“It was like a square castle upon wheels. Thousands of soldiers pushed it forward, but their toil was made easier by the wheels or castors which turned every way under the great frame supporting it. Nine storeys I counted, with staircases leading up and down from one to the other. The whole monster, half animal, half tower (as it looked), was covered with iron plates like the scales on a serpent. In the front of each storey there were little windows with leather curtains which moved up and down, covering them—meant, no doubt, to break the force of the stones and darts we should hurl in our defence. On it came, towering above our walls, its windows like the awful eyes of some dragon, glaring at its victims. As yet it had not begun to spit forth stones and darts and flaming torches, but evidently it was only waiting for this till it should be closer at hand, and more deadly in effect. “While I held my breath in terror lest anything in my plan should go wrong, I yet noticed with pride the spirit of our men who shouted their battle-cries, and shot streams of arrows in return for those sent over by the enemy foot-soldiers. Nearer and nearer came the monster—my heart stood still—and then, just as I was feeling I must faint or scream, with such a crash as to make the whole city totter, it suddenly disappeared into the ground. _Almost_ disappeared, for only the topmost and smallest storey was visible! “At first it seemed as though the whole world had been suddenly struck dumb. Not a sound was heard from either side, besiegers or besieged. Then, after that moment of deathly silence a cry went up from the city that was like nothing I ever heard. The next moment I felt the arms of Chares catching me before I fell to the ground. “The excitement and suspense had been too much for me, and when I opened my eyes I was lying in our barracks, and Phrynis, Chares, and crowds of other people, were waiting to embrace me, and call me the saviour of our city. “For the war had ended while I was unconscious. Phrynis afterwards told me that messengers from many parts of Greece had for some days past arrived at the camp of Demetrius, urging him to make peace with us on our own terms. But he added: ‘It was the failure of his last and greatest engine rather than the entreaties of his friends that decided him to struggle no more for victory. The victory is ours, and we owe it to you, Cleon, a child in years, but a man in genius.’ “Such praise as this might well have filled me with foolish pride and vanity if I had not been quite sure that somehow or other I had been _helped_. I had not thought out the plan at all. It had come ready-made into my mind. But when I tried to explain this to Phrynis, he merely laughed at what he called my modesty, and I could see he did not understand. It was only Chares who understood, and made _me_ understand also. But that came much later on, as I presently will tell you.