To face [page 222].
Although we had advanced two stadia, we found no traces of Hanno and Jonah. I did not consider it advisable to go further, and made my men halt and form a circle round a large oak that stood alone in a little glade; but Himilco, whose vengeance seemed insatiable, ventured on for about another stadium, with Gisgo and fifteen sailors. It was somewhat more than an hour before they returned. They had caught and killed two of the Iberians, but what created a far greater interest for us, they had found Hanno's writing-case all covered with blood, lying in a copse with the dead bodies of nine or ten of our adversaries, and the mutilated corpse of one of our own sailors. The trampled soil, the pools of blood, and the carcases of the savages strewn all about rendered it only too probable that after a desperate struggle the scribe and poor Jonah had succumbed to numbers, and that they had not only been massacred, but their bodies had been carried away.
It was with saddened hearts that we made our way back to the spot where we had been first surprised, repelling our enemies all along as they persisted in harassing us. As soon as I reached the ridge, and had satisfied myself that the women and the troop around them were all safe, I closed in my ranks and told up my losses. Six of my men had fallen. Meanwhile I was beginning to feel very uneasy about both Hannibal and Chamai, but my anxiety was of no long duration; they soon appeared together on the opposite height of the chasm: Bichri, too, was with them, and the troops were in good order. They had nearly forty prisoners; and in the midst of the ranks I could see Aminocles marching along with a child in his arms, whilst amongst the captives I could distinguish a woman, two men wearing kitonets, and another dressed in a long Syrian robe. Hannibal was in front, and no sooner did he catch sight of me than he waved his sword over his head with a triumphant gesture, while Chamai, still more excited, with his head bare and his forehead covered with blood, began running rapidly towards me. I made pretence of looking another way as he stopped to kiss Abigail in passing, but in a minute or two he was at my side, his countenance beaming with joy. All out of breath, he exclaimed:
"Close quarters! but we have pretty well done for them now!"
Seeing the deep gash in his forehead and his blood-stained sword, I observed that he bore evident traces of a smartish tussle with the Iberians.
"Iberians!" he said, contemptuously; "who cares for Iberians? No; it is our Tyrians that have done the mischief. However, we have nabbed the scoundrel Hazael; and Aminocles has recovered his boy; he was only just in time to save the child's life."
"And Bodmilcar? what of him?" I asked, all excitement at the information.
"Ah! we have just missed him," he said; "Hannibal got near enough to slice him pretty sharply in the ribs, and if it had not been for this unlucky wound of mine, we should have had him here now; but his people contrived to rescue him, and to carry him off to the wood."