Then came up Timaeus, and a little afterwards Leonnatus followed by Aristonus.[294] The Indians, on discovering that the king was within their walls, abandoned all other places and ran in crowds to where he was, and pressed hard upon those who defended him. Timaeus, one of such, after receiving many wounds and making a gallant struggle, fell. Peucestas again, though pierced with three javelin wounds, held up his buckler not for his own, but the king’s protection. Leonnatus, while endeavouring to drive back the barbarians who were eagerly pressing forward, was severely wounded in the neck, and fell down in a swoon at the king’s feet. Peucestas was also now quite exhausted with the loss of blood from his wounds and could no longer hold up his buckler. Thus all the hope now lay in Aristonus, but he also was desperately wounded, and could no longer sustain the onset of so many assailants. In the meantime the rumour that the king had fallen reached the Macedonians. What would have terrified others only served to stimulate their ardour, for, heedless of every danger, they broke down the wall with their pickaxes, and where they had made an entrance burst into the city and massacred great numbers of the Indians, chiefly in the pursuit, no resistance being offered except by a mere handful. They spared neither old men, women, nor children, but held whomsoever they met to have been the person by whom the king had been wounded, and in this way they at length satiated their righteous indignation. Clitarchus and Timagenes state that Ptolemy, who afterwards became a king, was present at this fighting, but Ptolemy himself, who would not of course gainsay his own glory, has recorded in his memoirs that he was away at the time, as the king had sent him on an expedition elsewhere. This instance shows how great was the carelessness of the authors who composed these old books of history, or, it may be, their credulity, which is just as great a dereliction of their duty. The king was carried into a tent, where the surgeons cut off the wooden shaft of the arrow which had pierced him, taking care not to stir its point. When his armour was taken off they discovered that the weapon was barbed, and that it could not be extracted without danger except by making an incision to open the wound. But here again they were afraid lest in operating they should be unable to staunch the flow of blood, for the weapon was large and had been driven home with such force that it had evidently pierced to the inwards.