A shout of warning sounded along the crest of the wall. The Macedonian slingers and archers had turned their weapons against it, and they swept the parapet with a deadly storm that drove the defenders to shelter. The hissing of the arrows and the humming of the balls of lead from the slings filled the air. The boy beside Iphicrates uttered a cry, threw up his arms, and fell with a red mark on his forehead.
"Mother!" he murmured, and lay still.
Iphicrates dropped to his hands and knees and crawled away, shaking with the palsy of fear.
There was little sleep in Halicarnassus that night. Soldier and citizen labored together, and morning found them still toiling upon the walls, preparing for what they knew was to come. The city was in the iron grip of the siege.
By day and by night the great walls crumbled before the unremitting assaults of the enemy. The Macedonians filled in the wide ditch, raised mounds and towers, and burrowed beneath the foundations of the defences like moles. There was no lack of provisions in the city, for Memnon's fleet came and went with nothing to oppose it, bringing corn and supplies as they were needed. It had been the hope of the inhabitants that Alexander would withdraw when he had measured the difficulty of the task before him. They had ground for the belief that disturbances might be fomented in Greece that would cause him to turn his attention to that quarter. But their plans miscarried. Antipater held Greece with a firm hand and the siege continued.
No man was permitted to lay aside his armor, for the Macedonians attacked at every hour. Again and again the city was roused in the dead of night by the crash of falling battlements, and the defenders were obliged to guard some new breach while they repaired the damage as best they might. They made frequent sallies, attacking the formidable engines that had been constructed by the enemy. Several of them were destroyed in this way, but they were replaced by new ones more powerful than their predecessors.
Orontobates sent urgent messages to his master, Darius, telling him of the desperate situation and begging for succor; but none came. What was one city, rich and populous though it might be, to a monarch who counted his cities by the thousand? The brave garrison was left to its fate, fighting obstinately against its doom. The faces of the men grew haggard with watching and anxiety. Custom and order were forgotten. Rich and poor, slave and freeman, labored side by side against the inevitable; and ever, like men swimming against the current, they felt the resistless pressure bearing them down.
Artemisia and Thais, shut up in the house of Iphicrates, awaited the result of the siege. The younger woman was overcome at first when she learned that Clearchus was to be sent to Babylon, but Thais managed to convince her that he was in no danger, and a message that was brought to them before the siege began went far to revive her hope. One of the Cyprian women came back from the market with a basket of grapes. She said that a young man had followed her and asked her whether she did not belong to Thais. She replied that she did.
"Then tell her," the stranger said, "that Nathan the Israelite bids her have no fear."
With that, he vanished in the crowd, and she brought the message.