For it became known that those who did so themselves would surely die.
So where folk fell, there they lay.

In the houses were many of them; they cumbered and poisoned the streets and the very churches.

Even the animals sickened and perished, until that great city was turned into an open tomb.

The reek of it tainted the air for miles around, so that even those who passed it in ships far out to sea turned faint and presently themselves sickened and died.

But ere they died they bore on the fatal gift to other lands.
Moreover, starvation fell upon the place.