They remained standing for some time.
Several who had wounded their fingers put them to their mouths or rolled them gently in the hem of their mantles, and they were about to depart when Hamilcar heard these words: "Why! it is a piece of delicacy to avoid distressing his daughter!" A louder voice was raised: "No doubt, since she takes her lovers from among the Mercenaries!" At first he tottered, then his eye rapidly sought for Schahabarim.

But the priest of Tanith had alone remained in his place; and Hamilcar could see only his lofty cap in the distance.

All were sneering in his face.
In proportion as his anguish increased their joy redoubled, and those who were behind shouted amid the hootings: "He was seen coming out of her room!" "One morning in the month of Tammouz!" "It was the thief who stole the zaimph!" "A very handsome man!" "Taller than you!" He snatched off the tiara, the ensign of his rank--his tiara with its eight mystic rows, and with an emerald shell in the centre--and with both hands and with all his strength dashed it to the ground; the golden circles rebounded as they broke, and the pearls rang upon the pavement.
Then they saw a long scar upon the whiteness of his brow; it moved like a serpent between his eyebrows; all his limbs trembled.

He ascended one of the lateral staircases which led on to the altar, and walked upon the latter! This was to devote himself to the god, to offer himself as a holocaust.

The motion of his mantle agitated the lights of the candelabrum, which was lower than his sandals, and the fine dust raised by his footsteps surrounded him like a cloud as high as the waist.