After this the earthquake proper ceased, but the earth still trembled, so that the oldest child fell over on my lap two or three times; and Chrysoula, who was sitting comically tilted back with her feet in the air—her one thought being to keep them from catching again in the earth-cracks—would tip over, and then scramble back into her undignified position.
From the stable, now burning like a bonfire, a horse dashed madly out. He was making directly for us when he fell, and lay where he fell. He had stepped into an earth-crack and broken his leg, and had to be shot afterwards.
Meanwhile the noises gradually lessened; but the air was filling with smoke and the smell of the fires. My cousin’s house still stood, apparently unhurt, except for the chimneys; but what a devastation there was of those around us! They were mostly modern with new anti-seismic devices, such as iron bands around them. All these were lying in ruins, the irons twisted and warped, the walls shapeless heaps of stones, beneath which were buried many of those who had loved them and called them home. The old-fashioned houses, without the irons, withstood the shocks better. When afterwards I went into my cousin’s house, I found that most of the furniture was broken, the plastering had all fallen, the pictures were down, and the cracks in the walls had not come together smoothly.
During the earthquake we saw no one, except the maid that had been killed. After an interval Chakendé, whom I had entirely forgotten, came out of the house, her left arm bandaged and in a sling.
“I am hurt,” she said quietly, sitting down beside me; “but I have bandaged it up and it is all right. I am troubled, though, about my people, and it will be some time before it will be possible for me to go to them, I suppose.”
Her manner was subdued, her face white, her eyes still frightened.
What seemed a very long time passed before the people began to come out of the ruins of the houses. My cousin appeared, crying hysterically. On seeing her children she stopped crying. “My God!” she screamed, “I have children!” She had totally forgotten about them.
A few hours later my cousin’s husband arrived from Constantinople. The boats, fortunately, had not been injured and were all running. He was an official and brought out with him three young men, his subordinates, two Greeks and a Turk. They told us that the damage in the town was even worse than on the islands, so that we could expect to receive no tents from the government that night.
The heat of the day had changed to cold, which, in our nervous condition, we felt severely, and the two Greeks set about building a fire and preparing something for us to eat.
Chakendé went up to the young Turk and spoke to him; then she came to me.