Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters

Part 2 out of 6

IN THE FACE OF DEATH

Scenes on the sinking vessel grew more tragic as the remaining
passengers faced the awful certainty that death must be the
portion of the majority, death in the darkness of a wintry sea
studded with its ice monuments like the marble shafts in
some vast cemetery.

In that hour, when cherished illusions of possible safety
had all but vanished, manhood and womanhood aboard the
Titanic rose to their sublimest heights. It was in that crisis
of the direst extremity that many brave women deliberately
rejected life and chose rather to remain and die with the men
whom they loved.

DEATH FAILS TO PART MR. AND MRS. STRAUS

"I will not leave my husband," said Mrs. Isidor Straus.
"We are old; we can best die together," and she turned from
those who would have forced her into one of the boats and
clung to the man who had been the partner of her joys and
sorrows. Thus they stood hand in hand and heart to heart,
comforting each other until the sea claimed them, united in
death as they had been through a long life.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his
life for his friends."

Miss Elizabeth Evans fulfilled this final test of affection
laid down by the Divine Master. The girl was the niece of
the wife of Magistrate Cornell, of New York. She was placed
in the same boat with many other women. As it was about
to be lowered away it was found that the craft contained one
more than its full quota of passengers.

The grim question arose as to which of them should surrender
her place and her chance of safety. Beside Miss
Evans sat Mrs. J. J. Brown, of Denver, the mother of several
children. Miss Evans was the first to volunteer to yield to
another.

GIRL STEPS BACK TO DOOM

"Your need is greater than mine," said she to Mrs. Brown.
"You have children who need you, and I have none."

So saying she arose from the boat and stepped back upon
the deck. The girl found no later refuge and was one of those
who went down with the ship. She was twenty-five years
old and was beloved by all who knew her.

Mrs. Brown thereafter showed the spirit which had made
her also volunteer to leave the boat. There were only three
men in the boat and but one of them rowed. Mrs. Brown,
who was raised on the water, immediately picked up one
of the heavy sweeps and began to pull.

In the boat which carried Mrs. Cornell and Mrs. Appleton
there were places for seventeen more than were carried.
This too was undermanned and the two women at once took
their places at the oars.

The Countess of Rothes was pulling at the oars of her
boat, likewise undermanned because the crew preferred to
stay behind.

Miss Bentham, of Rochester, showed splendid courage.
She happened to be in a life-boat which was very much
crowded--so much so that one sailor had to sit with his feet
dangling in the icy cold water, and as time went on the sufferings
of the man from the cold were apparent. Miss Bentham
arose from her place and had the man turn around while
she took her place with her feet in the water.

Scarcely any of the life-boats were properly manned.
Two, filled with women and children, capsized immediately,
while the collapsible boats were only temporarily useful.
They soon filled with water. In one boat eighteen or
twenty persons sat in water above their knees for six hours.

{illust. caption =

In the darkness and
confusion, punctuated
by screams, sobs and
curses, the boats were
lowered after being filled
with women, children
and a few men. The
sketch, drawn from description
of eye-witnesses,
shows the lofty side of
the stricken vessel and
the laden boats descending.

THE
LIFE-BOATS
BEING
LOWERED}

{illust. caption = Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.

{illust. caption = Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
LIFE-BOATS, AS SEEN FROM THE CARPATHIA

Photographs taken from the rescue ship as she reached the first boats
carrying the Titanic's sufferers.}

heard it, but have forgotten it. But I saw an order for five
pounds which this man gave to each of the crew of his boat
after they got aboard the Carpathia. It was on a piece of
ordinary paper addressed to the Coutts Bank of England.

"We called that boat the `money boat.' It was lowered
from the starboard side and was one of the first off. Our
orders were to load the life-boats beginning forward on the
port side, working aft and then back on the starboard.
This man paid the firemen to lower a starboard boat before
the officers had given the order."

