For, with a roar as of a hungry wild beast the mob began. There was no formal or courteous commencement with rotten eggs and dead cats. These things, it is true, were flung, and with effect. But from the very beginning they were accompanied by sharp flints, stones and brickbats. The mob broke through the line of constables and filled up the open space; they pushed the women to the front: I think they were mad: they shrieked and yelled execrations: the air was thick with missiles; where did they come from? There were neither pause nor cessation. For the whole time the storm went on: the under-sheriff wanted, I have heard, to take down the men; but no one would venture on the stage to release them. Meanwhile with both of them the yellow streams of broken eggs had given way to blood. Their faces and heads were covered every inch--every half inch--with open bleeding wounds: their eyes were closed, their heads held down as much as they could: if they groaned; if they shrieked; if they prayed for mercy; if they prayed for the mercy of Heaven since from man there was none; no one could hear in the Babel of voices from the mob. It was the Thief-taker, the Man-slayer, who was the principal object of the crowd's attention: but they could not distinguish between the two and they soon threw at one head or the other impartially. It was indeed a most dreadful spectacle of the popular justice. Just so, the Jews took out the man who worshipped false idols, and the woman who was a witch and stoned them with stones, so that they died. For my own part I can never forget that sight of the two bowed heads at which a mob of I know not how many hundreds crowded together in a narrow street hurled everything that they could find, round paving stones, sharp flints, broken bricks, wooden logs, with every kind of execration that the worst and lowest of the people can invent. From the south and from the north: there was an equal shower; there was no difference. For a whole hour this went on. The pillory should have been turned every quarter of an hour. But no one dared to mount the stage in order to turn it--besides it was safer to let one side exhaust their artillery than to tempt the unspent stores of the other side. At last the hour of twelve struck. There was a final discharge: then all stopped. The heads hung down inanimate, motionless. Had the mob, then, killed them both? The under-sheriff mounted the stage: one of the constables cleared it of the miscellaneous stuff lying at the feet of the prisoners; then they took out the men. Both were senseless; they were carried down the steps and placed in the cart. The driver went to the horse's head; the constables closed in: the show was over.