The Greek awoke. His chest was weighted down by a form as heavy as a mountain. He was not sure whether he really existed. His members refused to obey him. Only with a painful effort could he open his eyes and understand confusedly why he was there. Gradually he realized that the something which oppressed his breast was the corpse of a gigantic soldier. Actæon thought he remembered having plunged his sword into the body of the warrior the instant that he fell into the dense and mysterious night. He looked around. A ruddy glow, as of an endless aurora, scintillated on the abandoned weapons and outlined silhouettes of the bodies lying in heaps or scattered over the field contracted in weird postures by their final convulsions. In the background a city was burning. The blackened and shapeless structures stood out against the curtain of flames, and through their restless splendor the walls of the Acropolis trembled. Actæon remembered all that had happened. That city was Saguntum; the conquerors could be heard howling through the streets; they were covered with blood; setting fire to the houses still untouched; cursing a people which only gave itself up after consuming its riches; killing in their fury whatever living thing they encountered in their way, and stabbing the wounded. As he realized this he knew that he was not dead, but that he was going to die. He knew it by the terrible weakness which overpowered him, by the mortal cold creeping up to his heart; by his mind which was growing dull, and was now but a flickering light. What of Sónnica? Where could he find Sónnica? His last thought was to reach her body, which must be near. He wished to kiss her as her slave; to render her that tribute before he died. But as he made a supreme exertion, raising his head from the ground, a wave of warm and sticky liquid covered his face. It was his last blood. Then he seemed to see, with the vagueness of a vanishing dream, a kind of black centaur, galloping over the slain, and looking at the blazing city, laughing with malevolent joy. He passed near. His horse's hoofs ploughed into the body of the Celtiberian lying on his breast. The dying Greek recognized the horseman by the light of the conflagration. It was Hannibal, his head uncovered, possessed by the fury of triumph, galloping on his jet-black horse which seemed to have caught the ferocity of the rider, whinnying, treading on the fallen bodies, lashing his tail above the litter of battle. To the Greek he appeared an infernal demon coming for his soul. Dimly, like a blurred vision, he saw the face of Hannibal animated by a smile of pride, of cruel satisfaction--the majestic and ferocious visage of one of those gods of Carthage who showed clemency only when human sacrifices were smoking upon their altars. Hannibal laughed on seeing that at last the city which had detained him eight months before her walls, was his. Now he was free to go on working out his audacious dreams!