Whiteley's own experience was a hard one. When the
uncoiling rope, which entangled his feet, threw him into the
sea, it furrowed the flesh of his leg, but he did not feel the
pain until he was safe aboard the Carpathia.

"I floated on my life-preserver for several hours," he said,
"then I came across a big oak dresser with two men clinging
to it. I hung on to this till daybreak and the two men
dropped off. When the sun came up I saw the collapsible
raft in the distance, just black with men. They were all
standing up, and I swam to it--almost a mile, it seemed to me
--and they would not let me aboard. Mr. Lightoller, the
second officer, was one of them.

" `It's thirty-one lives against yours,, he said, `you can't
come aboard. There's not room.' "

"I pleaded with him in vain, and then I confess I prayed
that somebody might die, so I could take his place. It was
only human. And then some one did die, and they let me
aboard.

"By and by, we saw seven life-boats lashed together, and
we were taken into them."

MEN SHOT DOWN

The officers had to assert their authority by force, and three
foreigners from the steerage who tried to force their way in
among the women and children were shot down without
mercy.

Robert Daniel, a Philadelphia passenger, told of terrible
scenes at this period of the disaster. He said men fought
and bit and struck one another like madmen, and exhibited
wounds upon his face to prove the assertion. Mr. Daniel
said that he was picked up naked from the ice-cold water
and almost perished from exposure before he was rescued.
He and others told how the Titanic's bow was completely
torn away by the impact with the berg.

K. Whiteman, of Palmyra, N. J., the Titanic's barber,
was lowering boats on deck after the collision, and declared
the officers on the bridge, one of them First Officer Murdock,
promptly worked the electrical apparatus for closing the water-
tight compartments. He believed the machinery was in some
way so damaged by the crash that the front compartments
failed to close tightly, although the rear ones were secure.

Whiteman's manner of escape was unique. He was blown
off the deck by the second of the two explosions of the boilers,
and was in the water more than two hours before he was
picked up by a raft.

"The explosions," Whiteman said; "were caused by the
rushing in of the icy water on the boilers. A bundle of deck
chairs, roped together, was blown off the deck with me, and I
struck my back, injuring my spine, but it served as a temporary
raft.

"The crew and passengers had faith in the bulkhead system
to save the ship and we were lowering a collapsible boat,
all confident the ship would get through, when she took a
terrific dip forward and the water swept over the deck and
into the engine rooms.

"The bow went clean down, and I caught the pile of chairs
as I was washed up against the rim. Then came the explosions
which blew me fifteen feet.

"After the water had filled the forward compartments,
the ones at the stern could not save her, although they did
delay the ship's going down. If it wasn't for the compartments
hardly anyone could have got away."

A SAD MESSAGE

One of the Titanic's stewards, Johnson by name, carried
this message to the sorrowing widow of Benjamin Guggenheim:

"When Mr. Guggenheim realized that there was grave
danger," said the room steward, "he advised his secretary,
who also died, to dress fully and he himself did the same.
Mr. Guggenheim, who was cool and collected as he was pulling
on his outer garments, said to the steward:--

PREPARED TO DIE BRAVELY

" `I think there is grave doubt that the men will get off
safely. I am willing to remain and play the man's game, if
there are not enough boats for more than the women and
children. I won't die here like a beast. I'll meet my end as
man.'

"There was a pause and then Mr. Guggenheim continued:

" `Tell my wife, Johnson, if it should happen that my secretary
and I both go down and you are saved, tell her I played
the game out straight and to the end. No woman shall be
left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward.

" `Tell her that my last thoughts will be of her and of our
girls, but that my duty now is to these unfortunate women
and children on this ship. Tell her I will meet whatever fate
is in store for me, knowing she will approve of what I do.' "

In telling the story the room steward said the last he saw
of Mr. Guggenheim was when he stood fully dressed upon
the upper deck talking calmly with Colonel Astor and Major
Butt.

