"As far as stopping the fire nothing is being done. It has been given up. What can be done when the fire is sweeping along a mile broad, and the heat is so great that there is no standing within a hundred yards of it? All the soldiers are there, and the magistrates and the guards, and all the rest of them, but all that can be done is to prevent the scum of the city from sacking and plundering. Scores of men have been scourged and some beheaded, but it is no easy matter to keep down the mob. There are parties of guards in every street. The whole of the Praetorians are under arms, but the terror and confusion is so great and spread over so wide a space that it is well nigh impossible to preserve order. Proclamations have just been issued by the senate calling upon all citizens to gather at their places of assembly in arms, enjoining them to preserve order, and authorizing the slaying of all robbers caught in the act of plundering. All persons within a certain distance of the fire are recommended to send their wives and families, with their jewels and all portable wealth, to the public gardens, where strong guards of the Praetorians will be posted." "It seems to me that the fire is advancing in this direction, also, Scopus." "It is spreading everywhere," Scopus said gloomily. "The heat seems to draw the air in from all directions, and the flames surge sometimes one way and sometimes another. You had better not go far away, Beric; if the flames crawl up much nearer we shall have to prepare for a move. We have no jewels to lose, nor is the furniture of much value, but the arms and armour, our apparatus, clothes, and other things must be carried off." The scene as Beric went forward was pitiful in the extreme. Weeping women carrying heavy burdens and with their children clinging to their dress came along. Some searched up and down frantically for members of the family who had been lost in the crowd. Old men and women were being helped along by their relations. The sick were being borne past upon doors or the tops of tables. Among the fugitives were groups of men from the poorest districts by the river, who were only restrained from snatching at the ornaments and caskets of the women by the presence of the soldiers, standing at short intervals along the street and at the doors of the principal houses. In spite of the vigilance of the guard, however, such thefts occasionally took place, and the screams that from time to time rose in the side streets told of the work of plunder going on there. "I should like to turn down here and give a lesson to some of these villains," Boduoc said.