THE GAP OF DEATH
Alexander listened to Joel's story and questioned him closely regarding
the disposition of affairs in the city. He learned that supplies were
running low and that already the garrison was on half rations. Joel
assured him that the feeling of discouragement and despair was
universal in the city.
"We will attack to-day," Alexander said to Clearchus, who stood waiting
in a fever of anxiety. "If we can break the walls, Baal-Moloch will be
cheated of his sacrifice, but Melkarth will have his fill."
The fleet put forth from both sides of the mole, the oars of the rowers
flashing in the sun. The great towers on the end of the mole, which
now extended to the wall of the city, were filled with men who showered
arrows and javelins upon the garrison so as to protect the huge
battering rams at work below. These engines consisted of heavy beams,
one hundred feet long, ending in great rams' heads of bronze. They
were suspended by chains from a framework that permitted them to swing
freely. As many men as could grasp the short cords attached to the
sides 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, but
the wall was so thick and so strongly built that its joints remained
firm.
Alexander was reluctant to admit that the mole which he had constructed
with so much expenditure of time and labor was useless, and he
therefore kept the towers in action and the rams at work; but his real
hope of taking the city now lay elsewhere. The wall on the seaward
side, where no attack had been deemed possible, was less solid than
toward the land. Tests made by floating rams had shown that a breach
was practicable on the southwest and it was to this spot that the
attack was directed.
The Cyprian ships hovered about the northern side of the city. Some
threatened the mouth of the Sidonian Harbor, while others sent flights
of arrows over the walls. The fortress was encircled by a menacing
ring of vessels, which kept the attention of the garrison occupied,
while Alexander prepared for the assault, which was to be made at a
point where the masonry already showed cracks, and some of the stones
had been pushed out of place.
Towed by quinqueremes, the floating forts that the Macedonians had
built were brought slowly around to the southern wall. Some carried
ballistæ and catapults and stores of darts and stones. Others had
rams, scaling ladders, iron hooks, and siege implements of all kinds.
All were provided with shields to protect the men from missiles from
the walls.
One by one they swung into position and came to anchor. The catapults
and ballistæ were placed two hundred yards from the wall, so as to
afford space for the flight of their projectiles. The ships of war
moved backward and forward, while the archers and slingers swept the
towers and ramparts with a hissing hail of lead and steel.
Under cover of this protection, the rams and siege vessels pushed
forward. Their crews made them fast to projections in the wall, and
soon the regular throbbing crash of the rams was heard, pounding on the
masonry. The vessels with the ladders and scaling implements lay
waiting, with the bravest men in the army ready to spring to the
assault as soon as a breach should be opened.
The July sun lay warm on the heaving sea, and the heat rose in
shimmering waves from the wall. Around and within the city the
shouting of men, the thudding of the rams, the creaking of the
machines, and the crash of stones cast by the ballistæ filled the air.
The garrison brought its engines along the broad parapet within range
of the ships, and hurled great blocks of stone at the besieging fleet.
Several of the smaller vessels were sunk. Sometimes the stones met in
the air and burst into fragments. The attack upon the wall was not
relaxed. Finally a block was sufficiently exposed to permit the
grappling-irons to be fastened to its inner angles. Strong ropes were
attached to it and carried out to a quinquereme. The rowers bent to
their work, and the ropes lifted, dripping, from the water. The block
held fast for a moment, and then came out of its bed like a cork out of
a bottle, rolling with a splash into the sea.
Amid the triumphant shouts of the Macedonians, a flatboat was pushed
forward and a hundred men attacked the weakened wall with levers and
bars of irons. Some of them were crushed by the rocks toppled down
upon them from above, others were pierced by arrows; but when they
withdrew, a wide cavity yawned where they had been, exposing the inner
courses of masonry.
After them came the largest and heaviest of the rams. Under its
tremendous blows the cavity deepened and widened until the wall above
it began to tremble. It swayed, crumbled, and at last with a mighty
roar it fell, burying the ram and half the men who had been working it
under tons of broken stone. The Macedonians, gazing through the gap
that was opened, saw the Temple of Baal-Moloch, with its dome and
towers, rising gloomily among the cypress trees that surrounded it.
With one impulse, the vessels carrying the shield-bearing guards and
the veterans of the Agema rushed in toward the breach. The soldiers
leaped ashore. Order was impossible upon such an insecure footing as
the tumbled blocks afforded. Every man clung where he could, advancing
step by step, and protecting himself by holding his shield above his
head.
