This indeed was the case. The king had sent an attendant a little after sunset to summon his guests to the evening meal. He reported their absence to his master, who, however, for a time suspected nothing. But when a second messenger found them still absent, inquiries were made. Some one had heard sounds in the temple, and the temple was searched; after that everything else that had happened could be seen or guessed.
Nothing remained for the fugitives but to strip off their garments and plunge into the water. Unfortunately the temple attendant was an indifferent swimmer. A boat, however, was lying moored some thirty yards from the shore, and this the party managed to reach. But by the time that they had all clambered on board, a thing which it always takes some time to do, the pursuers were within a hundred yards of the harbour-temple.
It must be explained that at each end of the row of ships by which the harbour mouth was protected, was an empty hulk, and that between the hulk and the pier side was a narrow opening only just broad and deep enough for a boat to pass over. This the prince had observed on some former occasion when he had been reconnoitring the defences of the harbour, and he now steered towards it, the rowers tugging at their oars with all their might. The boat had nearly reached the passage when the manœuvre was observed. The crew of the nearest ship hastened to get on board the hulk; but the distance between these two was too great for a leap, and in the darkness the gangway commonly used could not be at once found. At the very moment when it was put into position the boat had cleared the passage. So shallow indeed was the water that the hinder part of the keel had stuck for a few moments, but when the four occupants threw their weight into the bow, which was already in deeper water, it floated over.
Happily the night was very dark. The sky was overcast, and it still wanted a day to the new moon. Nor did the torches with which the whole line of galleys was ablaze, make it easier to distinguish an object outside the range of their light. Still the boat could be dimly seen, and till it was beyond the range of missiles the fugitives could not consider themselves safe. And indeed they did not wholly escape. Both Charidemus and Charondas were struck with bullets that caused somewhat painful contusions, the prince was slightly wounded in the hand, and the attendant more seriously in the arm, which was indeed almost pierced through by an arrow. A few more strokes, however, carried them out of range, and they were safe.
CHAPTER XIX
THE HIGH PRIEST
It had only been in sheer despair that Tyre had held out after her fleet lost the command of the sea. Able now to attack the city at any point that he might choose, Alexander abandoned the mole which he had been at such vast pains to construct, and commenced operations on the opposite side of the island, against the wall that fronted the open sea. The battering-rams were put on ship-board, and so brought to bear upon any weak places that had been discovered; and of these the Tyrians, confident of always being able to keep command of the sea, had left not a few. A first attempt failed; a second, made on a perfectly calm day, succeeded, and a considerable length of wall was broken down. A breach having been thus made, the ships that bore the battering-rams were withdrawn, and others carrying pontoons took their places. Two storming parties landed, one commanded by an officer of the name of Admetus, the other by Alexander in person. Admetus, who was the first to scale the wall, was killed by the stroke of a javelin, but his party made good their footing; and the king, landing his guards, was equally successful. The defenders of the wall abandoned it, but renewed the fight in the streets of the city. The battle raged most fiercely in the precincts of the Chapel of Agenor, the legendary founder of Tyre. The building had been strongly fortified, but it was taken at last, and the garrison was put to the sword. Before nightfall all Tyre was in the hands of Alexander. The king exacted a frightful penalty for the obstinate resistance which had baffled him for nearly a year. But he respected the Temple of Melkarth, where Azemilcus and a few of the Tyrian nobles had taken sanctuary, and the Sidonian prince had the satisfaction of saving more than a thousand victims from slavery or death. They took refuge in the galleys that were under his command, and Alexander either did not know of their escape, or, as is more probably the case, did not care to inquire about it. Hundreds of the principal citizens were executed; the remainder, numbering, it is said, thirty thousand, were sold as slaves.
Melkarth, whose city had been thus depopulated, was then honoured with a splendid sacrifice. All the soldiers, in full armour, marched round the temple; games, including a torch race, were held in the precincts; while the battering-ram that had made the first breach in the wall, and the galley that had first broken the boom guarding the harbour, were deposited within the temple itself.
“And now,” said the king, at the banquet with which the great festival of Melkarth was concluded, “we will settle with that insolent priest who would not help us against these Tyrian rebels.”