Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/19

2 A few persons, with a gendarme and two or three monks, were approaching, the men bearing on their shoulders a large sort of deep wooden tray, of some 7 feet by 4, with one or two lights. I guessed what it meant, and as they passed I stood in the stirrups, and more senses than sight told, that three mangled and ghastly corpses formed their burden. It was the last of the day’s task, to one of the labouring parties, occupied still in exhuming from the ruins and interring, the five thousand human beings that had suddenly found their fate beneath their own roof-trees, in this the most tremendously visited, of the earthquake cities.

I addressed one of the monks and handed him Cardinal Wiseman’s letter; but scarce glancing at it in the twilight, he sullenly turned away, with merely “Abbiami di che,” and we soon found ourselves alone, amidst darkness and a labyrinth of uninhabited ruins. After wandering about for some time on foot, we found a hut, in which a man (Giuseppe), his wife, and her mother were living, and with some entreaty and liberal promises got sheltered, sitting up, however, all night, as the hut, which was not above 12 feet by 10, did not afford room for more than the women to lie down.

Three of my muleteers passed the night round the fire of shattered house-timber that we kept up outside, the others, with the mules, in the ruins of a large church not far off. The rain poured in through the wretched improvised roof of reeds arid boards, and the night passed in weary discomfort, relieved only after some broken sleep, by Giuseppe’s account of the terrible night of the earthquake here, now just eight weeks past. With the first cold grey