Before the last of the boats got away, according to some of
the passengers' narratives, there were more than fifty shots
fired upon the decks by officers or others in the effort to maintain
the discipline that until then had been well preserved.

THE SINKING VESSEL

Richard Norris Williams, Jr., one of the survivors of the
Titanic, saw his father killed by being crushed by one of the
tremendous funnels of the sinking vessel.

"We stood on deck watching the life-boats of the Titanic
being filled and lowered into the water," said Mr. Williams.
"The water was nearly up to our waists and the ship was
about at her last. Suddenly one of the great funnels fell.
I sprang aside, endeavoring to pull father with me. A
moment later the funnel was swept overboard and the body
of father went with it.

"I sprang overboard and swam through the ice to a life-
raft, and was pulled aboard. There were five men and one
woman on the raft. Occasionally we were swept off into the
sea, but always managed to crawl back.

"A sailor lighted a cigarette and flung the match carelessly
among the women. Several screamed, fearing they would
be set on fire. The sailor replied: `We are going to hell anyway
and we might as well be cremated now as then.' "

A huge cake of ice was the means of aiding Emile Portaleppi,
of Italy, in his hairbreadth escape from death when
the Titanic went down. Portaleppi, a second class passenger,
was awakened by the explosion of one of the bulkheads of
the ship. He hurried to the deck, strapped a life-preserver
around him and leaped into the sea. With the aid of the
preserver and by holding to a cake of ice he managed to
keep afloat until one of the life-boats picked him up. There
were thirty-five other people in the boat, he said, when he was
hauled aboard.

THE COWARD

Somewhere in the shadow of the appalling Titanic disaster
slinks--still living by the inexplicable grace of God--a cur
in human shape, to-day the most despicable human being in
all the world.

In that grim midnight hour, already great in history, he
found himself hemmed in by the band of heroes whose watchword
and countersign rang out across the deep--"Women
and children first!"

What did he do? He scuttled to the stateroom deck, put
on a woman's skirt, a woman's hat and a woman's veil, and
picking his crafty way back among the brave and chivalric
men who guarded the rail of the doomed ship, he filched a
seat in one of the life-boats and saved his skin.

His name is on that list of branded rescued men who were
neither picked up from the sea when the ship went down
nor were in the boats under orders to help get them safe away.
His identity is not yet known, though it will be in good time.
So foul an act as that will out like murder.

The eyes of strong men who have read this crowded record
of golden deeds, who have read and re-read that deathless
roll of honor of the dead, are still wet with tears of pity and
of pride. This man still lives. Surely he was born and saved
to set for men a new standard by which to measure infamy
and shame.

It is well that there was sufficient heroism on board the
Titanic to neutralize the horrors of the cowardice. When
the first order was given for the men to stand back, there were
a dozen or more who pushed forward and said that men would
be needed to row the life-boats and that they would volunteer
for the work.

The officers tried to pick out the ones that volunteered
merely for service and to eliminate those who volunteered
merely to save their own lives. This elimination process
however, was not wholly successful.

THE DOOMED MEN

As the ship began to settle to starboard, heeling at an angle
of nearly forty-five degrees, those who had believed it was all
right to stick by the ship began to have doubts, and a few
jumped into the sea. They were followed immediately by
others, and in a few minutes there were scores swimming
around. Nearly all of them wore life-preservers. One man,
who had a Pomeranian dog, leaped overboard with it and
striking a piece of wreckage was badly stunned. He recovered
after a few minutes and swam toward one of the life-boats
and was taken aboard.

Said one survivor, speaking of the men who remained on
the ship. "There they stood--Major Butt, Colonel Astor
waving a farewell to his wife, Mr. Thayer, Mr. Case,
Mr. Clarence Moore, Mr. Widener, all multimillionaires, and
hundreds of other men, bravely smiling at us all. Never have I
seen such chivalry and fortitude. Such courage in the face of
fate horrible to contemplate filled us even then with wonder
and admiration."

