Then, as the smoke became blacker and blacker, a heart-rending, almost
maddening sound of shrieking and crying rang out from that devilish
wreck, so loud and piercing that it drowned the clatter of stones, the
crackling of the fast-kindling coals, and the crushing noise of the
metals. At the cry for aid of the doomed victims, all who had escaped
and hidden behind the bulwark came forth, creeping or running, shrieking
and gesticulating, forgetful of their own danger and pitiful condition,
thinking only of those dear lost ones there in that abode of hell, and
maddened at the impossibility of rescuing them. It was a wild
hurly-burly of voices and of tongues, of despairing yells, hysterical
sobs, heart-rending prayers; and as I stumbled over the twisted and
broken rails, that stood upright like bent wires, and stooped over the
bulwark, I beheld a spectacle so terrible that every nerve of my body,
every heart-string, revolted at it. Even now they quiver at the ghastly
recollection.

As the fire lighted up the horrible pile I could see that the first
carriage atop of the coals was a shattered mass, the second crushed
flat, while the third stood with wheels uppermost, and so forth to the
top, and out of all of them human heads, limbs, faces, bodies, were
thrust forward. Two small gloved female hands, locked as in prayer, were
stretched out of a window, and above them two strong, muscular,
masculine arms tried with superhuman force to lift the iron weight
above, to break a way at the top, until the blood flowed from the nails,
and even these strong arms dropped down exhausted. Half-seen forms,
mutilated, bleeding, were tearing with teeth and nails at their dreadful
prison. Then for a while the smoky cloud involved everything in
darkness. A moment after, the red fiery tongues came lapping upward, and
a red, glowing halo encircles the fatal wreck. The first and second
carriages were already burned. How long would it take the flames to