Voices call me, a globe of fire rolls and mounts within my bosom, it stifles me, I am at the point of death; and then, something sweet, flowing from my brow to my feet, passes through my flesh--it is a caress enfolding me, and I feel myself crushed as if some god were stretched upon me.

Oh! would that I could lose myself in the mists of the night, the waters of the fountains, the sap of the trees, that I could issue from my body, and be but a breath, or a ray, and glide, mount up to thee, O Mother!" She raised her arms to their full length, arching her form, which in its long garment was as pale and light as the moon.

Then she fell back, panting, on the ivory couch; but Taanach passed an amber necklace with dolphin's teeth about her neck to banish terrors, and Salammbo said in an almost stifled voice: "Go and bring me Schahabarim." Her father had not wished her to enter the college of priestesses, nor even to be made at all acquainted with the popular Tanith.

He was reserving her for some alliance that might serve his political ends; so that Salammbo lived alone in the midst of the palace.

Her mother was long since dead.
She had grown up with abstinences, fastings and purifications, always surrounded by grave and exquisite things, her body saturated with perfumes, and her soul filled with prayers.