Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

A CHRISTIAN ROMANCE. 459
"men, either inside or outside, but we heard the
"noise of cocks crowing; but there was no man
"to open to us the gates, which were everywhere
"bolted and locked."
Then Alexander commanded them to bring him
lofty term trees and palms, and the soldiers made
ladders, whereby they could ascend to the battlements soidiers
r 1 11 • /- 1 * scale the
of the walls to see if there were any men movmgwaiis and
about in the city; and when they had gone up"^^ ""^^i
into the battlements they saw the J
"'''''* dancing o figures
& see.
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and the instruments of music, and [they heard]
the sound of the drum, and of the flutes, and
of the organ, and the voice of the trumpet,
[p. 276] And those who had gone up to the battlements
said, "Good and excellent," and they fell
down straightway on their faces and bellies inside
[the castle of the city]. Then others went up into
the battlements, and when they saw the instruments
of music they also said, "Good and excellent,"
and they fell down [into the castle], and returned
not; and afterwards they could relate nothing,
except that they had fallen down inside the castle
of the city. Then Alexander the king himselfAiexander
went up to see what had become of the
scales
men, ^aii"
the
and to bring them back to tell him what they
had seen; and when he had gone up to the
battlements he saw the most complicated mechanical
contrivance which he had ever seen, that is to
say, he saw a figure, made of brass, which was
in the form of a man. And the people used to
dance to it, and to clap their hands, and to shuffle
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