The porphyry basin still contained a little clear water for Salammbô’s ablutions. In spite of his repugnance and all his pride, the Suffet dipped the child into it, and, like a slave merchant, began to wash him and rub him with strigils and red earth. Then he took two purple squares from the receptacles round the wall, placed one on his breast and the other on his back, and joined them together on the collar bones with two diamond clasps. He poured perfume upon his head, passed an electrum necklace around his neck, and put on him sandals with heels of pearl,—sandals belonging to his own daughter! But he stamped with shame and vexation; Salammbô, who busied herself in helping him, was as pale as he. The child, dazzled by such splendour, smiled and, growing bold even, was beginning to clap his hands and jump, when Hamilcar took him away. He held him firmly by the arm as though he were afraid of losing him, and the child, who was hurt, wept a little as he ran beside him. When on a level with the ergastulum, under a palm tree, a voice was raised, a mournful and supplicant voice. It murmured: “Master! oh! master!” Hamilcar turned and beside him perceived a man of abject appearance, one of the wretches who led a haphazard existence in the household. “What do you want?” said the Suffet. The slave, who trembled horribly, stammered: “I am his father!” Hamilcar walked on; the other followed him with stooping loins, bent hams, and head thrust forward. His face was convulsed with unspeakable anguish, and he was choking with suppressed sobs, so eager was he at once to question him, and to cry: “Mercy!” At last he ventured to touch him lightly with one finger on the elbow. “Are you going to—?” He had not the strength to finish, and Hamilcar stopped quite amazed at such grief. He had never thought—so immense was the abyss separating them from each other—that there could be anything in common between them. It even appeared to him a sort of outrage, an encroachment upon his own privileges. He replied with a look colder and heavier than an executioner’s axe; the slave swooned and fell in the dust at his feet. Hamilcar strode across him. The three black-robed men were waiting in the great hall, and standing against the stone disc. Immediately he tore his garments, and rolled upon the pavement uttering piercing cries. “Ah! poor little Hannibal! Oh! my son! my consolation! my hope! my life! Kill me also! take me away! Woe! Woe!” He ploughed his face with his nails, tore out his hair, and shrieked like the women who lament at funerals. “Take him away then! my suffering is too great! begone! kill me like him!” The servants of Moloch were astonished that the great Hamilcar was so weak-spirited. They were almost moved by it.