Then Matho rose.

He took a firebrand which was still smoking, and threw it disdainfully upon the wrecks of his tent.

Then with the toe of his cothurn he pushed the things which fell out back towards the flame so that nothing might be left.
Suddenly, without any one being able to guess from what point he had sprung up, Spendius reappeared.
The former slave had fastened two fragments of a lance against his thigh; he limped with a piteous look, breathing forth complaints the while.
"Remove that," said Matho to him.

"I know that you are a brave fellow!" For he was so crushed by the injustice of the gods that he had not strength enough to be indignant with men.
Spendius beckoned to him and led him to a hollow of the mountain, where Zarxas and Autaritus were lying concealed.
They had fled like the slave, the one although he was cruel, and the other in spite of his bravery.

But who, said they, could have expected the treachery of Narr' Havas, the burning of the camp of the Libyans, the loss of the zaimph, the sudden attack by Hamilcar, and, above all, his manoeuvres which forced them to return to the bottom of the mountain beneath the instant blows of the Carthaginians?
Spendius made no acknowledgement of his terror, and persisted in maintaining that his leg was broken.
At last the three chiefs and the schalischim asked one another what decision should now be adopted.
Hamilcar closed the road to Carthage against them; they were caught between his soldiers and the provinces belonging to Narr' Havas; the Tyrian towns would join the conquerors; the Barbarians would find themselves driven to the edge of the sea, and all those united forces would crush them.