When the space between the walls was thus cleared, the inhabitants signed to the Ethiopians that they might freely approach: they advanced, therefore, and when near enough, they from their boats addressed the besieged multitude as follows: "Persians! and inhabitants of Syene! Hydaspes, King of the Eastern and Western Ethiopia, and now your sovereign also, knows how to subdue his enemies, and to spare those who supplicate his mercy--the one belongs to valour, the other to humanity: the merit of the former belongs chiefly to his soldiers; that of the latter is entirely his own. Your safety or destruction is now in his hands; but since you throw yourselves on his compassion, he releases you from the impending and unavoidable dangers which encompass you. He does not himself name the conditions of your deliverance, but leaves them to you to propose; he has no desire to tyrannize over justice--he wishes to treat the fortunes of men with equity." To this address the inhabitants of Syene replied,--"That they threw themselves, their wives and children, upon the mercy of the Ethiopian prince, and were ready to surrender their city (if they were spared), which was now in such sore distress, that unless some god, or Hydaspes himself, very speedily interposed, there were no hopes of its preservation." Oroondates added,--"That he was ready to yield up, and put into their hands, both the cause of the war, and its prizes--the city of Philœ, and the emerald mines: in return, he required that neither he nor his soldiers should be made prisoners of war, but that Hydaspes, as a crowning act of generosity, would permit them to retire to Elephantine upon condition of their doing injury to no one: as to himself, it was indifferent to him whether he laid down his life now, or perished hereafter, by the sentence of his master, for having lost his army; the latter alternative would indeed be the worst, for now he would undergo a common, and possibly, an easy kind of death; in the other case, he would have to suffer the refinements of cruelty and torture. He also requested them to receive two of his Persians into their boats, that they might proceed to Elephantine, professing that if they found the garrison of that city disposed to surrender to the Ethiopians, he would no longer delay to follow their example." The delegates complied with his request; took the Persians on board, returned to the camp, and informed Hydaspes of the result of their embassy.