CHAPTER XIII

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Two Women Tell How They Were Affected at Galveston--One Arrived After the Catastrophe, While the Other Was in the Storm from Beginning to End.

A woman--a newspaper correspondent, and the first of the fair sex from the outside to gain admittance to the Sealed City of Galveston--wrote a description of what she saw and heard there. She arrived in Galveston on Friday, and although she was on a relief train carrying doctors, nurses and medical supplies, she had hard work to get past the file of soldiers at the wharf, but she at last succeeded.

Said she:

"The engineer who brought our train down from Houston spent the night before groping around in the wrecks on the beach looking for his wife and three children. He found them, dug a rude grave in the sand and set up a little board marked with his name.

"The man in front of me on the car had floated all Monday night with his wife and mother on a part of the roof of his little home. He told me that he kissed his wife good-by at midnight and told her that he could not hold on any longer; but he did hold on, dazed and half-conscious, until the day broke and showed him that he was alone on his piece of driftwood. He did not even know when the woman that he loved had died.

"Every man on the train--there were no women there--had lost some one that he loved in the terrible disaster, and was going across the bay to try and find some trace of his family."

As the train neared Texas City, near Galveston, a great flame leaped up, and she said to one of four men near her, "What a terrible fire! Some of the large buildings must be burning."

She then went on to say:

"A man who was passing on the deck behind my chair heard me. He stopped, put his hand on the bulwark and turned down and looked into my face, his face like the face of a dead man; but he laughed.

"'Buildings!' he said. 'Don't you know what is burning over there? It is my wife and children--such little children! Why, the tallest was not as high as this'--he laid his hand on the bulwark--'and the little one was just learning to talk.

"'She called my name the other day, and now they are burning over there--they and the mother who bore them. She was such a little, tender, delicate thing, always so easily frightened, and now she's out there all alone with the two babies, and they're burning.'

"The man laughed again and began again to walk up and down the deck.

"'That's right,' said the Marshal of the State of Texas, taking off his broad hat and letting the starlight shine on his strong face. 'That's right. We had to do it. We've burned over 1,000 people to-day, and to-morrow we shall burn as many more.

"'Yesterday we stopped burying the bodies at sea; we had to give the men on the barges whisky to give them courage to do the work. They carried out hundreds of the dead at one time, men and women, negroes and white people, all piled up as high as the barge could stand it, and the men did not go out far enough to sea, and the bodies have begun drifting back again.'

"'Look!' said the man who was walking the deck, touching my shoulder with his shaking hand. 'Look there!'

"Before I had time to think I had to look, and saw floating in the water the body of an old woman, whose hair was shining in the starlight, A little farther on we saw a group of strange driftwood.

"We looked closer and found it to be a mass of wooden slabs, with names and dates cut upon them, and floating on top of them were marble stones, two of them.

"The graveyard, which has held the sleeping citizens of Galveston for many, many years, was giving up its dead. We pulled up at a little wharf in the hush of the starlight; there were no lights anywhere in the city except a few scattered lamps shining from a few desolate, half-destroyed houses. We picked our way up the street. The ground was slimy with the debris of the sea.

"We climbed over wreckage and picked our way through heaps of rubbish. The terrible, sickening odor almost overcame us, and it was all that I could do to shut my teeth and get through the streets somehow. The soldiers were camping on the wharf front, lying stretched out on the wet sand, the hideous, hideous sand, stained and streaked in the starlight with dark and cruel blotches. They challenged us, but the marshal took us through under his protection. At every street corner there was a guard, and every guard wore a six-shooter strapped around his waist.

"I went toward the heart of the city. I do not know what the names of the streets were or where I was going. I simply picked my way through masses of slime and rubbish which scar the beautiful wide streets of the once beautiful city.

"They won't bear looking at, those piles of rubbish. There are things there that gripe the heart to see--a baby's shoe, for instance, a little red shoe, with a jaunty tasseled lace--a bit of a woman's dress and letters.

