the long thin scream of the Roman trumpets grew louder upon the ear.

Upon the high bluff of Megara there stood a great concourse of the
people of Carthage who had hurried forth from the city upon the news
that the galleys were in sight. They stood now, rich and poor, effete
and plebeian, white Phoenician and dark Kabyle, gazing with breathless
interest at the spectacle before them. Some hundreds of feet beneath
them the Punic galley had drawn so close that with their naked eyes they
could see those stains of battle which told their dismal tale.
The Romans, too, were heading in such a way that it was before their
very faces that their ship was about to be cut off; and yet of all this
multitude not one could raise a hand in its defence. Some wept in
impotent grief, some cursed with flashing eyes and knotted fists, some
on their knees held up appealing hands to Baal; but neither prayer,
tears, nor curses could undo the past nor mend the present. That
broken, crawling galley meant that their fleet was gone. Those two
fierce darting ships meant that the hands of Rome were already at their
throat. Behind them would come others and others, the innumerable
trained hosts of the great Republic, long mistress of the land, now
dominant also upon the waters. In a month, two months, three at the
most, their armies would be there, and what could all the untrained
multitudes of Carthage do to stop them?

"Nay!" cried one, more hopeful than the rest, "at least we are brave men
with arms in our hands."

"Fool!" said another, "is it not such talk which has brought us to our
ruin? What is the brave man untrained to the brave man trained? When
you stand before the sweep and rush of a Roman legion you may learn the
difference."