He again embarked with his friends, and sailed down stream as far as the confluence of the Indus with the two rivers already mentioned. These mighty streams met with tumultuous roar, and formed at their junction many formidable eddies, which destroyed whatever sailing craft were sucked into their vortex. The current besides was so swift and strong that it baffled all the skill of the pilots. Two ships of war foundered in consequence, and of the other vessels not a few were stranded. A furious surge broke over the admiral’s ship itself—a mishap which nearly proved fatal to the king. Wherefore, as death itself stared him in the face, he stripped off his clothes, and in his naked condition clung to anything that offered a chance of safety. His friends were at the same time swimming alongside the ship, every one eager to receive the king in the event of its capsizing. The utmost confusion prevailed on board, the men contending with the force of the current, and the river baffling all human skill and endeavour, so that it was with the greatest difficulty Alexander made the shore, on which he was cast along with the vessels. For this unexpected deliverance he offered sacrifice to the gods for his escape from extreme peril after contending, like Achilles, with a river.[359] _Chapter XCVIII.—Combination of the Syrakousai and Malloi—Alexander, neglecting the warning of a soothsayer, attacks their stronghold, and scales the walls of its citadel_ He undertook next an expedition against the Syrakousai[360] and the people called the Malloi, two populous and warlike nations. The inhabitants, he found, had mustered a force of 80,000 foot, 10,000 horse, and 700 chariots. Before Alexander’s coming they had been at feud with each other, but on his approach had settled their differences, and cemented an alliance by intermarriage, each nation taking and giving in exchange 10,000 of their young women for wives.[361] They did not, however, combine their forces and take the field, for as a dispute had arisen about the leadership, they had drawn off into the adjoining towns. Alexander, while approaching the city that first came in his way, was pondering how he could lay siege to it and capture it at the very first assault, when one of the soothsayers, named Dêmophôn, came to him and said that he had been forewarned by certain omens that the king in besieging the place would be very dangerously wounded, and he therefore advised Alexander to let that city alone for the present, and meanwhile turn his attention to other enterprises. But the king sharply rebuked him for hampering the valour of men in the heat of action. He then made arrangements for the conduct of the siege, and he led himself the way to the city, which he was ambitious to reduce at once by a vigorous assault. The battering train was, however, late in coming up, and he was himself the first to burst open a postern, and by this side entrance get into the city.