[Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert]@TWC D-Link bookSalammbo CHAPTER II 8/36
Such wealth of the soil and such inventions of wisdom dazzled them. In the evening they stretched themselves on the tents without unfolding them; and thought with regret of Hamilcar's feast, as they fell asleep with their faces towards the stars. In the middle of the following day they halted on the bank of a river, amid clumps of rose-bays.
Then they quickly threw aside lances, bucklers and belts.
They bathed with shouts, and drew water in their helmets, while others drank lying flat on their stomachs, and all in the midst of the beasts of burden whose baggage was slipping from them. Spendius, who was seated on a dromedary stolen in Hamilcar's parks, perceived Matho at a distance, with his arm hanging against his breast, his head bare, and his face bent down, giving his mule drink, and watching the water flow.
Spendius immediately ran through the crowd calling him, "Master! master!" Matho gave him but scant thanks for his blessings, but Spendius paid no heed to this, and began to march behind him, from time to time turning restless glances in the direction of Carthage. He was the son of a Greek rhetor and a Campanian prostitute.
He had at first grown rich by dealing in women; then, ruined by a shipwreck, he had made war against the Romans with the herdsmen of Samnium.
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