Free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1888-1908, 1902-07-12
So. PIERRM,s smE suRvIvoR

ST. PIERRH's SOLE SURVIVOR.
8escued From a Prison Dungeon After
-Four D1ys OF Suffering,
Raoul Sartout, sometimes called
Pellno. will live In history as the sole
human being to escape from st. Pierre
when the Martinique city was obliter-
| ated from the face OF the island by the
| shower OF death from Mont Pelee.
BeautifuI women, sweet children,
brave soldiers and the honored fathers
OF the city, leaders in trade and the
| professions, persisted. Not one of these
was saved. But q coarse negro, Jet
Dlack and stupid, with little more mind
tnan an animal, was strangely pre-.
served to continue worthless life.
The very fact that Sartout was unfit
TO be at large among people was his
salvation, for the poisonous gases and
red-not rocks and ashes did not pene-
trate to the far depths OF the dungeon
IN which he was q prisoner.
Sartout has told slowly. by degrees.
as little child might tell, of his four
horrible days ana nights in the dun
geon, with the silence Of death above
MIN; stiffness that terrified his I'M
taught mind, and that his instinct
! rather than his intelligence, led him to
feel was the result of some terrible
happening.
Sartout was weak mentally and ig-
horant, not vicious. He had been ar.
rested for trivial offense the week
previous to the eruption of Mont Pelee,
and was serving out a short Jail
sentence on the day of the disaster.
he behaved so badly in Jail that to
supdue him he was placed in a dun
geon under the Jail and located almost
beneath the sidewalk. There were
gratings looking into the cellar from
the sidewalk for purposes of ventila-
tlon, but the dungeon was so placed for
disciplinary purposes that Sartout Was
IN darkness. The grating was one cell
removed from him.
Sartout could plainly hear, he says,
the noises made by the mountain early
on the morning of the disaster, and he
felt the trembling of the earth.
He was not frightened in the least,
Tor he felt, like many another native of
the place, that no harm could possibly
come from Mont Pelee, upon which he
had looked every day since he was a
little child.
suddenly, as he sat alone in his dark
cell, there We're noises, terrific crashes,
and such quakings of the earth as he
mad never known before.
He at once realized that something
extraordinary was happening.
He could not see anything, but the
mick stone walls of his prison could
not prevent him from hearing the deep
rumble and cyclonic tearing of the cy-
clone of death through the city in
which he had lived all his life.
He was panic-stricken, and beat with
his hands against the walls.
He succeeded in getting open a door
Leading into a cell little larger than
MS own, over which was the iron graf
Ing looking up through the sidewalk.
He stumbled into this apartment, to
find it half-filled with a sitting mass of
hot ashes and dust.
1t burned him severely, and he was
not Slow in retreat 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 awakened
the keenest sense of danger in his sim
pie, untaught soul. He has since SAID
that he lay on the floor of his dark cell
Tor hours, scarcely daring to breathe,
oppressed by the terrifying silence. He
does not know how many hours he lay
there.
Finally he summed up courage
enough to open the cell door and look
into the other apartments. He was met
by a wave of dust that choked his
mouth and nostrils and half blinded
him.
1t had cooled. and he had to wade
through the SOFT haky-like mass to-
ward the iron gratings, through which
descended constant volume of smoke
and almost invisible dust.
He cried aloud again and again, and
at every echo his voice seemed to in
crease the shower through the grating.
He went to the door which shut Off
his escape to the stairs leading to the
uoor above and pounded at it until his
lists were bruised and torn. He waited
Tor a response, none came. He strug-
gled through the mass of ashes to the
grating again to Shrek and cry out
for help.
Hunger and thirst overcame him and
he crept back into his dungeon to |
sleep, but he could not. He says he |
did not close his eyes from the moment |
he heard the terrifying roar of the vol
cano ball until Monday morning, four |
days later, when his shrieks were |
heard by the first party Of searchers to |
invade the stricken city.
His cries were feeble this time, and |
he had almost despaired of liberation.
Finally marine from the French |
cruiser Suchet heard Sartout's vail. |
and tracing it, rescued the one living |
creature in the city.
The bars of the grating had to be
pried open and Sartout 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 TRIBE burns about his |
body.
Sartout is now in the hospital at |
Fort de France, and will soon again be |
on the streets, none the worse for one
of the most remarkable escapes from
death in the history of the world.