Why were men saved? ask: others who seek to make the
occasional male survivor a hissing scorn; and yet the testimony
makes it clear that for a long time during that ordeal
the more frightful position seemed to many to be in the frail
boats in the vast relentless sea, and that some men had to be
tumbled into the boats under orders from the officers. Others
express the deepest indignation that 210 sailors were rescued,
the testimony shows that most of these sailors were in the
welter of ice and water into which they had been thrown from
the ship's deck when she sank; they were human beings and
so were picked up and saved.

"WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST"

The one alleviating circumstance in the otherwise immitigable
tragedy is the fact that so many of the men stood aside
really with out the necessity for the order, "Women and
children first," and insisted that the weaker sex should first
have places in the boats.

There were men whose word of command swayed boards
of directors, governed institutions, disposed of millions. They
were accustomed merely to pronounce a wish to have it gratified.
Thousands "posted at their bidding"; the complexion
of the market altered hue when they nodded; they bought
what they wanted, and for one of the humblest fishing smacks
or a dory they could have given the price that was paid to
build and launch the ship that has become the most imposing
mausoleum that ever housed the bones of men since the
Pyramids rose from the desert sands.

But these men stood aside--one can see them!--and gave
place not merely to the delicate and the refined, but to the
scared Czech woman from the steerage, with her baby at her
breast; the Croatian with a toddler by her side, coming
through the very gate of Death and out of the mouth of Hell
to the imagined Eden of America.

To many of those who went it was harder to go than to
stay there on the vessel gaping with its mortal wounds and
ready to go down. It meant that tossing on the waters they
must wait in suspense, hour after hour even after the lights of
the ship were engulfed in appalling darkness, hoping against
hope for the miracle of a rescue dearer to them than their
own lives.

It was the tradition of Anglo-Saxon heroism that was fulfilled
in the frozen seas during the black hours of Sunday
night. The heroism was that of the women who went, as well
as of the men who remained!

CHAPTER VII

LEFT TO THEIR FATE

COOLNESS AND HEROISM OF THOSE LEFT TO PERISH--SUICIDE
OF MURDOCK--CAPTAIN SMITH'S END--THE SHIP'S BAND
PLAYS A NOBLE HYMN AS THE VESSEL GOES DOWN

THE general feeling aboard the ship after the boats
had left her sides was that she would not survive
her wound, but the passengers who remained aboard
displayed the utmost heroism.

William T. Stead, the famous English journalist, was so
litt{l}e alarmed that he calmly discussed with one of the passengers
the probable height of the iceberg after the Titanic
had shot into it.

Confidence in the ability of the Titanic to remain afloat
doubtlessly led many of the passengers to death. The theory
that the great ship was unsinkable remained with hundreds
who had entrusted themselves to the gigantic hulk, long
after the officers knew that the vessel could not survive.

The captain and officers behaved with superb gallantry,
and there was perfect order and discipline among those who
were aboard, even after all hope had been abandoned for the
salvation of the ship.

Many women went down, steerage women who were unable
to get to the upper decks where the boats were launched,
maids who were overlooked in the confusion, cabin passengers
who refused to desert their husbands or who reached the decks
after the last of the life-boats was gone and the ship was
settling for her final plunge to the bottom of the Atlantic.

Narratives of survivors do not bear out the supposition
that the final hours upon the vessel's decks were passed in
darkness. They say the electric lighting plant held out
until the last, and that even as they watched the ship sink,
from their places in the floating life-boats, her lights were
gleaming in long rows as she plunged under by the head.
Just before she sank, some of the refugees say, the ship broke
in two abaft the engine room after the bulkhead explosions
had occurred.

COLONEL ASTOR'S DEATH

To Colonel Astor's death Philip Mock bears this testimony.

"Many men were hanging on to rafts in the sea. William
T. Stead and Colonel Astor were among them. Their
feet and hands froze and they had to let go. Both were
drowned."

