And again he said, “Gwan out o’ that, or I’ll—” and he brandished his club menacingly.
And so I went “out o’ that.” I climbed over the bannister and on to the balcony and attacked the bodies from the other side, unnoticed by the officer and free from interference by the firemen, who had all gone, save two or three whose feet were still grinding and crushing the inanimate forms on the top of the pile.
Again I tugged and pulled at the bodies, this time with better success. Down in one corner of the mass, protected somewhat by the marble pillar forming the arch which connected the landing with the balcony, lay a little boy of perhaps ten years of age. I drew him out quite easily. He still breathed. Next to him lay the body of a grey haired woman. Her face was gashed across by a blow from the boot of some one caught in the death struggles of that pile. As I dragged her body from beneath the towering mass of death, an opera glass, innocent accessory to murder, fell from her nerveless hand and clattered upon the marble floor of the balcony. She, too, was alive.
Curiosity seekers had by this time entered the building. I impressed several of them into service, and between us we carried the bodies of the old woman and the boy down the stair by which they had climbed to their deaths, to the street, and into the restaurant next-door, which was rapidly becoming transformed into a morgue and hospital emergency ward. Leaving the poor creatures to the care of some of my brother physicians, I rushed back to that pile of bodies—to again attempt to break that awful dead-lock.
As I re-entered the door of the theater I heard a man wildly expostulating with several policemen. He madly insisted on entering, and they as strenuously refused to allow him to do so. His voice seemed familiar, and I turned to look. He sprang past the opposing arms of the officers, grasped me by the shoulders and cried, “My God! man, can’t you help me? My daughters are in there somewhere!” He was one of my oldest and dearest friends. I had watched his children grow up from babyhood to childhood, from childhood to womanhood and loved them.
“Surely,” I said, “you are mistaken.”
“No, no, I am sure!” he cried, in agony. “Help me to find them, oh, help me to find them!”
“Come with me,” I replied, as I sprang up the stairs. Pointing to the pile of bodies on the landing, I said, “If they were in the theater at all, let us hope that they have either escaped or are here in this pile. Help me, Harry, let us try to get these bodies free.”
Imprisoned in the mass of bodies, hanging several feet above the floor, caught only by the lower limbs, with the head, trunk and arms perfectly free, was the body of a powerful man. Surely this one could be removed. My friend, one of the strongest men I know, assisted me, and we pulled at the body until—well, until my poor friend weakened and fled. And then two other sturdy men came to my aid, and we tugged at the body until a policeman drove us away. And my dear friend’s children were in that heap of dead all the while!
Not until the theater proper was entered, and the bodies that were heaped up behind them removed, did it become possible to remove the dead upon the landing. Oh, the pity of it! There they lay, apparently outside the zone of danger and death. And the hands that would fain have saved them were impotent. Untangle them? Think of a lot of huge angle-worms massed together; give those angle-worms legs and arms to twist and intertwine, hands to grip in the death throes, and heads to interlock, and you may understand. And yet, perhaps not,—I myself could not understand, nor believe, had I not seen.