“We have lost everything we owned and can’t find a piece of the house or a button off any one’s clothes, but I still have my front door key. My folks are cut up pretty much, and so am I about the feet, but I am going to stay here and try and make Galveston what it has been. In the house on Seventeenth and O is where Mrs. Armour and her five children were drowned.”
Another letter says:
“I, together with many others, was a passenger on the Houston relief train last Tuesday, and among the number there was one who should have special mention. This was Miss Lillian Bleike. I am informed she is the daughter of W. T. Bleike, a travelling salesman. This young lady was at Brenham when the news of the storm was reported, and as everything on earth near and dear to her was on the doomed island, she embarked upon the first train out.
“Ladies were not permitted upon this train. However, nothing daunted, she boarded the relief train at Houston, and through the kindness of those in charge, was permitted to go. At Lamarque, all had to foot it, and also to assist in clearing the debris. This, too, she would have done, but was not allowed to do so, and, like a good soldier, footed it through mud and slush to Virginia Point, boating it to the city, determined to learn the fate of the loved and dear ones. I have since learned her family was saved, and what a happy reunion this must have been. For pluck and courage, the adventures of this young lady stand among the few.”
CHAPTER XX.
The Storm’s Murderous Fury—People Stunned by the Staggering Blow—Heroic Measures to Avert Pestilence—Thrilling Story of the Ursuline Convent.
While the story of Galveston’s woe can never be told, yet the demand naturally should be that as much shall be told as the human mind is capable of telling. The man does not live now, and the man never lived who could draw the picture in all its horrible details. The greatest of poets sang of the destruction of Troy. Tacitus, and later other historians, have told of the deeds of the madman Nero. The contests between Marius and Sulla have filled pages through all time. The destruction of Pompeii has been vividly described by novelists and historians.
The French revolution, with its September and August massacres, its ravages, and its other fiendish details, have been in the hands of Carlyle and a score of French writers; the Gordon riots have been described by Dickens—but never a poet or historian or novelist has drawn anything near as shocking a picture of any event in the past as this stern and frightful reality.
Nearly every event of the past which has shocked humanity came about through contests between men. But men tire and men, however bitter, at last will abate their anger. In this case it was helpless humanity on the one side. In this case it was terrible nature in all its fury and strength on the other. There could be no appeal for mercy, because the winds have no ears. There was no resistance, because the arms of the waters were those of a giant demon. There were appeals, but they were directed above the storm. There were struggles, but they were simply those of the drowning. Those who survived were incoherent to a great degree.
The wind shrieked; it did not whistle as winds do. They all agree on that. The air was filled with spray, a blinding spray which affected the nostrils and throat and begat an inordinate thirst. It was dark. Yet it was light. They all agree on that. Was there a moon? No one saw it. Yet even late at night they could see the clouds in the sky. The light, they say was a silvery one—a sort of sheen—a strange, and yet to all a fearful kind of light. Only one person ventured an explanation. She said the air was filled with the finest spray, and that this was phosphorescent. There is something in this idea.