2–4
As each successively effected his passage, he took his stand on the edge of the ditch; and thence they used their bows and darts against any one that came to the rescue along the wall, and tried to stop the passage [of their comrades].
When all were over, those on the towers descended—the last of them with great difficulty— and proceeded to the ditch; and in the mean time the three hundred were coming against them with torches.
Now the Plataeans, as they stood in the dark on the edge of the ditch, had a better view of them, and discharged their arrows and darts against the exposed parts of their bodies; while they themselves, in the obscurity of their position, were the less acen for the torches; so that even the last of the Plataeans got clear over the ditch, though with difficulty and by a violent effort;