Some strange scenes occurred; and there were instances of remarkable coolness. An Italian professor of surgery who had taken his child to the theatre, coolly took out his watch at the first crash, and noting the exact time, sat
THE PANIC AT CASAMICCIOLA.
perfectly still while the surging crowd endeavored to escape. There he sat with his child till morning, when the light enabled him to find his way out of the wreck.
The sea shore was a weird spectacle. Lighted up by a pile of blazing drift might be seen scores of naked children, and grown persons in their night clothes, scurrying wildly about. An eye-witness tells of many crazy with fear and grief. All night long the wreck resounded with groans and cries. One woman, whom he heard continually moaning, and crying “My children! my children!” was found at daybreak on the edge of a shattered terrace, and clad only in a chemise. Wondering what he could say by way of consolation, he chanced to observe two little ones playing not far away amid a tottering wreck that threatened at every moment to crush them. They were hers.
Further down a woman’s jewelled arm and shoulder protruded from the wreck, while her husband, buried nearly, kept crying “save her, never mind about me.” As a helping hand was reached to her a sudden landslip crushed out the remaining life.