The defenders were shouting wildly, shooting their arrows and throwing darts and stones. The besiegers had begun the attack. Projectiles came hurtling from outside the walls, passing over the merlons like dark-colored birds, as if the Africans were covering an assault with battering-rams and pickaxes to open a breach. Actæon, who since his return to Saguntum had again assumed control of the work of defense, must go up on the wall. "Run away, Rhanto," he said hastily. "You will be killed here. Go to Sónnica's house----I will take you to Erotion. But fly! Hide yourself! See how the missiles are falling around us!" He shoved her from the stairway with an energetic push which nearly drove her to her knees. The Greek ran up hastily, hearing the ceaseless and deadly hisses rending the air about his head. Before he reached the merlons he heard a faint groan at his back, a gentle cry which recalled to Actæon's mind the bleating of a fawn when pierced by the huntsman's arrow. Turning he saw Rhanto half way up the steps, wavering, ready to fall backward, her breast covered with blood and pierced by a long feather-tipped shaft, still quivering from the swiftness of its flight. She had started to follow him up the wall, but an arrow had caught her. "Rhanto! Poor Rhanto!" Obeying an impulse of grief which he could not explain to himself, but which was stronger than his will, he forgot the defense of the wall, the attack of the enemy, everything, to run toward the girl, who sank down with the gentle flutter of a wounded bird. He took her in his strong arms and laid her at the foot of the steps. Rhanto sighed, moving her head as if trying to rid herself of the pain which had taken possession of her. The Greek supported her by the shoulders, calling tenderly: "Rhanto! Rhanto!" In her eyes, enlarged by pain, the light seemed to condense. The expression of her face had now become sane; it lost, at moments, the vagueness of dementia. Pain seemed to have restored her reason, and in this supreme moment of lucidity the whole past arose clear in her mind. "Do not die, Rhanto," murmured the Greek, impulsively, "wait; I will draw out that iron; I will carry you on my back to the Forum so that they shall cure you." But the girl shook her head sadly. No, she wished to die. She wished to join Erotion, near the gods, among the clouds of rose and gold where wandered the Mother of Love, followed by those who had loved each other devotedly on earth. She had roamed for weeks like a shadow among the horrors of the besieged city, believing that Erotion still lived, searching for him everywhere; but Erotion was dead; she remembered it well now; she herself had seen his corpse. "Since he is dead why should I live?" "Live for me!" cried Actæon, stung with grief, unconscious of his surroundings, deaf to the cries of the defenders on the wall and to the footsteps of someone approaching on the street.