the tales of horror and heroism they had to tell resembled those
that must of old have been borne to Rome by the fleeing inhabitants of
Pompeii.

Efforts were made to remove the children and old persons in the carts,
but when these had gone a few hundred feet it was found that, although
there were four horses harnessed to each vehicle, they could not pull
their loads through the ashes. This caused a panic among the children,
who expected to be buried in the incessant fall from the volcano, and
they fled in all directions in the darkness and blinding rain. Searching
parties went after them, but in spite of continuous shouting and calling
no trace was found of the little ones, and numbers of the children were
undoubtedly smothered by the ashes and sand.

Many of the inhabitants had been buried in the ruins of their houses,
and the scenes when the victims were unearthed were often piteous and
terrible. The positions of the bodies showed that the victims had died
while in a state of great terror, the faces being convulsed with fear.
Three bodies were found in a confessional of one of the fallen churches.
One body was that of an old woman who was sitting with her right arm
raised as though to ward off the advancing danger. The second was that
of a child about eight years old. It was found dead in a position, which
would indicate that the child had fallen with a little dog close to it
and had died with one arm raised across its face, to protect itself
and pet from the crumbling ruins. The third body, that of a woman, was
reduced to an unrecognizable mass. These three victims were reverently
laid side by side while a procession of friends and relatives offered up
prayers beside them.

One soldier rode his horse through the ashes reaching up to its flanks,
calling out, "Who wants help?" He was rewarded by hearing a woman's
voice reply in weak tones and, springing from his horse, he floundered
through the ashes to the ruined walls of a house from which the voice
seemed to come. As he made his way through the soft, treacherous
layer of scoriae which surrounded the destroyed habitation, and with
difficulty worked his way toward the building the soldier shouted
words of encouragement and, climbing over a heap of ruins and braving a
toppling wall, entered the building. In the cellar he found the bodies
of three children. Near them was a woman, barely alive, who by almost
superhuman efforts for hours had succeeded in freeing herse