The boy beside Iphicrates was twanging away with his bow as fast as he could fit his arrows to the cord.
"I hit one!" he cried, following the course of a shaft with his eyes. "I saw him fall! He went right over backward!"
He began shooting again with renewed ardor.
Meantime a few squadrons of the bravest men in Memnon's forces rallied and made a brief stand before the gate. They succeeded in halting the Macedonians long enough to enable their comrades to swarm through to safety; but soon they were swept off their feet and hurled back toward the battlements. To their dismay, they found the great gate closed against them. They were cut down as they ran hither and thither, seeking in vain for a place of refuge.
Iphicrates watched the butchery with horrible fascination. His face was mottled, and the spear in his hand shook like a blade of corn.
"Cowards!" cried the boy with flashing eyes, "why did they not let them in?"
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.
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.