"Patience!" Iphicrates answered. "Thy chance will come, perhaps."
The boy turned and looked outward towards the attacking army. "They have stopped," he cried. "They are afraid!"
Iphicrates shaded his eyes with his hand. The Macedonians indeed had halted amid the clouds of dust that their feet had raised and they seemed to be in some confusion. At that moment the gate was thrown open and the garrison emerged in a wide, glittering column. The walls rang with cheers. The column advanced, wheeled, and deployed in a long, deep line, confronting the enemy. It was evidently Memnon's plan to strike a blow that might prove decisive while the Macedonians were still wearied from their march and before they were able to form. His archers sent a flight of arrows towards the Macedonian ranks and his spearmen prepared to charge.
Then behind the dust-cloud rose a sound that seemed to the watchers upon the walls like the murmur of a mighty river. The advance guard of the Macedonians scattered, and in its place appeared the solid front of the phalanx with its forest of sarissas.
"What are they singing?" asked the boy, gazing wide-eyed upon the changing scene.
"It is the pæan; they are calling upon the Gods," Iphicrates replied, again mopping his face.
"It is like a tragedy in a theatre," the boy said, catching his breath in the intensity of his excitement. "Look! Who is that?"
Across the front of the Macedonians rode a man upon a great black horse that curvetted and tossed the foam from his bit. The rider's armor flashed through the dust and his white plumes nodded from his helmet.
"That must be Alexander himself," Iphicrates replied. "Ah, here they come!"
Louder rose the pæan as the phalanx swept forward. The space that divided the two armies seemed to shrink away until they almost touched. Then, as with one impulse, the sarissas of the foremost Macedonian ranks dropped forward, until their points were level with the breasts of the foe, and were driven home by the impulse of the charge. The lines of the defenders bent, swayed, and broke. Order gave place to confusion. Here and there small parties began to run back toward the gate they had left so bravely half an hour before.