A murmuring of voices was heard, torches gleamed, and Narr' Havas entered, followed by about twenty men.
They wore white woollen cloaks, long daggers, copper necklaces, wooden earrings, and boots of hyena skin; and standing on the threshold they leaned upon their lances like herdsmen resting themselves.

Narr' Havas was the handsomest of all; his slender arms were bound with straps ornamented with pearls.

The golden circlet which fastened his ample garment about his head held an ostrich feather which hung down behind his shoulder; his teeth were displayed in a continual smile; his eyes seemed sharpened like arrows, and there was something observant and airy about his whole demeanour.
He declared that he had come to join the Mercenaries, for the Republic had long been threatening his kingdom.

Accordingly he was interested in assisting the Barbarians, and he might also be of service to them.
"I will provide you with elephants (my forests are full of them), wine, oil, barley, dates, pitch and sulphur for sieges, twenty thousand foot-soldiers and ten thousand horses.

If I address myself to you, Matho, it is because the possession of the zaimph has made you chief man in the army.