These shells, of course, when they descend, come crashing through the roofs of the buildings on which they strike, or bury themselves in the ground if they fall in the street, and then burst with a terrific explosion. A town that has been bombarded in a siege becomes sometimes almost a mere mass of ruins. Often the bursting of a shell sets a building on fire, and then the dreadful effects of a conflagration are added to the horrors of the scene. In ancient sieges, on the other hand, none of these terrible agencies could be employed. The battering-rams could touch nothing but the walls and the outer towers, and it was comparatively very little injury that they could do to these. The javelins and arrows, and other light missiles--even those that were thrown from the military engines, if by chance they passed over the walls and entered the town, could do no serious mischief to the buildings there. The worst that could happen from them was the wounding or killing of some person in the streets who might, just at that moment, be passing by. In repairing Acre, therefore, and putting it again in a perfect condition for defense, nothing but the outer walls required attention. Richard set companies of workmen upon these, and before long every thing was restored as it was before. There were then some ceremonies to be performed within the town, to purify it from the pollution which it had sustained by having been in the possession of the Saracens. All the Christian churches particularly, and the monasteries and other religious houses, were to be thus restored from the desecration which they had undergone, and consecrated anew to the service of Christ. In the mean time, while these works and performances were going on, the soldiers gave themselves up to indulgences of every kind. Great stores of wine were found in the place, which were bestowed upon the troops, and the streets, day and night, were filled with riotous revelings. The commanders themselves--the knights and barons--and all the other men of rank that pertained to the army, fell into the same way, and they were very unwilling that the time should come when they were to leave such a place of security and indulgence, and take the field again for a march in pursuit of Saladin.