The court which led to his apartment being now almost filled with stones and ashes, it would have been impossible for him, if he had continued there any longer, to have made his way out; it was thought proper therefore to awaken him. He got up, and joined Pomponianus and the rest of the company, who had not been sufficiently unconcerned to think of going to bed.

They consulted together whether it would be most prudent to trust to the houses, which now shook from side to side with frequent and violent concussions, or flee to the open fields, where the calcined* stones and cinders, tho’ levigated* indeed, yet fell in large showers, and threatened them with instant destruction. In this distress they resolved for the fields, as the less dangerous situation of the two: a resolution which, while the rest of the company were hurried into by their fears, my uncle embraced upon cool and deliberate consideration. They went out then, having pillows tied upon their heads with napkins; and this was their whole defence against the storm of stones that fell around them.