The squat figure was bent for a spring. The man wore a leopard skin across his muscular shoulders and his little green eyes were fastened ferociously upon the Theban, watching for an opening. Clearchus thought he had never seen anything more repulsive than the flat, broad face, with its strong, yellow teeth showing like fangs. As he looked he heard Nathan's voice beside him.
"O Lord, my God, save now Thy servant, if such be Thy will; for without Thee, I perish!" cried the Israelite, in an accent of despair.
"Here he comes!" Chares shouted.
The figure of the crouching Scyth bounded forward, and his bright sword, keen as a razor, flashed in the air.
"I have him!" Chares cried exultingly. His long blade hissed downward as he spoke, and the ugly round head rolled in the dirt. The stroke was followed by a roar of rage from the Scyths, among whom the man had evidently been a leader of importance.
"Come on!" the Theban called to them, tauntingly. "Cowards, why do you wait?"
The challenge seemed to goad them to desperation. They came with a rush in which they threw aside all caution. The remnant of the little troop was hurled violently backward. Chares' sword rose and fell without a pause; Nathan and the men who remained to him cut and thrust at the faces of their foes; and even Clearchus, roused by the instinct of self-preservation, plied his javelin. The end had come, and nothing remained but to die bravely.
It seemed to Clearchus that they would be able to hold out for only a moment longer, when without apparent, reason the attack suddenly slackened. The Scyths drew back, leaving a circle of dead and wounded under the wall. The mass of humanity that blocked the street swayed and gave way with a roar of warning and of fear. The mob was all in motion. It seemed to be fleeing before some danger, the nature of which the objects of its attack were unable to guess. It rushed past the angle in the wall where Nathan and his prisoners had taken refuge, carrying the struggling Scyths along with it.
"What is happening?" Clearchus gasped.
Nathan was too nearly exhausted to reply. He shook his head as a sign that he did not know, but the answer was not long delayed.