Meanwhile the escaping warriors were actively engaged. Some held with spear and javelin the towers they had captured. Others drew up the ladders and planted them against the outer wall. Then down the ladders they hurried, waded across the outer ditch, and reached level ground beyond. Each man, as he gained this space, stood ready with his weapons to repel assault from without. When all the others were down, the men who had held the towers fled to the ladders and safely descended. The outer ditch was nearly full of water from the rain and covered with thin ice. Yet they scrambled through it, and when the three hundred of the outer guard approached with torches, they suddenly found themselves assailed with arrows and javelins from a foe invisible in the darkness. They were thus kept back till the last Plataean had crossed the ditch, when the bold fugitives marched speedily away, leaving but one of their number a prisoner in the hands of the foe. They first marched towards Thebes, while their pursuers took the opposite direction. Then they turned, struck eastward, entered the mountains, and finally--two hundred and twelve in number--made their way safely to Athens, to tell their families and allies the thrilling story of their escape. A few who lost heart returned from the inner wall to the town, and told those within that the whole band had perished. The truth was only learned within the town when on the next morning a herald was sent out to solicit a truce for burial of the dead bodies. The herald brought back the glad tidings that there were no dead to bury, that the whole bold band had escaped. Happy had it been for the remaining garrison had they also fled, even at the risk of death. With the provisions left they held out till the next summer, when they were forced to yield. In the end, after the form of a trial, they were all slaughtered by their foes, and the city itself was razed to the ground by its Theban enemies, only the Heraeum, or temple of Here, being left. Such was the fate of a city to which eternal sacredness had been pledged. _HOW THE LONG WALLS WENT DOWN._ The retreat of the Persians from Athens left that city without a wall or a home. On the return of the Athenians, and the rebuilding of their ruined homes, a new wall became a necessity, and, under the wise advice of Themistocles, the citizens determined that the new wall should be much larger in circuit than the old,--wide enough to hold all Attica in case of war. [Illustration: PIRAEUS, THE PORT OF ATHENS.]