of the battle prevented them from hearing until it was too late. It was not till Alexander had entered the northern bay that they understood, and turned and fled, pursued by his ships, which captured or disabled the greater number. The crews, however, and the men-at-arms, escaped, since they threw themselves overboard, and easily swam into the harbour.[14405] This was the last attempt of the Tyrians by sea. They were now invested on every side, and hopelessly shut up within their defences. Still, however, they made a desperate resistance. On the side of the mole the Macedonians, having brought up their towers and battering-ram close to the wall, attacked it with much vigour, hurling against it great masses of stone, and by constant flights of darts and arrows driving the defenders from the battlements.[14406] At the same time the battering-rams were actively plied, and every effort made to effect a breach. But the Tyrians deadened the blows of the rams and the force of the stones by letting down from the walls leathern bags filled with sea-weed at the points assailed;[14407] while, by wheels which were set in rapid motion, they intercepted the darts and javelins wherewith they were attacked, and broke them or diverted them from their intended courses.[14408] When boarding-bridges were thrown from the towers to the top of the walls, and an attempt was made to pass troops into the town across them, they flung grappling hooks among the soldiers on the bridges, which caught in their bodies and lacerated them, or dragged their shields from their hands, or sometimes hauled them bodily into the air, and then dashed them against the wall or against the ground.[14409] Further, they made ready masses of red-hot metal, and hurled them against the towers and the scaling-parties.[14410] They also heated sand over fires and poured it from the battlements on all who approached the foot of the wall; this, penetrating between the armour and the skin, inflicted such intolerable pain that the sufferers were forced to tear off their coats of mail, whereupon they were easily transfixed by arrows or long lances.[14411] With scythes they cut the ropes and thongs by means of which the rams were worked;[14412] and at last, armed with hatchets, they sprang from the battlements upon the Macedonian boarding-bridges, and in a hand-to-hand combat defeated and drove back their assailants.[14413] Finally, when, despite of all their efforts, the outer wall began to give way, they constructed an inner wall to take its place, broader and stronger than the other.[14414]