IX
GALVESTON
1900
This time there was no murmur in the air, no warning of approaching danger. Even the watchful press, that knows so much before it ever happens, slumbered quiet and deep, till the hissing wires shrieked the terrifying word—Galveston.
Then we learned that, as at Port Royal, the sea had overleaped its bounds and its victims by thousands were in its grasp.
In all the land no one slept then. To us it was the clang of the fire-bell, and the drop of the harness. The Red Cross clans commenced to gather.
In two days a little coterie of near a dozen left Washington under escort of the competent agency of the New York World, which had on the first day telegraphed that it would open a subscription for the relief of Galveston, and would be glad to send all supplies and money received to the Red Cross, if its president, Miss Clara Barton, would go and distribute it. It was the acceptance of this generous offer that had brought to the station in Washington the escort; and a palace-car, provided with all comforts for the journey to Galveston, was under the management of the World's efficient correspondent and agent, Robert Adamson.
The direfulness of the news gathered as we proceeded on our journey, and delays were gotten over as quickly as possible. A detention of several hours in New Orleans gave opportunity for consultation with the officers of the Red Cross Society of that city, which had held its loyal ranks unbroken since 1882, and became a tower of strength in this relief. A day of waiting in Houston for a passage over the Gulf gave us a glimpse of what the encroachment had been on the mainland. We found the passage across to Galveston difficult, and with one night of waiting by the shore in almost open cars, at Texas City, we at length arrived in Galveston on the morning of the 15th of September.