Here Bocchar stopped his pursuit, as he neither had courage to enter the river, nor believed that he now had any one to pursue.

Upon this he returned to the king, with the false account of the death of Masinissa.

Messengers were despatched to Carthage to convey this most joyful event, and all Africa rang with the news of Masinissa's death; but the minds of men were variously affected by it.

Masinissa, while curing his wound by the application of herbs, was supported for several days in a secret cave by what the two horsemen procured by plunder.

As soon as it was cicatrized, and he thought himself able to bear the motion, with extraordinary resolution he set out to recover his kingdom; and collecting not more than forty horsemen during his progress, when he arrived among the Massylians, where he now made himself known, he produced such a sensation among them, both by reason of their former regard for him, and also from the unhoped-for joy they experienced at seeing him safe whom they supposed to have perished, that within a few days six thousand armed foot and four thousand horse came and joined him; and now he not only was in possession of his paternal dominions, but was also laying waste the lands of the states in alliance with the Carthaginians, and the frontiers of the Massylians, the dominions of Syphax.