But they were animated by such rage that they dashed themselves against it.

The first were pierced to the backbone, those coming next surged over them, and all fell back, leaving human fragments and bloodstained hair on those horrible branches.
When their discouragement was somewhat abated, they made an examination of the provisions.

The Mercenaries, whose baggage was lost, possessed scarcely enough for two days; and all the rest found themselves destitute,--for they had been awaiting a convoy promised by the villages of the South.
However, some bulls were roaming about, those which the Carthaginians had loosed in the gorge to attract the Barbarians.

They killed them with lance thrusts and ate them, and when their stomachs were filled their thoughts were less mournful.
The next day they slaughtered all the mules to the number of about forty; then they scraped the skins, boiled the entrails, pounded the bones, and did not yet despair; the army from Tunis had no doubt been warned, and was coming.
But on the evening of the fifth day their hunger increased; they gnawed their sword-belts, and the little sponges which bordered the bottom of their helmets.
These forty thousand men were massed into the species of hippodrome formed by the mountain about them.

Some remained in front of the portcullis, or at the foot of the rocks; the rest covered the plain confusedly.