Each foot of the way was gained by a struggle, every yard was won by a battle. It was not until Carmarthen Street was reached, that father and son could realize that they were saved. They removed the covering from their heads, and looked back at the road they had passed. A moment more in that fire would have been their last. A figure was coming towards them, as they, arm in arm, almost reeled up Carmarthen Street, and it proved to be the brother of the woman Mr. Turnbull and his boy had tried to rescue. He was told that his sister was left by the boat dead, and that no earthly power could have saved her. One can imagine his agony when he learned these tidings. The old lady proved to be Mrs. Reed, mother of Mr. T. M. Reed, a former mayor of the city. At three o'clock the next morning, Mr. Turnbull went back to Main Street, and on coming up to the unburned portion of the boat, found close by it, the remains of Mrs. Reed. Mrs. Reed lost in the fire two sisters—the Misses Clark, one of whom, it is thought, was burned in her house, on the corner of Sydney and Main Streets. These three ladies were highly respected and loved by all who knew them, and their afflicted relatives meet with the sympathy of all.
Mr. Turnbull's loss is very heavy and foots up fully twenty-five thousand dollars. He lost absolutely everything he possessed, and the deeds and bank-notes which he had in his safe were all burned. He does not despair now of being able to retrieve himself in some way. He
was the first man to erect a wooden shanty and send a flag flying from its summit.
A large number of persons escaped from the resistless and giant-striding flames by means of rafts and small boats. Others got a friendly sail to Partridge Island in the tugs and steamers which approached the wharves whenever it was safe to do so. Many of those who were on Reed's Point Wharf and the Ballast Wharf got away in this manner.
The contingent of firemen from Portland worked with a will, and did much to check the flames—as much, indeed, as mortal man could do in a fire like this, with a high wind blowing a perfect gale all the time. The city firemen performed, with their brethren of the adjacent town, signal service. They drew lines round the burning buildings and tried again and again to confine the fire to one place, and prevent its spread. But the effort was futile. The flames broke down the lines, rose up in a hundred new places, and drove the firemen and their engines away from the spot. Some splendid work was performed in the vicinity of King Street East, and down towards Pitt. Here they were partly successful, and did all that could be done under the circumstances. Many of them are heavy losers, having lost everything they had in their own houses, while they were engaged in trying to save those of others. In a fire which never ceased to rage at its height until it came to the water's brink, and which poured an unceasing stream of flame for nine steady hours, and which burned in fifteen sections of the city at
once, it was a difficult matter for them with only four engines, to do anything like stopping the conflagration until it had spent itself, no matter how efficient and perfect the organization might be. No one expected the firemen to accomplish anything. There was something in the air which seemed to breed a sort of contagion, and the fire paralyzed buildings in a moment, and no one could tell how they caught. The fire struck men down where they were standing, and an invisible heat bore to the earth the trees on the sideways.
CHAPTER XIII.
A Chapter of Incidents—Agony on Board—Coming Up the Harbour—The Story of the Moths—The Newly Married Lady's Story—No Flour—Moving Out—Saving the Drugs—The Man with the Corn-Plasters—Incendiarism—Scenes—Thievery—The Newspapers—Enterprise—Blowing Down the Walls—An Act of Bravery—The Fatal Blast—Danger and Death in the Walls—Accidents—The Fire and the Churches—The Ministers.