The Corvallis times. (Corvallis, Or.) 1888-1909, 1902-06-04
THE ONLY ONE
THAT LIVED, THROUGH THE
AWFUL DISASTER AT MT PELEE
He was a Prisoner in a Dungeon,
When the Shower of Volcanic
Dust Came-The Thick Jail
Walls Alone Saved Him.

Fort DeFrance, May 19-There
was one man who was not in the
streets of St Pierre on the morning
of the eruption. He was Roul
Sartout, a coarse, jet black native,
who had been arrested for some
trivial ofense the week before. He
is actually the only creature in all
the city of St Pierre to live through
the fiery deluge.
Sartout, who is now in the hos
rital at Fort de France, had become
ostreperous in his prison and was
transferred to the dungeon below
the level of the sidewalk facing the
Rue D.eppe, which slants down.
ward to the roadstead.
He heard the faint echo of the
rumbling of Pelee. He felt the
earth as he had felt it many times
before, and was not afraid.
But he quickly realized that
something extraordinary was going
on. He could not see anything but
the thick stone walls of his prison
could not prevent him from hear
ing the deep rumble and cyclonic
tearing of the ball of death through
the city in which he had lived all
his life. He was panic-stricken
with fear and beat with his hands
agains. the walls SO be said.
He succeeded in getting open
door leading into cell little
larger than his, over which there
was an iron grating looking up
through the sidewalk. He stumbl-
ed into this apartment to find it
full with sitting mass of hot
ashes and dust. 1t burned him se-
verely aod he was not slow to re-
treat to the inner cell from which
he had just escaped.
Then came the awful silence
that seemed to paralyze him with
fear more than the first roar that
had awak kened the keenest sense of
danger in his simple, untaught
soul. H5 has since said that he
lay on the floor OF the dark cell for
hours, scarcely daring to breathe.
oppressed by the terrifying silence.
He does not know how many hours
he lay there.
Finally he summoned up courage
enough to open the cell door and
look into the other apartments. He
was met by wave Of dust that
choked his mouth and nostriis and
half blinded him. It had cooled,
and he ventured to wade through
the soft faky like mass toward the
iron gratings, through which de-
scended shower of soft and al
most invisible dust. He ballooed,
aloud again and again, and at ev-
cry echo his voice seemed to in
crease the shower thr,u ugh the graf
ing. He went TO the door shutting
off his escape to the stairs leading
to the floor above and pounded at
it until bis fists were bruised and
torn. He waited for a response
but none came. He struggled
through the masses of ashes 10
the grating again again to shrek
and cry for help.
Hunger and thirst overcame him
and he crept back into the dungeon
to sleep but he could net. He says
he did not close his eyes from the
moment he heard the terrifying
roar of the volcanic ball until Mon
day morning, four days later, when
his shrieks were heard by the first
party of searchers to invade the
stricken city. His cries were feeble
by this time, IS he had almost de-
SPARED of liberation.
Finally marine from the French
cruiser Suchet heard Sartout's
wall and tracing it rescued the one
living creature in the city. The
bars of the grating had to be pried
open and Saftout was dragged out
more dead than alive. He was
found to be not only on the verge
of death from starvation and thirst,
but suffering from terrible burns
about his legs and the lower part
of his body.