t the walls, and gradually weakening them; and
the Africans who had outlived the first assault now attacked the blocks
of stone with more security, little by little opening a breach.

The Saguntines, pale with the rage of impotence, endeavored in vain to
stay the destruction. The besieging tower, rolling over a level tract
impelled by men hidden behind it, moved from place to place, scattering
death, and at times it drew so near that the besieged could hear the
voices of the bowmen who shot through the loopholes. Meanwhile, down
below, at the base of the walls, the slow and obstinate work of
undermining continued.

The more excitable citizens, raging with indignation at seeing their
walls destroyed with impunity, leaned out into the crenels to shoot at
those who operated the battering-ram and worked with pickaxes; but no
sooner did they appear than a stone fell upon them, or they tumbled over
with their bodies pierced by an arrow. The wall was strewn with the dead
and dying. The wounded dragged themselves along contemplating with
clouded gaze the shaft of the arrow sunk in their flesh.

In vain the besieged shot against the tower. Stones rebounded from its
walls of logs with hollow clatter but without piercing them. It was
bristling with arrows, moving like a monstrous elephant, insensible to
wounds, and in vain the phalarics whistled through the air with their
trail of sparks and smoke, for they could not set fire to the wet hides
with which the upper part of the tower was covered.

The more prudent fled from those places where the besiegers concentrated
their efforts, and the more audacious took their places ignorant how to
repel the enemy, but with the stubborn determination of dying before he
should advance a step.

Mopsus, the bowman, was the only one in the difficult situation who
inflicted damage upon the Carthaginians. With drawn bow he thrust his
head outside the merlons for an instant and shot, managing to send his
arrows into the loopholes of the tower, scattering death among the
soldiers who thought themselves secure. Erotion was at his side. Seeing
his father in a place of danger he repelled Rhanto at the foot of the
steps leading to the wall, paying no heed to her tears, and grasping his
bow he tried to imitate the old archer, challenging the men in the
tower.

But with the imprudence of youth he exposed almost his entire body
beyond the merlon, and when he managed to plunge an arrow into the tower