"Hildebrand has reached the trench."
"There stand my Byzantines, under Gregorius. The Gothic archers aim well. The ramparts become thinned. Massurius, bring up my Abasgian archers, and the best archers of the legions. They must aim at the oxen and horses of the battering-rams."
Very soon the battle was kindled upon all sides, and Cethegus remarked with rage that the Goths progressed everywhere.
The Byzantines seemed to miss their leader; they shot at random and fell back from the walls, against which the Goths pressed with unusual daring.
They had already crossed the trenches at many points, and Duke Guntharis had even erected ladders against the walls near the Portuensian Gate; while the old master-at-arms had dragged a strong battering-ram to the Pancratian Gate, and had caused it to be protected by a penthouse against the fiery darts from above.
Already the first strokes of the ram thundered through the uproar of the battle against the beams of the gate.
This well-known sound gave the Prefect a shock.
"It is evident," he said to himself, "that they are in good earnest."
Again a thundering stroke,
Gregorius, the Byzantine, looked at him inquiringly.