fidence and trust, his heart sunk within him in
despair. At such a time the soul turns from traitorous friends to an
open foe with something like a feeling of confidence and attachment.
Darius's exasperation against Bessus was so intense, that his
hostility to Alexander became a species of friendship in comparison.
He felt that Alexander was a sovereign like himself, and would have
some sympathy and fellow-feeling for a sovereign's misfortunes. He
thought, too, of his mother, his wife, and his children, and the
kindness with which Alexander had treated them went to his heart. He
lay there, accordingly, faint and bleeding in his chariot, and looking
for the coming of Alexander as for that of a protector and friend, the
only one to whom he could now look for any relief in the extremity of
his distress.

The Macedonians searched about in various places, thinking it possible
that in the sudden dispersion of the enemy Darius might have been left
behind. At last the chariot in which he was lying was found. Darius
was in it, pierced with spears. The floor of the chariot was covered
with blood. They raised him a little, and he spoke. He called for
water.

Men wounded and dying on the field of battle are tormented always with
an insatiable and intolerable thirst, the manifestations of which
constitute one of the greatest horrors of the scene. They cry
piteously to all who pass to bring them water, or else to kill them.
They crawl along the ground to get at the canteens of their dead
companions, in hopes to find, remaining in them, some drops to drink;
and if there is a little brook meandering through the battle-field,
its bed gets filled and choked up with the bodies of those who crawled
there, in their agony, to quench their horrible thirst, and die.
Darius was suffering this thirst. It bore down and silenced, for the
time, every other suffering, so that his first cry, when his enemies
came around him with shouts of exultation, was not for his life, not
for mercy, not for relief from the pain and anguish of his wounds--he
begged them to give him some water.

He spoke through an interpreter. The interpreter was a Persian
prisoner whom the Macedonian army had taken some time before, and who
had learned the Greek language in the Macedonian camp. Anticipating
some occasion for his services, they had brought him with them now,
and it was through him that Darius called for water. A Macedonian
soldier went immediately to get some.