The children of Carthage have been taken to the "tophet of Salammbo," where they will be sacrificed. Camarina and the archeress decide to go to the cemetery to find the children. They take the stairs down to the left, where they find Camarina's legs broken and her eyes. She tells them to take her on their backs and she will be their eyes. The ghosts of the Tophet do not leave the cemetery, she tells them. She also tells them that she was once the daughter of a king. She has been searching for her son for five years. He is the bastard who killed her son and cooked him. The possessed Carthaginians come to the catacombs to retrieve the bodies of the dead. They will raise the dead as their own, and if they are dead, they will bring them back to the earth as theirs. The power of the toth will restore the youth and vigor of the people, but it is a force that Camarina does not control