The Suffet proceeded into the deserted apartments.  At every step he recognised armour and furniture—­familiar objects which nevertheless astonished him, and in a perfuming-pan in the vestibule there even remained the ashes of the perfumes that had been kindled at his departure for the conjuration of Melkarth.  It was not thus that he had hoped to return.  Everything that he had done, everything that he had seen, unfolded itself in his memory:  assaults, conflagrations, legions, tempests, Drepanum, Syracuse, Lilybaeum, Mount Etna, the plateau of Eryx, five years of battles,—­until the fatal day when arms had been laid down and Sicily had been lost.  Then he once more saw the woods of citron-trees, and herdsmen with their goats on grey mountains; and his heart leaped at the thought of the establishment of another Carthage down yonder.  His projects and his recollections buzzed through his head, which was still dizzy from the pitching of the vessel; he was overwhelmed with anguish, and, becoming suddenly weak, he felt the necessity of drawing near to the gods.

Then he went up to the highest story of his house, and taking a nail-studded staple from a golden shell, which hung on his arm, he opened a small oval chamber.

It was softly lighted by means of delicate black discs let into the wall and as transparent as glass.  Between the rows of these equal discs, holes, like those for the urns in columbaria, were hollowed out.  Each of them contained a round dark stone, which appeared to be very heavy.  Only people of superior understanding honoured these abaddirs, which had fallen from the moon.  By their fall they denoted the stars, the sky, and fire; by their colour dark night, and by their density the cohesion of terrestrial things.  A stifling atmosphere filled this mystic place.  The round stones lying in the niches were whitened somewhat with sea-sand which the wind had no doubt driven through the door.  Hamilcar counted them one after another with the tip of his finger; then he hid his face in a saffron-coloured veil, and, falling on his knees, stretched himself on the ground with both arms extended.

The daylight outside was beginning to strike on the folding shutters of black lattice-work.  Arborescences, hillocks, eddies, and ill-defined animals appeared in their diaphanous thickness; and the light came terrifying and yet peaceful as it must be behind the sun in the dull spaces of future creations.  He strove to banish from his thoughts all forms, and all symbols and appellations of the gods, that he might the better apprehend the immutable spirit which outward appearances took away.  Something of the planetary vitalities penetrated him, and he felt withal a wiser and more intimate scorn of death and of every accident.  When he rose he was filled with serene fearlessness and was proof against pity or dread, and as his chest was choking he went to the top of the tower which overlooked Carthage.