Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/572

 492 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY left partly open for ventilation. Fortunately I had not doffed my trousers and vest. Leaping from the upper berth, I told my wife, who was also aroused, to be calm, undoubtedly with some tremor in my voice. I seized my boots, put them on, also my coat, and looked out. The alarm had not yet become general, and I hoped that the fire might not prove disastrous. The first look I gave to the bow of the boat was sufficient. The red flame, made lurid by the accompanying smoke, pierced through the cabin like a devouring tongue of an insatiate demon at the very instant. One look ! You may have read descriptions of burning ships ; you may have become in imagination, a participant in the sublime horror of the scene, which human pen can never portray; but to stand as I stood there, a living present witness, and a part of the scene itself, is fearfully and wonderfully different. One look, as I said, at that mad, wonderfully, hellish looking fiend tongue, lapping with hot greed, the ceiling, doors, curtains, glass, and stabbing through into the opposite apartments, produced a strange reaction in my soul, aweing me. as it were, into coolness and deliberation. It was but for an instant. Hurrying up and down the long saloon were crazed women, and men almost frantic. ' Where shall I go ? Save me! Save me!' 'Oh, my child, my child!' 'Fire! Fire!' ' We're all lost !' 'This way, I will save von all!' mingled in one confused uproar, with piercing shrieks and lacerating cries high over all. If I spoke then, I cannot now recall more words than these: 'Quick, Mary, give me my boy.' and those little boy hands are still dinging around my neck and the quick beat of that baby heart still meets the louder pulses of my own. as 1 live again in memory that thrilling night. Just at this moment, when a master was so much needed, no one knowing just what to do. Captain Laughton, of heroic memory, appeared like an apparition in the midst of us and said firmly, 'This way and yon will all be saved. Steady, this way.' The tide turned ii e direction at the master's command, and with a few exceptions, followed without crowding, through the side entrance next the shore, which was somewhat obstructed by trunks, which eager men were anxious to get ashore, or off the boat at least, and to our joy we found the boat's how near the shore and a plank launched. A group of ladies were in advance of me. and I set up a six-foot Hoosier barrier against the crowd behind, holding hack with all my ability. In the confusion I missed my wife, hut thought her in advance, and was satisfied, so walked the plank teetering with its excited burden, and struck foot on shore with my boy in my arms. A moment more and Mary was at my side, and all our friends were saved. We turned to look at the scene before us. Already had the flames reached to the extreme ends of the long ship extending high above the pilot house, still