The Tyrians from the ends of the broken wall and from the top of the
slope where the gap had been made sent down flights of darts and
arrows. In order to repel the storming party, they even loosened
portions of the wall that still held firm and hurled them down upon the
enemy.
Still the Macedonians pressed upward in the hope of winning the breach,
and holding it until reinforcements could arrive. Ptolemy, son of
Lagus, and Black Clitus fought in the foremost ranks. Beside them
Leonidas plied his sword, and with him were Clearchus and Chares.
"Ho, comrades! Beware the stone!" the Theban shouted, as a loosened
block 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 as
it hurtled past.
"Forward, men of Macedon!" Ptolemy cried. "Alexander is watching you."
A breathless cheer from the struggling ranks behind him told him that
the soldiers were doing their best. The stones of the fallen wall,
slippery with blood, rocked beneath their feet. Some of the men were
caught 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 the
quarry is in sight. The exasperation of all the long months of the
siege, the accumulation of countless insults, and the joy of the battle
filled their hearts.
Leaping upon a swaying stone that raised him above the heads of his
companions, Chares held his shield aloft to deflect the darts and
arrows 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, and
stared into the city.
"Where is she? Where is she?" he cried, panting.
Chares laughed. "Did you expect she would be waiting for you at the
top?" he asked. "You will have to wait until we get inside."
The Athenian gazed at the lofty buildings, whose walls were pierced by
hundreds of windows. If he only knew where to look! From the
housetops fluttered countless scarfs of yellow, blue, and red. Any one
of them might be hers. He was bewildered.
The wall had fallen outward, leaving about twenty feet of its base
standing on the side toward the city. Companies of Tyrian soldiers ran
toward the breach. They placed ladders against the foot of the broken
wall and scrambled up into the gap like a swarm of ants to meet the
Macedonians. 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 Tyrians
fought with desperation, knowing that if the enemy once gained a
lodgement in the city they were lost. But in vain they hurled
themselves upon the head of the column, where Ptolemy and Clitus,
Chares and Clearchus, and a hundred more received them with the deadly
upward thrust of their swords, against which no armor was proof. There
was no longer room for the Tyrians in the breach. Those who had
ascended last were forced back, leaping or falling in their armor, the
weight of which broke their bones. Mingled with the living, the dead
began to drop back through the breach. The shouts of the victors
carried panic into the streets.
Tyre lay at the mercy of Macedon. Looking down into the city, Ptolemy
saw 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 to
Clitus.
Clearchus leaned against a stone with great joy in his heart. Tyre had
been won and Artemisia was saved. The sight of Moloch's dark temple no
longer chilled his blood. Baal must look elsewhere for victims. The
weary months of longing were at an end.
So desperate had been the struggle in the breach that the Macedonians
had forgotten all else. It was not until the pause before the final
charge into the city that they began to notice the rolling clouds of
black smoke that were drawing together toward the gap along those
portions of the wall that remained standing. It rose in dark masses
against the sky, blotting out the sun as it spread seaward from the
parapet. Under its gloomy canopy men were swarming in long processions
upon the top of the wall toward the gap, bearing caldrons of iron and
copper 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 to
stand it!"
A caldron rolled down into the gap, followed by another and another,
scattering their blazing contents as they came. Wherever the bitumen
fell it continued to burn, giving out smoke in stifling volumes. In a
few minutes the gap was obscured by suffocating clouds in which the
Macedonians groped blindly. Every stone was covered with a coating of
the blazing substances. Showers of molten lead and burning oil
descended from the walls. The bitumen ate into the flesh of the
soldiers. The lead and oil burned out their eyes. Many of them fled
like living torches down the slope and plunged into the sea. The gap
had become untenable.
Ptolemy saw that it would be impossible for reënforcements to reach
him. 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 Tyre
is yours?"
He made a step toward the edge of the wall and would have leaped down
into 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 the
smoke, smothering a patch of blazing pitch that had fallen upon his
bare 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 his
muscles relaxed and his head fell backward.
"That's right," Chares said. "He has fainted. We can carry him better
so."
He threw the limp form over his shoulder and strode after Leonidas into
the black curtain, which had become so dense that it was impossible for
sight to penetrate it in any direction. Sulphur and pepper had been
mixed in the caldrons, giving the smoke a pungent, choking quality.
Stumbling over jagged blocks of stone, and tripping upon the bodies of
the dead, Chares, with Clearchus in his arms, followed Leonidas through
that vale of death. Blinded and gasping, they staggered to the edge of
the water. They were the last to come alive out of the smoke. They
were drawn upon one of the siege boats, and lay there until the
unwieldy vessel was towed out into the clear sunshine and safety.