reach the top? How many of the sufferers were yet alive? What power in
heaven or earth could save them, and how?

The hollow into which the train had fallen was so deep that, in spite of
the erect position of the ill-fated pile, the topmost car--that
containing the poor foolish American governess, who had lost her life in
running back for her bonnet--was ten mètres below us, and we had not
even a single rope or cord with which to hazard the experiment of
descending. A young man, one of those few who had come forth unharmed,
ran up and down the embankment, shouting madly for a rope, offering a
fortune for belts, shawls, and cords. His newly-married bride was in one
of those carriages, and hers were the tiny gloved hands that were
stretched out of the window. "A rope!" cried he; "give me anything to
make a rope!" But who heeded him?

A young mother sat on the tracks, fondly hugging a plaid shawl in her
arms. Her babe was there in that burning pyre, but horror had
overpowered her reason. There she sat, caressing the woollen bundle, and
in a low voice singing her "Eia Popeia" to the child of her fantasy.

An aged Polish Jew lay across the barricade wall. His two hands were
stretched downward, and there he muttered the prayers and invocations of
his ancient liturgy, which no one there understood but himself and his
God. The ritual prayer-bands were upon his thumbs and wrists, and
encircling his forehead. His forked beard and greasy side-locks dangled
as he chanted his hymns, while his eyes, starting almost out of their
sockets, were fixed upon one of the carriages. What did that car
contain? His wife? His children? Or his worldly goods, the fortune
hoarded up through a life-time of cunning and privation? Who knows?
Forth he chants his prayers, loudly yelling, or muttering low, as the