The Negress threw herself upon the floor to kiss his feet; he raised her brutally. “Where have you left him, Iddibal?” “Down there, Master;” and extricating herself from her veils, she rubbed her face with her sleeve; the black colour, the senile trembling, the bent figure disappeared, and there remained a strong old man whose skin seemed tanned by sand, wind, and sea. A tuft of white hair rose on his skull like the crest of a bird; and he indicated his disguise, as it lay on the ground, with an ironic glance. “You have done well, Iddibal! ’Tis well!” Then piercing him, as it were, with his keen gaze: “No one yet suspects?” The old man swore to him by the Kabiri that the mystery had been kept. They never left their cottage, which was three days’ journey from Hadrumetum, on a shore peopled with turtles, and with palms on the dune. “And in accordance with your command, O Master! I teach him to hurl the javelin and to drive a team.” “He is strong, is he not?” “Yes, Master, and intrepid as well! He has no fear of serpents, or thunder, or phantoms. He runs bare-footed like a herdsman along the brinks of precipices.” “Speak! speak!” “He invents snares for wild beasts. Would you believe it, that last moon he surprised an eagle; he dragged it away, and the bird’s blood and the child’s were scattered in the air in large drops like driven roses. The animal in its fury enwrapped him in the beating of its wings; he strained it against his breast, and as it died his laughter increased, piercing and proud like the clashing of swords.” Hamilcar bent his head, dazzled by such presages of greatness. “But he has been for some time restless and disturbed. He gazes at the sails passing far out at sea; he is melancholy, he rejects bread, he inquires about the gods, and he wishes to become acquainted with Carthage.” “No, no! not yet!” exclaimed the Suffet. The old slave seemed to understand the peril which alarmed Hamilcar, and he resumed: “How is he to be restrained? Already I am obliged to make him promises, and I have come to Carthage only to buy him a dagger with a silver handle and pearls all around it.” Then he told how, having perceived the Suffet on the terrace, he had passed himself off on the warders of the harbour as one of Salammbô’s women, so as to make his way in to him. Hamilcar remained for a long time apparently lost in deliberation; at last he said: “To-morrow you will present yourself at sunset behind the purple factories in Megara, and imitate a jackal’s cry three times. If you do not see me, you will return to Carthage on the first day of every moon. Forget nothing! Love him! You may speak to him now about Hamilcar.” The slave resumed his costume, and they left the house and the harbour together. Hamilcar went on his way alone on foot and without an escort, for the meetings of the Ancients were, under extraordinary circumstances, always secret, and were resorted to mysteriously.