XIX. (127) As they then were no longer able to endure the misery of the place within which they were enclosed, they poured forth into desolate parts of the wilderness, and to the shore, and among the tombs, in their eagerness to find any pure and untainted air. And if any of them had previously been left in the other parts of the city, or if any had come in thither from the fields out of ignorance of the evils which had visited their companions, they fell into every variety of misfortune, being stoned, or else wounded with sharp tiles, or beaten on the most mortal parts of the body, and especially on the head, with branches of maple and of oak, in such a way as to cause death. (128) And some of those persons who are accustomed to pass their time in idleness and inaction, sitting around, occupied themselves in watching those who, as I have said before, were thus driven together and crammed into a very small space, as if they were a force which they were blockading; lest any one should secretly escape without their perceiving it. And a great many were designing to effect their escape from want of necessaries, disregarding their own safety from a fear that, if they remained, the whole body might perish with famine. So those men, expecting that they would endeavour to escape, kept a continual watch, and the moment that they caught any one, they immediately put him to death with every circumstance of insult and cruelty. (129) And there was another company lying in wait for them on the quays of the river, to catch any Jews who arrived at those spots, and to plunder them of every thing which they brought for the purposes of traffic; for, forcing their way into their ships they took out the cargo before the eyes of its lawful owners, and then, binding the hands of the merchants behind them, they burnt them alive, taking the rudders, and helms, and punt-poles, and the benches for the rowers to sit upon, for fuel. (130) And thus these men perished by a most miserable death being burnt alive in the middle of the city; for sometimes, for want of other timber they brought piles of faggots together, and tying them up, they threw them on the miserable victims; and they, being already half burnt, were killed, more by the smoke of the green wood than by the flames, as the new faggots gave forth only an unsubstantial and smoky sort of flame, and were soon extinguished, not being able to be reduced to ashes by reason of their lightness. (131) And many who were still alive they took and bound, and fastened their ankles together with thongs and ropes, and then dragged them through the middle of the market-place, leaping on them, and not sparing their corpses even after they were dead; for, tearing them to pieces limb from limb, and trampling on them, behaving with greater brutality and ferocity than even the most savage beasts, they destroyed every semblance of humanity about them, so that not even a fragment of them was left to which the rites of burial could be afforded.
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