"The stench from these piles of rubbish is almost overpowering. Down in the very heart of the city most of the dead bodies have been removed, but it will not do to walk far out. To-day I came upon a group of people in a by-street, a man and two women, colored. The man was big and muscular, one of the women was old and one was young.

"They were dipping in a heap of rubbish and when they heard my footsteps the man turned an evil, glowering face upon me and the young woman hid something in the folds of her dress. Human ghouls, these, prowling in search of prey.

"A moment later there was noise and excitement in the little narrow street, and I looked back and saw the negro running, with a crowd at his heels. The crowd caught him and would have killed him, but a policeman came up.

"They tied his hands and took him through the streets with a whooping rabble at his heels. It goes hard with a man in Galveston caught looting the dead in these days.

"A young man well known in the city shot and killed a negro who was cutting the ears from a living woman's head to get her ear rings out. The negro lay in the streets like a dead dog, and not even the members of his own race would give him the tribute of a kindly look.

"The abomination of desolation reigns on every side. The big houses are dismantled, their roofs gone, windows broken, and the high water mark showing inconceivably high on the paint. The little houses are gone--either completely gone as if they were made of cards and a giant hand which was tired of playing with them had swept them all off the board and put them away, or they are lying in heaps of kindling wood covering no one knows what horrors beneath.

"The main streets of the city are pitiful. Here and there a shop of some sort is left standing. South Fifth street looks like an old man's jaw, with one or two straggling teeth protruding. The merchants are taking their little stores of goods that have been left them and are spreading them out in the bright sunshine, trying to make some little husbanding of their small capital. The water rushed through the stores as it did through the houses, in an irresistible avalanche that carried all before it. The wonder is not that so little of Galveston is left standing, but that there is any of it at all.

"Every street corner has its story, in its history of misery and human agony bravely endured. The eye-witnesses of a hundred deaths have talked to me and told me their heart-rendering stories, and not one of them has told of a cowardly death.

"The women met their fate as did the men, bravely and for the most part with astonishing calmness. A woman told me that she and her husband went into the kitchen and climbed upon the kitchen table to get away from the waves, and that she knelt there and prayed.

"As she prayed, the storm came in and carried the whole house away, and her husband with it, and yesterday she went out to the place where her husband had been, and there was nothing there but a little hole in the ground.

"Her husband's body was found twisted in the branches of a tree, half a mile from the place where she last saw him. She recognized him by a locket he had around his neck--the locket she gave him before they were married. It had her picture and a lock of the baby's hair in it. The woman told me all this without a tear or a trace of emotion. No one cries here.

"They will stand and tell the most hideous stories, stories that would turn the blood in the veins of a human machine cold with horror, without the quiver of an eyelid. A man sat in the telegraph office and told me how he had lost two Jersey cows and some chickens.

"He went into minute particulars, told how his house was built and what it cost, and how it was strengthened and made firm against the weather. He told me how the storm had come and swept it all away, and how he had climbed over a mass of wabbling roofs and found a friend lying in the curve of a big roof, in the stoutest part of the tide, and how they two had grasped each other and what they said.

"He told me just how much his cows cost and why he was so fond of them, and how hard he had tried to save them, but I said: 'You have saved yourself and your family; you ought not to complain.'

"The man stared at me with blank, unseeing eyes.

"'Why, I did not save my family,' he said. 'They were all drowned. I thought you knew that; I don't talk very much about it.'

"The hideous horror of the whole thing has benumbed every one who saw it."

ILLINOIS GIRL HAS A TRYING TIME IN THE RUINED CITY.

Miss Alice Pixley, of Elgin, Ill., arrived at her home on Sunday, September 16, from Galveston, where she had a most trying time during the storm. She told her story in a wonderfully graphic way.

"I had been in Galveston for about six weeks, visiting Miss Lulu George, who lives on Thirty-fifth street between N and N 1/2 streets. It was not until after the noon hour of Monday that we were frightened. Buildings had gone down as mere egg shells before that death-dealing wind.

