A whole week had now elapsed since the ill-fated army left its quarters on the shores of the Great Harbour, and a few thousand starving and weary men were all that remained of that great host. At dawn on the eighth day Nicias gave the word to march, and they pressed on eagerly towards the Assinarus, a stream of some size, with high and precipitous banks, not more than two miles distant from their last halting-place. They had still some faint hope of making good their escape, if they could but cross the river. So they fought their way onwards, through the swarming ranks of the Syracusans, who closed them in on all sides, and thrust them together into one solid mass. There was life, there was freedom a little way beyond,--or, if that hope proved futile, at any rate there was water; and every fibre in their bodies ached and burned with intolerable thirst. They reached the river; both banks were already lined by the Syracusan horse, who had ridden on before, and stood guarding the ford: but there was no stopping the wild rush of that maddened, desperate multitude. Down the steep bank they plunged, trampling on one another, and flung themselves open-mouthed upon the stream, with one thought, one wish, overpowering every other impulse,--to drink, and then to die. Some fell upon the spears of their comrades, and perished, others slipped on the floating baggage, lost their foothold, and were swept away by the flood. Yet still they poured on, by hundreds and by thousands, drawn by the same longing, and thrust downwards by the weight of those behind, until the whole riverbed was filled with a huddled, surging mob of furious men, who drank, and still drank, or fought with one another to reach the water. All this time an iron storm of missiles rained down upon them from the thronging hosts of their enemies on the banks above, while some, in the midst of their draught, were pierced by the spears of the Peloponnesians, who followed them into the river, and slew them at close quarters. The water grew red with blood, and foul from the trampling of so many feet, but the thirsty multitude still came crowding in, and drank with avidity of the polluted stream.