fusion. Alexander, seeing his opportunity, seized the very moment when the enemy's horse were changing front, and pressed home his attack. The Indian ranks on both wings broke and "fled for shelter to the elephants as to a friendly wall." Thus ended the first act in the drama.
The elephant drivers tried to retrieve the disaster by urging their mounts against the Macedonian horse, but the phalanx, which had now advanced, began to take its deferred share in the conflict. The Macedonian soldiers hurled showers of darts at the elephants and their riders. The maddened beasts charged and crushed through the closed ranks of the phalanx, impenetrable to merely human attack. The Indian horsemen seized the critical moment, and, seeking to revenge the defeat which they had suffered in the first stage of the action, wheeled round and attacked Alexander's cavalry. But the Indians were not equal to the task which they attempted, and, being repulsed, were again cooped up among the elephants. The second act of the drama was now finished.
The third and last began with a charge by the Macedonian massed cavalry, which crashed into the broken Indian ranks and effected an awful carnage. The battle ended at the eighth hour of the day in a scene of murderous confusion, which is best described in the words of Arrian, whose account is based on that of men who shared in the fight.
"The elephants," he writes, "being now cooped up within a narrow space, did no less damage to their
