The doors along the three fronts which faced the town fell down, and cuirassed soldiers appeared in the interior like pillars of iron.
Some might be seen climbing and descending the two staircases which crossed the stories.

Some were waiting to dart out as soon as the cramps of the doors touched the walls; in the middle of the upper platform the skeins of the ballistas were turning, and the great beam of the catapult was being lowered.
Hamilcar was at that moment standing upright on the roof of Melkarth.

He had calculated that it would come directly towards him, against what was the most invulnerable place in the wall, which was for that very reason denuded of sentries.

His slaves had for a long time been bringing leathern bottles along the roundway, where they had raised with clay two transverse partitions forming a sort of basin.

The water was flowing insensibly along the terrace, and strange to say, it seemed to cause Hamilcar no anxiety.
But when the helepolis was thirty paces off, he commanded planks to be placed over the streets between the houses from the cisterns to the rampart; and a file of people passed from hand to hand helmets and amphoras, which were emptied continually.