As Raimond V. approached the centre of action, he recognised, here and there, women who uttered heartrending cries, as they ran in the direction of the mountain, followed by their weeping children, and carrying on their heads their most precious possessions.
In other places, priests and distracted monks, seized with the panic of terror, had left their houses, where they were peaceably keeping Christmas, and were running to throw themselves at the foot of the church altar.
In many deserted streets, armed men stood at their windows, resolved to defend their houses and their families to the utmost, and were thoroughly prepared to give the pirates a vigorous reception.
Clouds of sparks and cinders were encountered by the resolute troops as they steadily marched, and the whirling flames made the streets they crossed as bright as broad day.
At last they reached the square, and, as the baron had foreseen, the principal action was on that side of the town.
The pirates rarely ventured into the streets remote from the coast, for fear of being cut off from their vessels.
It is impossible to paint the spectacle which struck Raimond V. with horror. By the light of the dazzling flames, he saw a part of the pirates engaged in a bloody combat with a number of fishermen and citizens entrenched in the upper story of the town hall.
Other corsairs, thinking only of plunder,—these belonged to the galley of Trimalcyon,—ran like so many demons across the conflagration they had kindled, some laden with costly articles, and others bearing in their robust arms women and young girls, who uttered shrieks of agony and terror.
The ground was already strewn with bodies riddled with wounds, unfortunate victims who at least bore testimony to a desperate resistance on the part of the inhabitants.
Near the middle of the square, and not far from the little street which conducted to the port, could be seen a confused mass of all sorts of objects guarded by two Moors.