The Great Galveston Disaster, Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Page: 417

WONDERFUL COURAGE OF SURVIVORS. 417
subject. She had lost members of her family, though not immediate
ones. She said to me : 'I study myself and am overcome
at myself. I know what has happened. I know the losses. I
have lost some of the members of my family, though they are
not blood kin. I have lost the dearest friends of my life. And
vet I have not shed a tear. My eyes are hot. I would give anything
to cry, but it looks as if the fountains were dried. I am
ashamed of my seeming indifference to this horrible thing and
the loss of those who were so dear to me. But I cannot cry. I
kno\v that I suffer, but it looks so cruel to sit here with dry eyes
and without any other evidence of the deep sorrow that fills my
bosom.'
" I talked to one man and asked him how many people he
had lost. He had saved his daughter and her child. All the
rest, amounting to three souls, were gone. But they were dry.
He spoke in a low voice, but it did not tremble. He was agonized-I
saw that-but his mind was unable to grasp the true
meaning of his loss, and when he had finished he asked if I had
a match about me.
THE SAME BELL.
" Up to Thursday night there had been no sleep in
le city.
True, exhausted nature had thrown men and women and children
on their beds and they had closed their eyes and the physical
strain had been to some degree relieved, but the nl-ntal strain
was still at the breaking point. One man said that on Thursday
morning he was awakened by the convent bell summoning the
living to mass. It was the same bell that had runig or tinkled in
the tone since the day of the storm.
" He bounded from his bed a new man. He was hopeless the
day before. He had seriously thought of abandoning his house,
which he believed beyond repair, but when he looked at it on
Thursday morning it did not look so badly. He resolved to fight
it out. He went and found others like himself-resolved to fight
it out.
"Thursday night's sleep made the people a new people.
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