CHAPTER XL
THE GAP OF DEATH
Alexander listened to Joel's story and questioned him closely regardingthe disposition of affairs in the city. He learned that supplies wererunning low and that already the garrison was on half rations. Joelassured him that the feeling of discouragement and despair wasuniversal in the city.
"We will attack to-day," Alexander said to Clearchus, who stood waitingin a fever of anxiety. "If we can break the walls, Baal-Moloch will becheated of his sacrifice, but Melkarth will have his fill."
The fleet put forth from both sides of the mole, the oars of the rowersflashing in the sun. The great towers on the end of the mole, whichnow extended to the wall of the city, were filled with men who showeredarrows and javelins upon the garrison so as to protect the hugebattering rams at work below. These engines consisted of heavy beams,one hundred feet long, ending in great rams' heads of bronze. Theywere suspended by chains from a framework that permitted them to swingfreely. As many men as could grasp the short cords attached to thesides of a beam labored to keep it oscillating with a regular motion.With each downward swing, the bronze head, with its twisted horns,dashed against the wall. The impact ground the stones to powder, butthe wall was so thick and so strongly built that its joints remainedfirm.
Alexander was reluctant to admit that the mole which he had constructedwith so much expenditure of time and labor was useless, and hetherefore kept the towers in action and the rams at work; but his realhope of taking the city now lay elsewhere. The wall on the seawardside, where no attack had been deemed possible, was less solid thantoward the land. Tests made by floating rams had shown that a breachwas practicable on the southwest and it was to this spot that theattack was directed.
The Cyprian ships hovered about the northern side of the city. Somethreatened the mouth of the Sidonian Harbor, while others sent flightsof arrows over the walls. The fortress was encircled by a menacingring of vessels, which kept the attention of the garrison occupied,while Alexander prepared for the assault, which was to be made at apoint where the masonry already showed cracks, and some of the stoneshad been pushed out of place.
Towed by quinqueremes, the floating forts that the Macedonians hadbuilt were brought slowly around to the southern wall. Some carriedballistae and catapults and stores of darts and stones. Others hadrams, scaling ladders, iron hooks, and siege implements of all kinds.All were provided with shields to protect the men from missiles fromthe walls.
One by one they swung into position and came to anchor. The catapultsand ballistae were placed two hundred yards from the wall, so as toafford space for the flight of their projectiles. The ships of warmoved backward and forward, while the archers and slingers swept thetowers and ramparts with a hissing hail of lead and steel.
Under cover of this protection, the rams and siege vessels pushedforward. Their crews made them fast to projections in the wall, andsoon the regular throbbing crash of the rams was heard, pounding on themasonry. The vessels with the ladders and scaling implements laywaiting, with the bravest men in the army ready to spring to theassault as soon as a breach should be opened.
The July sun lay warm on the heaving sea, and the heat rose inshimmering waves from the wall. Around and within the city theshouting of men, the thudding of the rams, the creaking of themachines, and the crash of stones cast by the ballistae filled the air.
The garrison brought its engines along the broad parapet within rangeof the ships, and hurled great blocks of stone at the besieging fleet.Several of the smaller vessels were sunk. Sometimes the stones met inthe air and burst into fragments. The attack upon the wall was notrelaxed. Finally a block was sufficiently exposed to permit thegrappling-irons to be fastened to its inner angles. Strong ropes wereattached to it and carried out to a quinquereme. The rowers bent totheir work, and the ropes lifted, dripping, from the water. The blockheld fast for a moment, and then came out of its bed like a cork out ofa bottle, rolling with a splash into the sea.
Amid the triumphant shouts of the Macedonians, a flatboat was pushedforward and a hundred men attacked the weakened wall with levers andbars of irons. Some of them were crushed by the rocks toppled downupon them from above, others were pierced by arrows; but when theywithdrew, a wide cavity yawned where they had been, exposing the innercourses of masonry.
After them came the largest and heaviest of the rams. Under itstremendous blows the cavity deepened and widened until the wall aboveit began to tremble. It swayed, crumbled, and at last with a mightyroar it fell, burying the ram and half the men who had been working itunder tons of broken stone. The Macedonians, gazing through the gapthat was opened, saw the Temple of Baal-Moloch, with its dome andtowers, rising gloomily among the cypress trees that surrounded it.
With one impulse, the vessels carrying the shield-bearing guards andthe veterans of the Agema rushed in toward the breach. The soldiersleaped ashore. Order was impossible upon such an insecure footing asthe tumbled blocks afforded. Every man clung where he could, advancingstep by step, and protecting himself by holding his shield above hishead.
The Tyrians from the ends of the broken wall and from the top of theslope where the gap had been made sent down flights of darts andarrows. In order to repel the storming party, they even loosenedportions of the wall that still held firm and hurled them down upon theenemy.
Still the Macedonians pressed upward in the hope of winning the breach,and holding it until reinforcements could arrive. Ptolemy, son ofLagus, and Black Clitus fought in the foremost ranks. Beside themLeonidas plied his sword, and with him were Clearchus and Chares.
"Ho, comrades! Beware the stone!" the Theban shouted, as a loosenedblock rushed toward them down the slope.
Leonidas started aside, but his foot slipped and he fell to his knees.Chares caught his arm and dragged him away. The fragment grazed him asit hurtled past.
"Forward, men of Macedon!" Ptolemy cried. "Alexander is watching you."
