"Yes," Azemilcus answered, crossing his hands and hiding them in the wide sleeves of his robe. "He is not sharp-witted, my son; and it turns out that he still has hopes of saving Tyre so that he may reign here in my place. You see what they have been doing."
He stepped back and waved his hand toward the window. Beneath them was the breach that had been so desperately attacked and defended. The Tyrians had raised a new wall, nearly as thick and as high as the city wall itself. It formed a half-circle inside the gap, joining the main wall at either end, so that an attacking force, seeking to storm the breach, would be caught as in the bend of a bow. Swarms of men were still at work there by the light of torches.
The Athenian's heart sank. It seemed to him impossible that after the defeat of the preceding day, a second attack could succeed when the breach had been repaired. They were inside the city, it was true, but they were only five against forty thousand.
For a moment there was silence in the room. The bitter smile still rested on the thin lips of the old king. The chancellor stood nervously rubbing his knuckles, first with one hand and then with the other. Leonidas examined the wall and the new work with an eye that took in every detail. He turned to the king.
"You know that if you try to deceive us, we will kill you," he said quietly.
"Well?" the king replied, still with his thin smile.
"You say that it is your son who has shut you up," Leonidas continued. "Why do you think so?"
"Because he alone, besides this man, knew that I had summoned you," the king said.
Leonidas looked at the chancellor, whose ashen face grew a shade paler under his scrutiny.
"You were about to betray your city and your son has betrayed you," the Spartan said.