Hamilcar understood; the Mercenaries were in occupation of the country.He leaned upon his other elbow with a hollow groan; and the Chief of Farms was so afraid to speak that he trembled horribly in spite of his thick shoulders and his big red eyeballs.His face, which was as snub-nosed as a mastiff's, was surmounted by a net woven of threads of bark.He wore a waist-belt of hairy leopard's skin, wherein gleamed two formidable cutlasses.
As soon as Hamilcar turned away he began to cry aloud and invoke all the Baals.It was not his fault! he could not help it! He had watched the temperature, the soil, the stars, had planted at the winter solstice and pruned at the waning of the moon, had inspected the slaves and had been careful of their clothes.
But Hamilcar grew angry at this loquacity.He clacked his tongue, and the man with the cutlasses went on in rapid tones:
"Ah, Master! they have pillaged everything! sacked everything!
destroyed everything! Three thousand trees have been cut down at Maschala, and at Ubada the granaries have been looted and the cisterns filled up! At Tedes they have carried off fifteen hundred gomors of meal; at Marrazana they have killed the shepherds, eaten the flocks, burnt your house--your beautiful house with its cedar beams, which you used to visit in the summer! The slaves at Tuburbo who were reaping barley fled to the mountains; and the asses, the mules both great and small, the oxen from Taormina, and the antelopes,--not a single one left! all carried away! It is a curse! I shall not survive it!" He went on again in tears: "Ah! if you knew how full the cellars were, and how the ploughshares shone! Ah! the fine rams! ah! the fine bulls!--"Hamilcar's wrath was choking him.It burst forth:
"Be silent! Am I a pauper then? No lies! speak the truth! I wish to know all that I have lost to the last shekel, to the last cab!
Abdalonim, bring me the accounts of the ships, of the caravans, of the farms, of the house! And if your consciences are not clear, woe be on your heads! Go out!"All the stewards went out walking backwards, with their fists touching the ground.