A breathless cheer from the struggling ranks behind him told him thatthe soldiers were doing their best. The stones of the fallen wall,slippery with blood, rocked beneath their feet. Some of the men werecaught in crevices between the blocks and their lives were crushed out,or they were held there until a javelin put an end to their misery.But those who escaped this peril pressed upward like wolves when thequarry is in sight. The exasperation of all the long months of thesiege, the accumulation of countless insults, and the joy of the battlefilled their hearts.
Leaping upon a swaying stone that raised him above the heads of hiscompanions, Chares held his shield aloft to deflect the darts andarrows that fell upon it as thickly as the drops of a shower.
"Ohe!" he cried down the slope. "Come on! The victory is ours!"
Clearchus bounded up beside him, his face pale with eagerness, andstared into the city.
"Where is she? Where is she?" he cried, panting.
Chares laughed. "Did you expect she would be waiting for you at thetop?" he asked. "You will have to wait until we get inside."
The Athenian gazed at the lofty buildings, whose walls were pierced byhundreds of windows. If he only knew where to look! From thehousetops fluttered countless scarfs of yellow, blue, and red. Any oneof them might be hers. He was bewildered.
The wall had fallen outward, leaving about twenty feet of its basestanding on the side toward the city. Companies of Tyrian soldiers rantoward the breach. They placed ladders against the foot of the brokenwall and scrambled up into the gap like a swarm of ants to meet theMacedonians. Ptolemy saw them coming and uttered a joyful cry.
"Here they are," he shouted. "Melkarth, take thy sacrifice of dogs!"
A conflict without quarter began on the crest of the gap. The Tyriansfought with desperation, knowing that if the enemy once gained alodgement in the city they were lost. But in vain they hurledthemselves upon the head of the column, where Ptolemy and Clitus,Chares and Clearchus, and a hundred more received them with the deadlyupward thrust of the
ir swords, against which no armor was proof. Therewas no longer room for the Tyrians in the breach. Those who hadascended last were forced back, leaping or falling in their armor, theweight of which broke their bones. Mingled with the living, the deadbegan to drop back through the breach. The shouts of the victorscarried panic into the streets.
Tyre lay at the mercy of Macedon. Looking down into the city, Ptolemysaw the Tyrians hastily constructing barricades of furniture, casks,litters, and such material as they were able to drag quickly together.
"Do they think that will save them, now that we hold this?" he said toClitus.
Clearchus leaned against a stone with great joy in his heart. Tyre hadbeen won and Artemisia was saved. The sight of Moloch's dark temple nolonger chilled his blood. Baal must look elsewhere for victims. Theweary months of longing were at an end.
So desperate had been the struggle in the breach that the Macedonianshad forgotten all else. It was not until the pause before the finalcharge into the city that they began to notice the rolling clouds ofblack smoke that were drawing together toward the gap along thoseportions of the wall that remained standing. It rose in dark massesagainst the sky, blotting out the sun as it spread seaward from theparapet. Under its gloomy canopy men were swarming in long processionsupon the top of the wall toward the gap, bearing caldrons of iron andcopper suspended from yokes across their shoulders.
"See! They are going to provide us with shade," Clitus said.
Ptolemy looked, and his expression changed to one of alarm.
"Pitch and bitumen!" he exclaimed. "The men will never be able tostand it!"
A caldron rolled down into the gap, followed by another and another,scattering their blazing contents as they came. Wherever the bitumenfell it continued to burn, giving out smoke in stifling volumes. In afew minutes the gap was obscured by suffocating clouds in which theMacedonians groped blindly. Every stone was covered with a coating ofthe blazing substances. Showers of molten lead and burning oildescended from the walls. The bitumen ate into the flesh of thesoldiers. The lead and oil burned out their eyes. Many of them fledlike living torches down the slope and plunged into the sea. The gaphad become untenable.
Ptolemy saw that it would be impossible for reenforcements to reachhim. He shook his sword at the city through the drifting smoke."Another day!" he shouted, and, turning, plunged down the blazing path.
Clearchus stood dazed as he saw his comrades turn back.
"Come!" Chares shouted. "Do you want to be burned to death?"
"Cowards!" Clearchus cried, "why do you fly? Do you not see that Tyreis yours?"
He made a step toward the edge of the wall and would have leaped downinto the city had not Chares caught him with an iron grasp.
"Leonidas!" cried the Theban.
"Here!" the voice of Leonidas replied, and he appeared through thesmoke, smothering a patch of blazing pitch that had fallen upon hisbare shoulder.
"Clearchus has gone crazy," Chares said. "Help me to carry him down."
"You shall not!" the Athenian cried. "Traitors! Set me free!"
Leonidas calmly twisted the sword out of his hand and threw it aside.They lifted him between them, despite his struggles. Suddenly hismuscles relaxed and his head fell backward.
"That's right," Chares said. "He has fainted. We can carry him betterso."
He threw the limp form over his shoulder and strode after Leonidas intothe black curtain, which had become so dense that it was impossible forsight to penetrate it in any direction. Sulphur and pepper had beenmixed in the caldrons, giving the smoke a pungent, choking quality.Stumbling over jagged blocks of stone, and tripping upon the bodies ofthe dead, Chares, with Clearchus in his arms, followed Leonidas throughthat vale of death. Blinded and gasping, they staggered to the edge ofthe water. They were the last to come alive out of the smoke. Theywere drawn upon one of the siege boats, and lay there until theunwieldy vessel was towed out into the clear sunshine and safety.