The summer months passed. The vines of the domain ripened their clusters, the farmers rejoiced in the prospect of the coming crop hidden beneath the leaves, but from time to time, like a gloomy trumpet blast, came news of Hannibal, of his victories over the tribes of the interior who refused to recognize him, and of his imperious demands upon Saguntum.
Actæon scented the nearness of war, and this, which had ever been his principal occupation, now caused him only sorrow. He had grown to love this beautiful land as dearly as Greece. His soul, saturated with the sweet peace of the fertile fields, and of the rich industrious city, was saddened at the thought that this life was to be paralyzed. His existence had been spent amid struggles and adventures; and now, rich and happy, when he longed for peace in a corner where he hoped to end his days, war, like a forgotten mistress who presents herself inopportunely, returned unbidden, forcing him anew to cruelty and destruction.
One afternoon, at the end of summer, he was pondering these things as he was riding toward the city. In the oblique rays of the sun the industrious bees, searching out the wild flowers, glistened like golden buttons. The vintagers were singing in the vineyards, stooping over their baskets. Actæon saw one of the slaves whom Sónnica kept in her warehouses in Saguntum come running from the direction of the city.
He stopped panting before Actæon. He was almost speechless from fatigue, and his broken words revealed his alarm. Hannibal was coming from the direction of Sætabis! The people from the country were crowding into the city in terror, driving their flocks before them. They had not seen the invader but they ran, horrified by the tales of the fugitives who were fleeing from the frontiers of the Saguntine territory. The Carthaginians had crossed the border; they were people of ferocious aspect, who bore strange arms, who looted the villages, and set them on fire. He was running to tell his mistress that she might take refuge in the city.
He rushed on toward Sónnica's villa. The Greek hesitated a moment; he deliberated whether he should go back in search of his beloved, but he ended by setting out on a gallop toward the city, and as he neared it, he rode at full speed around the walls. He went for a look at the highway from the mountains which gave Saguntum communication with the towns by a branch which led to Sætatis and Denia. As he approached he began to meet the refugees of whom the slave had told him.
They flooded the road like an inundation. The flocks and herds were bleating and lowing under the lash, crowding in between the wagons; women were running, carrying great bundles on their heads, and dragging along the children clutching at the folds of their tunics; boys were driving horses laden with furniture and clothing thrown together haphazard in the precipitation of flight, and ewes leaped to the sides of the road to escape the wheels which, catching their dragging fleece, almost crushed them.
The Greek, riding into the stream of fugitives, opened passage with his horse through the seething wave of wagons and animals, rustics and slaves, in which people of different towns were confusedly mingled, while members of scattered families were calling to one another desperately through the clouds of dust.
The fleeing multitude was clearing away. Actæon was beginning to meet the stragglers; poor old women traveling with vacillating step, bearing on their shoulders some lamb which constituted their entire fortune; old men crushed by the weight of pots and clothing; sick people dragging themselves along by the aid of a staff; abandoned animals wandering among the olive trees near the highway, that suddenly darted forward at full speed through the fields as if scenting their masters; children seated on a stone weeping, abandoned by their kindred.
Soon the road was empty. The last of the refugees were left behind, and Actæon saw before him only the narrow tongue of red earth winding along the mountain slopes, without a solitary being to break the monotony of the road with his shadow.
The gallop of his horse resounded like distant thunder through the profound silence. It seemed as if Nature had expired as she guessed the approach of war. Even the ancient trees, the twisted olives which had stood for centuries, the great fig trees which rose like green cupolas against the mountain slopes, remained motionless, as if terrified at the approach of that something which caused the people to abandon their homes and to flee into the city.