He sat bare-headed beneath a parasol of byssus which was carried by a Negro behind him.

His necklace of blue plates flapped against the flowers on his black tunic; his huge arms were compressed within circles of diamonds, and with open mouth he brandished a pike of inordinate size, which spread out at the end like a lotus, and flashed more than a mirror.

Immediately the earth shook,--and the Barbarians saw all the elephants of Carthage, with their gilt tusks and blue-painted ears, hastening up in single line, clothed with bronze and shaking the leathern towers which were placed above their scarlet caparisons, in each of which were three archers bending large bows.
The soldiers were barely in possession of their arms; they had taken up their positions at random.

They were frozen with terror; they stood undecided.
Javelins, arrows, phalaricas, and masses of lead were already being showered down upon them from the towers.

Some clung to the fringes of the caparisons in order to climb up, but their hands were struck off with cutlasses and they fell backwards upon the swords' points.