At the signal from the walls, work was suspended throughout the city and the population crowded to the harbor. Merchants with their tablets clasped in their hands, dyers with their arms stained to the elbow, metal workers, artisans, laborers, and soldiers of the garrison, thronged to the water front by thousands to learn the answer of the Macedonian. A vast murmur of expectation and speculation rose from the people.
Presently, through the entrance of the harbor, the trireme could be seen, making for the opening between the sea-walls, over which the waves were dashing in spurts of white spray. Urged by its three banks of oars, rising and falling in unison, the vessel ran swiftly into the harbor.
Headed by Prince Hur, the son of Azemilcus, the ambassadors were standing grave and silent upon the deck. At sight of their anxious faces a hush fell upon the crowd. The pilot gave a sharp command, the oars churned backward in the water, and the long trireme swung into her mooring. The ambassadors descended to the wharf and spoke in low tones to the elders of the council.
Was it peace or war? War! The news ran through the crowd and into the city as ripples spread across the face of a pool when a stone falls. Turmoil and confusion followed. What had Alexander said? Would the other Phœnician cities join with Tyre to repel him?
They had deserted her. Tyre must stand alone. Strato, son of Gerostratus, king of Adradus, had surrendered. Byblos had capitulated. Sidon had opened her gates to the Macedonians.
"We offered submission according to our instructions," said the chief of the ambassadors, to the council. "Alexander accepted it and bade us tell you it was his purpose to offer sacrifice in the temple of Melkarth, who, he says, is really Heracles, and his ancestor. We replied that Tyre could not admit strangers within her walls, but that Melkarth had an older temple on the mainland, where he might offer sacrifice. 'Tell your council,' he said, 'that I and my army will offer sacrifice to Melkarth upon his altar within the walls of New Tyre. Bid them make ready the temple. It is for them to say what the victims shall be.' That was all."
"You did well; let us consider," said Mochus, the eldest of the council.
They walked in slow and silent procession to the palace of the king in the southern quarter of the town and disappeared within its gates.
The city continued to seethe like a huge caldron. Its unwonted stir attracted the attention of Thais and Artemisia, on the housetop, where they had gone as usual to take the air after midday. The two young women stood side by side, close to the parapet of the roof, looking down into the narrow streets, where men came and went like ants whose nest has been disturbed. The strong sea-breeze blew out Thais' crimson robe into gleaming folds, and the sun glistened upon the burnished copper of her hair. Rich color glowed in her cheeks and in her scarlet lips. The immortal vitality of the salt breeze and of the crisply curling waves seemed in her. She laughed aloud.
"I wonder what is the matter?" she said. "These Phœnicians are afraid of their own shadows."