the real attack began. With fierce yells, the threefold column
rushed at the wall, and began to work the rams and scale the ladders,
while the defenders above showered spears and arrows upon them, or
crushed them with heavy stones, or poured upon their heads boiling pitch
and water, heated in great cauldrons which stood at hand.

Time after time they were driven back with heavy loss; and, time upon
time, fresh hordes of them advanced to the onslaught. Thrice, at the
southern gate, were the ladders raised, and thrice the stormers appeared
above the level of the wall, to be hurled back, crushed and bleeding, to
the earth beneath.

Thus the long day wore on and still the defenders held their own.

"We shall win," shouted Aziel to Metem, as a fresh ladder was cast down
with its weight of men to the death-strewn plain.

"Yes, here we shall win because we fight," answered the Phoenician, "but
elsewhere it may be otherwise." Indeed for a while the attack upon the
south gate slackened.

Another hour passed and presently to the left of them rose a wild yell
of triumph, and with it a shout of "Fly to the second wall. The foe is
in the fosse!"

Metem looked and there, down the great ditch, 300 paces to their left,
a flood of savages poured towards them. "Come," he said, "the outer wall
is lost." But as he spoke once more the ladders rose against the gates
and flanking towers and once more Aziel sprang to cast them down. When
the deed was done, he looked behind him to find that he was cut off and
surrounded. Metem and most of his men indeed had gained the inner wall
in safety, while he with twelve only of his bravest soldiers, Jews of
his own following, who had stayed to help him to throw back the ladders,
were left upon the gateway tower. Nor was escape any longer possible,
for both the plain without and the fosse within were filled with the men
of Ithobal who advanced also by hundreds down the broad coping of the
captured wall.

"Now there is but one thing that we can do," said Aziel; "fight bravely
till we are slain."

As he spoke a javelin cast from the wall beneath struck him upon the
breastplate, and though the bronze turned the iron point, it brought him
to his knees. When he found his feet again, he heard a voice calling
him by name, and looking down, saw Ithobal clad in golden harness and
surrounded by his captains.

"You cannot escape, prince Aziel," cried the king; "yield now to my
mercy."

Aziel heard, and