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As soon as I reached the hill of debris I had my feet under me and then, even more rapidly, half sliding and jumping, holding the rope, hurried down the hill. When I reached the bottom of the hill I turned and looked upward. Mainly I wanted to see if there were any crossbowmen on the walkway. There were none. One or two fellows looked as though they might be thinking about following me down the rope, but they did not do so. On the hill of debris they would have poor footing. At the foot of the rope they would be in the courtyard, perhaps isolated. They could come down only one at a time. all in all I did not blame them.

"Well done," said a young voice.

I turned about. It was the young fellow who had the crossbow.

"I thought this might be your plan," he said, "when you had me put the slave at the ring."

"You are a clever fellow," I grinned.

"And so I came to cover your descent," he said.

I smiled. I had not realized this additional reason for not following me down the rope. The fellows on the walkway had seen him. I had not. It was true, of course, that he had only one quarrel for his bow. Yet who, still, would wish to be the first down the rope?

"You are a brave young fellow," I said, "to have come here, for such a purpose, with but a single quarrel for your bow."

"I shall find others elsewhere," he said.

"Thank you," I said.

"It is nothing," he said.

The other young fellow, he who had been my messenger to the eastern walkway, emerged into the courtyard. He looked up at the walkway. The Cosians were now leaving the central walkway, and hurrying to the stairwells, those to the east and west.

"The citadel is being evacuated," said the newcomer.

"We shall withdraw to the harbor area," said the fellow with the crossbow. "Then the slaughter will take place."

"We have fought a good fight," said the second fellow.

"I think so," said the first.

I went to the slave. She lay on the lower slope of the hill of debris, her head down, her legs higher, up the hill, her right leg flexed. The end of the rope was a few feet above her, on the hill, where she had come free of it, and then rolled further downward. Her hands were thonged behind her. There were rope marks on her body, the signs of her spinning, jerking plunge to the hill, and then her tumbling downward, rather to her present location. She was trembling, uncontrollably. I supposed it had been frightening for her, she helpless in the hood.

I took her by one arm and drew her to the level, at the foot of the hill, and knelt her there.

I then bent her back, one hand on a thigh, the other on the back of her collar, in a slave bow, for the inspection of the young fellows.

"She is pretty," said the first.

"Yes," said the other.

I released her. "You are in the presence of men," I told her.

Swiftly she bent forward and put her head down to the ground.

"Take this slave," I said to the fellow without the bow, "and put her with the women and children. If you meet Cosians throw her to them. If they stop to take her in tow you may escape. Similarly, in the vicinity of the women and children, she might serve similar purposes, being used for a diversion or something." "We would rather stay with you, Captain," said the fellow with the bow. "The women and children will need you," I said.

"What of you?" he asked.

"I would see what is going on by the gate," I said.

The young man with the bow lifted it in salute. "Stand, slave," said the other fellow to the girl. She stood and her leash was taken in his grasp. She could not see, of course, confined in the hood, but he had looped the end of the leash. It was long enough, thusly, to serve as a disciplinary lash. In a moment the two young men, and the slave, had disappeared through an interior portal at the far side of the courtyard. I myself took one of the smaller portals at the far side, to follow an interior corridor to the vicinity of the main gate. The great interior gate, leading into the courtyard, like the covered way, some forty feet in length, had been backed with debris. This was, indeed, the debris to which we had descended by means of the rope. Provisions had been made, too, I supposed, for closing the corridors. In the corridor I met retreating defenders.

"We are abandoning the gate, Marsias," said one of them. "Come with us!" I nodded. It was only later that I realized that he had called me "Marsias." One of the fellows on the wall, I remembered, had asserted that I was not Marsias. Yet they had followed me. Marsias, then, surely, was the name of the fellow whom I was impersonating.

I then emerged into the closed area between the outer and inner gate. There was a huge hill of sand, rock and such, packed against the lower portions of the outer gate. The ram could not be well turned within the covered way.

In this covered way, men passing him, from various parts of the citadel, taking their way through the sheltered corridors, presumably to the harbor area, on a piece of stone, broken from the inside of the way, his head in his hands, sat Aemilianus, bleeding.

There was a great splintering of wood from above us and, over the hill of sand and such, packed behind the door, suddenly, bursting wood apart, there protruded, black, over five feet thick, and of solid iron, like some mythological monster, a great form, with curled-back horns, cast in the likeness of an adult verr ram.

I had never seen such a thing closely. I drew my sword and scrambled up the debris behind the gate to examine it, but, as I approached it, it, in its rhythm, swung back. I caught sight of figures on the hill outside, just movements, parts of bodies. I, now on the summit of that small, artificial hill, suddenly drew back, shielding my yes, as the huge form smote again through the gate, splintering wood about. I put out my left hand and touched it. This time, as it swung back, I could see, along its shaft, the interior of the inclined shed that housed it, and how it was fifty feet long and slung in leather cradles, and the many ropes that controlled it, and the men drawing on the ropes, surely more than a hundred of them under that long shed, men stripped to the waist, sweating, and as it drew back this time a figure suddenly leapt forward, to enter and I parried and slipped my sword into him perhaps as startled as he was and he was pulled back, bleeding, and I heard shouts outside, and then, again, I drew back, covering my eyes, and the great head splintered inward again.

I stood near the opening but this time, following its retreat, none rushed through. Again I saw the shaft of the ram, the shed, the men, the ropes. A quarrel sped past. I heard a tumbling of stone behind me and the western corridor was closed, props struck from beneath a scaffolding of masonry. Aemilianus, with two retainers, remained where he was, below and to the left, he bleeding, sitting on the piece of stone. "Hurry!" I heard someone call, I suppose to Aemilianus. "We are going to close the east corridor!" I heard a trumpet from somewhere toward the harbor. "It is the recall!" cried one of the fellows with Aemilianus. "It sounds by your own command. Come, Commander!" The citadel then was being abandoned. But Aemilianus did not move. I could smell smoke from somewhere. Another fellow from outside suddenly appeared in the opening, high in the ruptured gate. We crossed swords in the opening three times. Then he stiffened in the opening, his guard down. I flung myself back and the ram smote through again. Another fellow then, flanked by two others, appeared in the opening. Steel struck steel, sparks leaping forth. He tried to climb over the jagged portal. "Look out!" cried someone from outside. I could see as my opponent could not the coming forward of the ram. He must have realized the danger but had not anticipated being held at the threshold. He turned away from me, and his two fellows leaped from him, but too late, and the ram, as I drew back, caught him and carried him, on its snout, tearing him against the side of the opening, for five feet, until he tumbled from it, to roll to the bottom of the hill. Two bodies now lay there, or a body and a part of a body. The head of the ram now was spattered with blood, as was, too, the side of the portal. I saw other men marshaling outside, to enter.