"Now the meeting of wind and fire!—Now speedily these hypocrites and tongue-servers, bastards of Byzantium, shall know Israel has a God in whom they have no lot, and in what regard he holds conniving at the rape of his daughters. Blow, Wind, blow harder! Rise, Fire, and spread—be a thousand lions in roaring till these tremble like hunted curs! The few innocent are not more in the account than moths burrowed in woven wool and feeding on its fineness. Already the guilty begin to pray—but to whom? Blow, O Wind! Spread and spare not, O Fire!"
Thus he exulted; and as if it heard him and were making answer to his imprecations, a column, pinked by the liberated fire below it, a burst of sparks in its core, shot up in sudden vastness like a Titan rushing to seizure of the world; but presently the gale struck and toppled it over toward Blacherne in the northwest.
"That way points the punishment? I remember I offered him God and peace and good-will to men, and he rejected them. Blow, Winds! Now are ye but breezes from the south, spice-laden to me, but in his ears be as chariots descending. And thou, O Fire! Forget not the justice to be done, and whose servant thou art. Leave Heaven to say which is guiltier; they who work at the deflowerment of the innocent, or he who answers no to the Everlasting offering him love. Unto him be thou as banners above the chariots!"
Now a noise began—at first faint and uncertain, then, as the red column sprang up, it strengthened, and ere long defined itself—Fire, Fire!
It seemed the city awoke with that cry. And there was peering from windows, opening of doors, rushing from houses, and hurrying to where the angry spot on the floor of the cloud which shut Heaven off was widening and deepening. In a space incredibly quick, the streets—those leading to the corner occupied by the Jew as well—became rivulets flowing with people, and then blatant rivers.
"My God, what a night for a fire!"
"There will be nothing left of us by morning, not even ashes."
"And the women and children—think of them!"
"Fire—fire—fire!"
Exchanges like these dinned the Jew until, finding himself an obstruction, he moved on. Not a phase of the awful excitement escaped him—the racing of men—half-clad women assembling—children staring wild-eyed at the smoke extending luridly across the fifth and sixth hills to the seventh—white faces, exclamations, and not seldom resort to crucifixes and prayers to the Blessed Lady of Blacherne—he heard and saw them all—yet kept on toward St. Peter's gate, now an easy thing, since the thoroughfares were so aglow he could neither stumble nor miss the right one. A company of soldiers running nearly knocked him down; but finally he reached the portal, and passed out without challenge. A brief search then for his galley; and going aboard, after replying to a few questions about the fire, he bade the captain cast off, and run for the Bosphorus.