66

THE ASHTABULA DISASTER.

CHAPTER X. ✓

MIDNIGHT AT THE WRECK.

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& T twelve o’clock quietness had settled downupon the scene. The streets were deserted.All had formed the impression that the bodieswere to be burned, and had gone to their homes,leaving the wreck still burning, and the dead tobe consumed. The engines had been ordered totheir houses. The lights glimmered from thehomes where the wounded were lying. A fewwere at the wreck. The expressman guardingthe treasures in the safe, sat solitary and alonethrough the long hours, while the flames whichwere burning precious bodies, crackled andthrew their lurid light across the scene. Thesmell of burning flesh pervaded the air evenhalf a mile away. A horrid sight was pre-sented in the awful valley. The flames whichhad blazed so high had consumed the wood and