Hannibal tried to advance, to face about; in vain he lifted up his voice, brandishing his sword. He was swept by the torrent of flight; his own soldiers crowded him along, blinded by the contagion of terror; they tramped on his heels, they pressed against his back with their heads bent low in swift retreat, and he had to make strenuous efforts to keep from being overwhelmed and trampled down. A moment more and the Saguntines, having destroyed every engine of war, reached the camp.
The chieftain was snarling curses and threats against his brother and Maherbal who did not come up with the reserves to stay the torrent of the rout. He saw the troops issuing from the camp hurriedly, but on foot and in disorder, with the precipitation produced by an unexpected event. Many of them were adjusting the straps of their cuirasses, and the different tribes were jostled together and minus their leaders, who in vain had trumpeters blow their horns to bring the hosts to order.
The Saguntines in the blind impulse of victory clashed with this reinforcement and almost routed it in the first encounter. Hannibal, who had managed to reunite a group of the bravest soldiers, presented a firm front to the Saguntines.
"This way! This way!" he shouted to those coming from the camp, who in their excitement did not know where to rally.
But at the same time his cries attracted the enemy. Theron, as if guided by his god, turned toward Hannibal, and soon his mace began to hammer at the shields of the Carthaginians. He hurled himself against them with cool courage, breaking their lances with a blow of his club, wounding himself on the swords which seemed to rebound from his powerful muscles, dripping blood beneath his lion skin, ferocious and magnificent, like unto a divinity. He never raised his knotty trunk without dropping an enemy at his feet.
The besiegers began to recede again before the pressure of the Saguntines; Hannibal was once more dragged by his men who were terrified by the savagery of the giant who seemed invulnerable, when an unexpected turn gave a new phase to the combat. The earth shook beneath a wild gallop, like the reverberation of rolling thunder, and leaning over their horses' necks, their hair floating from beneath their helmets, and their white tunics streaming around their naked limbs, Asbyte's Amazons fell upon the enemy with the violence of a hurricane. They came whooping, waving their lances, calling one to another to charge upon the denser groups, and the assailants fell back astonished at these women whom they saw near at hand for the first time, and who were now favored by the effect of surprise.
Looking between the heads which surrounded him, Hannibal saw Asbyte pass like a luminous flash, absolutely alone. The light of the sun, striking upon her helmet, encircled her with a nimbus of gold. Her lover's instinct had revealed to her where Hannibal stood surrounded by enemies, and she dashed to his support.
Succeeding events were rapid, instantaneous. Through the dust of the charge Hannibal barely made out what occurred, as if it were the fleeting agony of a dream.
The Amazon, with couched lance, rode at a gallop against the priest of Hercules, who in the recoil of that disordered hand to hand struggle had been left alone in a broad open space.
"Ohooo!——" shouted the Amazon, exciting her horse by her war cry.