"At the windows of the dwellings there appeared the faces of people equally as ill-fated as the rest. God forbid that I should ever again look upon such intensity of anguish. Oh, how white and horror-stricken those faces were, and such appeals for help that could not come. The woman wrung their hands in their despair and prayed aloud for deliverance. Down stream went houses and people at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour and stopped, a conglomerate mass, at the stone abutment of the railroad bridge. The first buildings that struck the bridge took fire, and those that came after were swept into a sea of flame. I thought I had already witnessed the greatest possible climax of anguish, but the scene that followed exceeded in awfulness anything I had before looked upon. The flames grew, hundreds of people were wedged in the driftwood and imprisoned in the houses. Rapidly the fire approached them, and then they began to cry for aid, and hundreds of others stood on the bank, powerless to extend a single comfort. Judgment Day. "As the fire licked up house after house and pile after pile, I could see men and women bid each other good-by, and fathers and mothers kiss their children. The flames swallowed them up and hid them from my view, but I could hear their shrieks as they roasted alive. The shrieks mellowed into groans, and the groans into silence, only to be followed by more shrieks, more groans and more silence, as the fire caught up and destroyed its victims. Heavens! but I was glad when the end came. My only anxiety was to have it come quickly, and I prayed that it might come, oh! so quick! It was a splendid realization of the judgment day. It was a magnificent realization of the impotency of man in a battle with such a combination of fire and flood." Some Have Cause for Joy. In the midst of the confusion of the disaster and the strain of excitement which followed it was but natural that every one who could not readily be found was reported dead. Amid the throng of mourners now an occasional soul is made happy by finding that some loved one has escaped death. To-day a few of the living had time to notify their friends throughout the country of their safety. General Lew Wallace, now at West Point, telegraphed President Harrison, in response to an inquiry last night, that his wife was "coming out of the great calamity at Johnstown safe." Several reports have been sent out from Johnstown, one as late as last night, to the effect that Mrs. Wallace was believed to be among the victims of the disaster. Private Secretary Halford received a telegram this afternoon from his wife at Altoona, announcing that Mrs. Lew Wallace was with her and safe. Did Not Lose Their Presence of Mind.