But how to escape was the difficulty. The gate was narrow, the body of troops with him was large, and he knew that in attempting to retire he would be attacked from all the streets in the vicinity, and from the tops of the houses and walls, and that his column would inevitably be thrown into disorder, and would choke up the gateway and render it wholly impassable, through their eagerness to escape and the confusion that would ensue. He accordingly sent out a messenger to his son Helenus, who remained all the time in command of the main body of the army, without the walls, directing him to come forward with all his force, and break down a portion of the wall adjoining the gateway, so as to open a free egress for his troops in their retreat from the city. He remained himself at his position in the market-place until time had elapsed sufficient, as he judged, for Helenus to have received his orders, and to have reached the gate in the execution of them; and then, being by this time hard pressed by his enemies, who began early in the morning to attack him on all quarters, he put his troops in motion, and in the midst of a scene of shouts, uproar, terror, and confusion indescribable, the whole body moved on toward the gate, expecting that, by the time they arrived there, Helenus would have accomplished his work, and that they should find a broad opening made, which would allow of an easy egress. Instead of this, however, they found, before they reached the gate, that the streets before them were entirely blocked up with an immense concourse of soldiers that were pouring tumultuously into the city. It seems that Helenus had, in some way or other, misunderstood the orders, and supposed that he was directed to enter the city himself, to re-enforce his father within the walls. The shock of the encounter produced by these opposing currents redoubled the confusion. Pyrrhus, and the officers with him, shouted out orders to the advancing soldiers of Helenus to fall back; but in the midst of the indescribable din and confusion that prevailed, no vociferation, however loud, could be heard. Nor, if the orders had been heard, could they have been obeyed, for the van of the coming column was urged forward irresistibly by the pressure of those behind, and the panic which by this time prevailed among the troops of Pyrrhus's command made them frantic and furious in their efforts to force their way onward and get out of the city. An awful scene of confusion and destruction ensued. Men pressed and trampled each other to death, and the air was filled with shrieks and cries of pain and terror. The destruction of life was very great, but it was produced almost entirely by the pressure and the confusion--men, horses, and elephants being mingled inextricably together in one vast living mass, which seemed, to those who looked down upon it from above, to be writhing and struggling in the most horrible contortions. There was no fighting, for there was no room for