out the courtyards, with their little donkeys, like human
wrecks. They are no longer black, but white, and look as if hoar frost
had formed upon them.... Desolation, aridity and eternal silence prevail
over the countryside."

Next day, May 5, was the day when the mud crater opened. It was followed
by an upsurging wave from the ocean, which added to the fear of the
people, but which receded slowly and with little damage. On the day
following, Pelee was shrouded in a heavy cloud, and ashes and cinders
fell over a wide stretch of country. The surface waters had disappeared.
Trees had been burned of their leaves. Yet a commission appointed to
investigate the condition of the volcano made light of it, saying "the
relative position of the craters and the valleys, leading towards the
sea, enables the statement that the safety of St. Pierre is complete."

Wednesday, May 7, opened one of the saddest and most terrorizing of the
many days that led up to the final eruption. Since four o'clock in the
morning, Mont Pelee had been hoarse with its roaring, and vivid
lightning flashed through its shattered clouds. Thunder rolled over its
head, and lurid glares played across the smoky column which towered
aloft. "Some say," says Heilprin, "that at this time it showed two fiery
crater-mouths, which shone out like fire-filled blast furnaces. The
volcano seemed prepared for a last effort.

"When daylight broke through the clouds and cast its softening rays over
the roadstead, another picture of horror rose to the eyes. The
shimmering waters of the open sea were loaded with wreckage of all
kinds--islands of debris from field and forest and floating fields of
pumice and jetsam. As far as the eye could reach, it saw but a field of
desolation." The river of Basse-Pointe overflowed with a torrent of
black water, which carried several houses away. Black rains fell.

Again, and for the last time--could a volcano give any further warning?

Yet the governor, a scientific commission, and the local paper joined in
advising the inhabitants of St. Pierre not to flee the city, the article
closing with the words, "Mont Pelee presents no more dangers to the
inhabitants of St. Pierre than does Vesuvius to those of Naples."

Next day the governor was dead, the members of the commission were dead,
the editor was dead, and the presses on which this article had been
printed had, in one blast, been fused into a mass of twisted metal.

Came the 8th of May,