Are they imagined reaction?

The roar of the flames streaming far and wide mingled with the groans of the falling victims and owing to the height of the hill and the mass of the burning pile, one would have thought the whole city was ablaze. And then the din—nothing more deafening or appalling could be conceived than that. There were the war cries of the Roman legions sweeping onward, the howls of the rebels encircled by -re and swords, the rush of the people who, cut off above, fled panic-stricken only to fall into the arms of the foe, and their shrieks as they met their fate, blended with lamentations and wailing [of those in the city]. Transjordan and the surrounding mountains contributed their echoes, deepening the din. You would have thought the Temple hill was boiling over from its base, being everywhere one mass of flame.

Context: the Roman army are storming Jerusalem and set the city on fire.

Hi. Do the two bold part express the idea "imagined reaction", i.e. the author is imagining one's reaction?

As in "Years before, he had so insulted her that now Miss Pitty never spoke of him except in guarded whispers and with so great reticence that a stranger would have thought the honest old lawyer a murderer, at the least."

Thank you.