midnight
Yet the governor , a scientific commission , and the local paper joined in advising the inhabitants of St. Pierre not to flee the city , the article closing with the words , `` Mont Pelée presents no more dangers to the inhabitants of St. Pierre than does Vesuvius to those of Naples . '' Next day the governor was dead , the members of the commission were dead , the editor was dead , and the presses on which this article had been printed had , in one blast , been fused into a mass of twisted metal . Came the 8th of May , 1902 . Shortly after midnight the thunders ceased for a while , but by four o'clock , two hours before the shadows of night had lifted , an ominous cloud was seen flowing out to sea , followed in its train by streaks of fiery cinders . The sun was barely above the horizon when the roaring began again . The Vicar-General describes these sounds as follows : `` I distinguished clearly four kinds of noises ; first the clap of thunder , which followed the lightning at intervals of twenty seconds ; then the mighty muffled detonations of the volcano , like the roaring of many cannon fired simultaneously ; third , the continuous rumbling of the crater , which the inhabitants designated the ` roaring of the lion , ' and then last , as though furnishing the bass for this gloomy music , the deep noise of the swelling waters , of all the torrents which take their source upon the mountain , generated by an overflow such as has never yet been seen . This immense rising of thirty streams at once , without one drop of water having fallen on the sea-coast , gives some idea of the cataracts which must pour down upon the summit from the storm-clouds gathered around the crater . ''