There were men all yellow with oil, with their hair in flames.

They began to run and set fire to the rest.

They were extinguished in mantles steeped in blood, which were thrown from a distance over their faces.

Some who had no wounds remained motionless, stiffer than stakes, their mouths open and their arms outspread.
The assault was renewed for several days in succession, the Mercenaries hoping to triumph by extraordinary energy and audacity.
Sometimes a man raised on the shoulders of another would drive a pin between the stones, and then making use of it as a step to reach further, would place a second and a third; and, protected by the edge of the battlements, which stood out from the wall, they would gradually raise themselves in this way; but on reaching a certain height they always fell back again.

The great trench was full to overflowing; the wounded were massed pell-mell with the dead and dying beneath the footsteps of the living.