A spring was pressed, the iron hands relaxed their grip, and the bow of the ship fell back into the sea with a terrible splash. The ship at once filled with water and sunk, all of the rowers between decks being drowned.
“Two ships already! not bad for a beginning! Now let us pay attention to the sambucæ or harps. Thou seest, lady Elissa, that the wide ladders are reared from the outer bulwarks of two ships lashed close to each other, the oars on the inner sides being removed. There are already four men standing protected, with removable shields, in the pent-house, while many more are waiting to rush up as soon as those four men step forth upon our battlements. We will let them approach, and then they shall see that ’tis not so easy to storm Syracuse.”
In another minute two ships bearing a sambuca came quite close to the battlements, at a point where there seemed to be no engines of defence to resist the attack. For none were indeed visible.
No sooner had the pent-house been placed against the wall than a hundred men commenced swarming up the wide ladder, while the four men in the pent-house at the top removed the shields in front of their platform preparatory to springing on to the battlements.
“Raise and discharge!” cried Archimedes.
In a second an engine, hitherto concealed, reared itself from behind the walls, swung over the top of the pent-house, and released an enormous stone some half-ton in weight.
This stone smashed through the roof of the pent-house, carried those within it and all the armed men on the ladder down with it in a mangled and bleeding mass, and then, falling upon the fore-part of one of the vessels, inflicted serious damage to the ship.
Instantly, in the greatest consternation, the two ships backed their oars and retreated, being pursued by discharges from catapults at successive ranges, and fired at also by numberless scorpions concealed behind the walls, through which small holes had been constructed at the height of the decks of the ships to enable the scorpion-bearers to fire, without themselves being seen or liable to injury.
The action had now become general. On every side Roman ships were advancing, and soon all the engines of every kind upon the walls facing the harbour were in full play. At length, after a most terrible loss in both men and ships, the remains of the Roman fleet retreated in disorder, well out of range.
Thus did Archimedes show Elissa his methods for efficiently protecting a walled city from assault by sea.