the day of doom had dawned--and all was chaos.




CHAPTER IV.


Viewed by the aid of lanterns and the lurid, flickering light of
torches, the scene of disaster presented a ghastly debris of dead
and dying, of crushed cars and wounded men and women, who writhed
and groaned among the shattered timbers from which they found it
impossible to extricate themselves. The cries of those who
recognized relatives in the mutilated corpses that were dragged out
from the wreck increased the horrors of the occasion; and when Edna
opened her eyes amid the flaring of torches and the piercing wails
of the bereaved passengers, the first impression was, that she had
died and gone to Dante's "Hell;" but the pangs that seized her when
she attempted to move soon dispelled this frightful illusion, and by
degrees the truth presented itself to her blunted faculties. She was
held fast between timbers, one of which seemed to have fallen across
her feet and crushed them, as she was unable to move them, and was
conscious of a horrible sensation of numbness; one arm, too, was
pinioned at her side, and something heavy and cold lay upon her
throat and chest. Lifting this weight with her uninjured hand, she
uttered an exclamation of horror as the white face of the little
baby whose fingers she had clasped now met her astonished gaze; and
she saw that the sweet coral lips were pinched and purple, the waxen
lids lay rigid over the blue eyes, and the dimpled hand was stiff
and icy. The confusion increased as day dawned and a large crowd