"About 1:30 o'clock I told Miss George that we must make our way to another building about half a block away. The water had risen over five feet in two hours, and as I hurried to the front door the wind tore down my hair and I was blinded for a time.

"I turned my eyes to the west and for three long miles there was not a building standing, everything had been swept away. How we ever reached the two-story building a hundred yards away I do not know. We waded through the water and every few minutes we were carried off our feet and dashed against the floating debris.

"The building we were trying to reach was a store and the foundation kept out the water. We hurried to the cellar and stayed there for several hours. At last the wind-swept waves found an opening and broke through the foundation and we had a mad run to escape the rushing, swirling waters.

"We reached the first floor and I shrank into a corner, expecting every second to be carried out to my death. How it happened I can never tell, but this and one other building were the only ones left for blocks around.

"As it was several people were killed in the building we occupied and the other house that was left standing.

"After a time I felt faint from hunger and, while too weak from fright to seek food, I told Miss George that I would go into another room. I staggered along the floor until I reached a window, and fell, half fainting, through it. As I leaned there I witnessed sights that I pray God will never make another see.

"Whirling by me, bodies, more than I could dare count, were crushed and mangled between a jumble of timbers and debris. Men, women and children went by, sinking, floating, dashing on I know not where. I wanted to close my eyes, but I could not. I cried aloud and made an attempt to go to my friends, but I was exhausted and all I could do was to watch the terrible scenes.

"Babies, oh, such pretty little ones, too, were carried on and on, gowned in dainty clothing, their eyes open, staring in mute terror above. Thank Providence they were dead.

"I was partly blinded by tears, but I could still see through the mist. Little arms seemed to stretch toward me asking assistance and there I lay, half prostrated, too weak to lend assistance.

"How it all ended I know not. I must have fainted for I awakened with 'We are saved, Alice,' ringing in my ears.

"When I found we could get out of the city I declared I would go at all costs. I thought of home and my parents and I wanted to telegraph, just like thousands of others, that I was safe.

"It was days before we could get away, however, and then it was in a most terrible confusion. Eighty-eight persons crowded on a small boat and started for Houston.

"The day we left the militia was out in all its force. I could hear the sharp report of a rifle and the wail of some soul as he paid the penalty for his thieving operations.

"Later I saw the soldiers with their glistening rifles leveled at scores of men and saw them topple forward dead. Oh, they had to shoot those terrible beasts, for they were robbing the dead. They groveled in blood, it seemed.

"I saw with my own eyes the fingers of women cut off by regular demons in the search for jewels. The soldiers came and killed them and it was well.

HUMAN BODIES IN FIRE HEAP.

"As we made our way toward the boat that was to take us from the City of Death I saw great clouds of smoke rising in the air. Upon the top of flaming boards thousands of bodies were being reduced to ashes.

"It was best, for the odor that arose from the dead bodies was awful. Still it made one's heart ache with a sorrow never to be equaled as one witnessed little children tossed into the midst of the hissing flames. Do you wonder I cry?

"Before me, no matter which way I turned, I could see dead bodies, their cold eyes gazing at me with staring intentness. I closed my eyes and stumbled forward, hoping I might escape for a moment the sight of dead bodies, but no; the moment I would open them again, right at my feet I would find the form of some poor creature.

FULLY 10,000 ARE DEAD.

"Coming to Chicago on the train I read the papers. They are mistaken, away wrong. They only say 5,000 dead. It will be more than 10,000.

"I know I am right; every one in Galveston talks of 12,000, 15,000 and 18,000 dead, but it will be 10,000 at the very least.

"I believe the worst sight I witnessed was the 2,800 bodies being carried out to sea and buried in the gulf. Huge barges were tied at the wharves and loaded with the unknown dead. As fast as one barge was filled it made its way out from the shore, and weighting the bodies, men cast them into the water.

"Oh, those eyes," she cried, "that I might put them from my mind. I can see those little children, mere babies go floating by my place of refuge, dead, dead! God alone knows the suffering I went through. Thousands, yes thousands of poor souls were carried over the brink of death in the twinkling of an eye, and I saw it all."

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