Lucia, with
eighteen dead bodies on the deck and human limbs scattered about. A
sailor stood by constantly wiping the captain's injured eyes.
"I think the performance of the Roddam's captain was most wonderful, and
the more so when I saw his pitiful condition. I do not understand how
he kept up, yet when the steamer arrived at St. Lucia and medical
assistance was procured, this brave man asked the doctors to attend to
the others first and refused to be treated until this was done.
"My interview with the captain brought out this account. I left him in
good spirits and receiving every comfort. The sight of his face would
frighten anyone not prepared to see it."
THE VIVID ACCOUNT OF M. ALBERT
To the accounts given by the survivors of the Roraima and the officers
of the Etona, it will be well to add the following graphic story told by
M. Albert, a planter of the island, the owner of an estate situated only
a mile to the northeast of the burning crater of Mont Pelee. His escape
from death had in it something of the marvellous. He says:
"Mont Pelee had given warning of the destruction that was to come, but
we, who had looked upon the volcano as harmless, did not believe that
it would do more than spout fire and steam, as it had done on other
occasions. It was a little before eight o'clock on the morning of May
8 that the end came. I was in one of the fields of my estate when the
ground trembled under my feet, not as it does when the earth quakes, but
as though a terrible struggle was going on within the mountain.
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