his clothing without having to divide it among their comrades. In an instant they tore off his Celtiberian sword, the pouch hanging from his belt, and a gold chain which he wore on his breast in memory of Sónnica. They were about to strip him of his traveling tunic, leaving him naked, and he had begun to receive blows from the barbarous and cruel crowd, when Hannibal rode up and recognized him. "You have preferred to stay! I am glad of that. After having wrought me so much damage from the walls of Saguntum you have repented and you have come to join with me. I ought to leave you in the hands of these barbarians who would rend you to pieces; I ought to crucify you outside my camp so that that Greek woman whom you love could shudder at you; but I remember the promise I made you, and I shall keep it, and welcome you as a friend." He ordered one of his officials to cover the Greek's wet garments with an _endromis_, a military cloak of long hair with a hood, worn by soldiers over their armor in winter. Then he bade him mount a Numidian's horse. They took up their march toward the camp. The troops who had rushed to the entrance of the port slowly returned, while the ship fast dropped the land, spreading her glowing sails. On the Acropolis the smoke had dissipated, leaving only a few light clouds floating in the breeze. From afar one could guess the disappointment felt in the city by the unexpected flight of the Roman ship. With her seemed to vanish the last hope of the besieged. Hannibal's troops, as they retired, commented on the scene at the entrance to the port between their chief and the envoys from Rome. They did not understand the words which had been exchanged; but the energetic accent of the Roman as he spoke to Hannibal seemed to them a threat. Some, pretending that they had understood the ambassador, repeated an imaginary discourse in which the threat was made in the name of Rome to cut the throats of the whole army and to stretch Hannibal on a cross. They repeated these threats, each swelling them with inventions of his own, and when the troops met other detachments on the Road of the Serpent or in different parts of the valley, all declared they had seen the chains which the Roman legates displayed from the ship, and in which they expected to take their chieftain prisoner, and a howl of rage arose from the hosts of Hannibal. The African was flattered at the flood-tide of indignation surging around him. The soldiers, barring his way, acclaimed him with greater enthusiasm; he heard voices in every tongue crying death to Rome, calling upon the chieftain to make the final assault upon the city, to take possession of it before the ambassadors should reach Carthage and plot the downfall of the youthful hero.