This speech was received with approbation, both by the people and the Viceroy; and withdrawing from the breached portion of the wall, they stood motionless with their arms.
When the space between the walls was thus cleared, the inhabitants signed to the Ethiopians that they might freely approach: they advanced, therefore, and when near enough, they from their boats addressed the besieged multitude as follows:
"Persians! and inhabitants of Syene! Hydaspes, King of the Eastern and Western Ethiopia, and now your sovereign also, knows how to subdue his enemies, and to spare those who supplicate his mercy—the one belongs to valour, the other to humanity: the merit of the former belongs chiefly to his soldiers; that of the latter is entirely his own. Your safety or destruction is now in his hands; but since you throw yourselves on his compassion, he releases you from the impending and unavoidable dangers which encompass you. He does not himself name the conditions of your deliverance, but leaves them to you to propose; he has no desire to tyrannize over justice—he wishes to treat the fortunes of men with equity."
To this address the inhabitants of Syene replied,—"That they threw themselves, their wives and children, upon the mercy of the Ethiopian prince, and were ready to surrender their city (if they were spared), which was now in such sore distress, that unless some god, or Hydaspes himself, very speedily interposed, there were no hopes of its preservation."
Oroondates added,—"That he was ready to yield up, and put into their hands, both the cause of the war, and its prizes—the city of Philœ, and the emerald mines: in return, he required that neither he nor his soldiers should be made prisoners of war, but that Hydaspes, as a crowning act of generosity, would permit them to retire to Elephantine upon condition of their doing injury to no one: as to himself, it was indifferent to him whether he laid down his life now, or perished hereafter, by the sentence of his master, for having lost his army; the latter alternative would indeed be the worst, for now he would undergo a common, and possibly, an easy kind of death; in the other case, he would have to suffer the refinements of cruelty and torture. He also requested them to receive two of his Persians into their boats, that they might proceed to Elephantine, professing that if they found the garrison of that city disposed to surrender to the Ethiopians, he would no longer delay to follow their example."
The delegates complied with his request; took the Persians on board, returned to the camp, and informed Hydaspes of the result of their embassy.
Hydaspes smiled at the infatuation of Oroondates, who was insisting upon terms, while his very existence hung upon another's will. "It would be foolish, however," said he, "to let so many suffer for the stupidity of one." Accordingly he permitted those whom the Viceroy had sent to proceed to Elephantine; little regarding whether the troops there yielded or resisted. He ordered his men to close up the breach which they had made in the banks of the Nile, and to make another in those of the mound or wall; so that the river being prevented from flowing in at one opening and the stagnant water retiring apace out of the other, the space between his camp and Syene might soon be dry, and practicable for his soldiers to march over.
His commands were executed. His men made a beginning of the work, but night coming on deferred its completion till the next day. Meantime they who were in the city omitted nothing which might contribute to their preservation, not despairing of preservation, though it appeared almost beyond hope.
Some carried on their mine, which they now supposed must approach near the enemy's mound; having computed, as well as they could, by means of a rope, the interval between that and their own walls. Others repaired the wall which had fallen down, working by torchlight, readily finding materials from the stones which had fallen inwards. They had, as they thought, tolerably well secured themselves for the present; but were destined to have a new alarm; in the middle of the night, a portion of the mound, in that part where the enemy had been digging on the preceding day, suddenly gave way. This was caused either by the earth which formed the foundation being moist and porous, or by the mining party having sapped the ground above them, or by the ever-increasing body of water widening the narrow breach, or perhaps it might be ascribed to divine interposition. So tremendous was the noise and the report, that the besiegers and besieged, though ignorant of the cause, imagined a great part of the city wall to have been carried away; but the Ethiopians, feeling themselves safe in their tents, deferred satisfying their curiosity till the morning.
The inhabitants of Syene, on the contrary, were, with reason, more solicitous; they immediately examined every portion of their walls, and each finding all safe in his own vicinity, concluded that the accident had happened in some other part. The approach of daylight cleared up all their doubts; the breach in the mound, and the retreat of the waters, being then visible.