Elsewhere the rest of the population was occupied in feasting and dancing.

Drunken riot and mad excitement held possession of the town; the siege was forgotten; ordinary precautions were neglected.
Following the example of their king, the Babylonians gave themselves up for the night to orgies in which religious frenzy and drunken excess formed a strange and revolting medley.
Meanwhile, outside the city, in silence and darkness, the Persians watched at the two points where the Euphrates entered and left the walls.

Anxiously they noted the gradual sinking of the water in the river-bed; still more anxiously they watched to see if those within the walls would observe the suspicious circumstance and sound an alarm through the town.

Should such an alarm be given, all their labors would be lost.

If, when they entered the river-bed, they found the river-walls manned and the river-gates fast-locked, they would be indeed "caught in a trap." Enfiladed on both sides by an enemy whom they could neither see nor reach, they would be overwhelmed and destroyed by his missiles before they could succeed in making their escape.