The effort failed--nay, it served to push the descending fragment farther out over the wall.

He shouted with all his might.

The soldiers of the guard looked up; so did the great man, and that moment the missile struck him, and he fell from his seat as dead.
The cohort halted; the guards leaped from their horses, and hastened to cover the chief with their shields.

On the other hand, the people who witnessed the affair, never doubting that the blow had been purposely dealt, cheered the lad as he yet stooped in full view over the parapet, transfixed by what he beheld, and by anticipation of the consequences flashed all too plainly upon him.
A mischievous spirit flew with incredible speed from roof to roof along the line of march, seizing the people, and urging them all alike.

They laid hands upon the parapets and tore up the tiling and the sunburnt mud of which the house-tops were for the most part made, and with blind fury began to fling them upon the legionaries halted below.