The Saguntines recognized the victor, and wails of surprise and peals of fury thundered along the wall.
He still stood motionless, like a statue of victory, proudly defying the enemy, heedless of the storm of projectiles whizzing around him, until suddenly he dropped the head of Theron and sank to his knees, letting fall his sword.
Mopsus the bowman had shot an arrow through his leg.
From the walls all beheld how, in an outburst of angry pain he tore out the arrow-shaft, broke it into splinters, and flung them away. Then they saw no more. A host of the besieging army rushed forward and covered him, and his archers and slingers began to shoot against the battlements.
Actæon, fatigued by the recent sally, and hidden behind a merlon, watched what was taking place around Hannibal, paying no attention to the missiles from the slingers, who, infuriated by the wounding of their chief, hurled a hail of stones against the walls.
He saw Hannibal move away supported by two Carthaginian captains in golden cuirasses, accompanied by a multitude.
Suddenly the chieftain repelled his helpers, and limped painfully toward a white, bloodstained object lying on the red earth like a shapeless rag. He bent over the form, and the Numidians who surrounded it beheld the terrible Hannibal weep--for the first and last time--pressing his lips upon the mangled head of the Amazon Asbyte.
The wounding of Hannibal gave the city some days of respite. The besiegers remained non-combatant in their camp, watching Saguntum from afar. The slingers came out in the mornings to exercise their arms by shooting against the wall, but aside from this, and from the arrow-shots with which they replied from the city, there was no further exchange of hostilities between the besiegers and the besieged.
Bands of cavalry overran the domain foraging, and the immense multitude of ferocious tribes finished the work of destruction, sacking the villas and country-houses. The groves were cleared away; each day they chopped down new trees in order to supply the camp with wood, and in these denuded spaces the tiled roofs and towers could no longer be seen. Only smoking and blackened ruins appeared here and there through the deserted fields. A mosaic on a level with the ground was often the only vestige of an elegant villa razed to its foundations by the invaders.