The last man among the survivors to speak to Colonel
Astor was K. Whiteman, the ship's barber.

"I shaved Colonel Astor Sunday afternoon," said Whiteman.
"He was a pleasant, affable man, and that awful
night when I found myself standing beside him on the passenger
deck, helping to put the women into the boats, I
spoke to him.

" `Where is your life-belt?' I asked him.

" `I didn't think there would be any need of it,' he said.

" `Get one while there is time,' I told him. `The last boat
is gone, and we are done for.'

" `No,' he said, `I think there are some life-boats to be
launched, and we may get on one of them.'

" `There are no life-rafts,' I told him, `and the ship is going
to sink. I am going to jump overboard and take a chance
on swimming out and being picked up by one of the boats.
Better come along.'

" `No, thank you,' he said, calmly, `I think I'll have to
stick.'

"I asked him if he would mind shaking hands with me.
He said, `With pleasure,' gave me a hearty grip, and then I
climbed up on the rail and jumped overboard. I was in the
water nearly four hours before one of the boats picked me up."

CAPTAIN WASHED OVERBOARD

Murdock's last orders were to Quartermaster Moody and
a few other petty officers who had taken their places in the
rigid discipline of the ship and were lowering the boats.
Captain Smith came up to him on the bridge several times
and then rushed down again. They spoke to one another
only in monosyllables.

There were stories that Captain Smith, when he saw the
ship actually going down, had committed suicide. There is
no basis for such tales. The captain, according to the testimony
of those who were near him almost until the last, was
admirably cool. He carried a revolver in his hand, ready
to use it on anyone who disobeyed orders.

"I want every man to act like a man for manhood's sake,"
he said, "and if they don't, a bullet awaits the coward."

With the revolver in his hand--a fact that undoubtedly
gave rise to the suicide theory--the captain moved up and
down the deck. He gave the order for each life-boat to make
off and he remained until every boat was gone. Standing
on the bridge he finally called out the order: "Each man
save himself." At that moment all discipline fled. It was
the last call of death. If there had been any hope among
those on board before, the hope now had fled.

The bearded admiral of the White Star Line fleet, with
every life-saving device launched from the decks, was returning
to the deck to perform the sacred office of going down
with his ship when a wave dashed over the side and tore
him from the ladder.

The Titanic was sinking rapidly by the head, with the
twisting sidelong motion that was soon to aim her on her
course two miles down. Murdock saw the skipper swept out;
but did not move. Captain Smith was but one of a multitude
of lost at that moment. Murdock may have known that the
last desperate thought of the gray mariner was to get upon
his bridge and die in command. That the old man could not
have done this may have had something to do with Murdock's
suicidal inspiration. Of that no man may say or safely guess.

The wave that swept the skipper out bore him almost to the
thwart of a crowded life-boat. Hands reached out, but he
wrenched himself away, turned and swam back toward the
ship.

Some say that he said, "Good-bye, I'm going back to the
ship."

He disappeared for a moment, then reappeared where a
rail was slipping under water. Cool and courageous to the
end, loyal to his duty under the most difficult circumstances,
he showed himself a noble captain, and he died a noble
death.

SAW BOTH OFFICERS PERISH

Quartermaster Moody saw all this, watched the skipper
scramble aboard again onto the submerged decks, and then
vanish altogether in a great billow.

As Moody's eye lost sight of the skipper in this confusion
of waters it again shifted to the bridge, and just in time to see
Murdock take his life. The man's face was turned toward
him, Moody said, and he could not mistake it. There were
still many gleaming lights on the ship, flickering out like
little groups of vanishing stars, and with the clear starshine
on the waters there was nothing to cloud or break the quartermaster's
vision.

"I saw Murdock die by his own hand," said Moody, "saw
the flash from his gun, heard the crack that followed the
flash and then saw him plunge over on his face."

Others report hearing several pistol shots on the decks
below the bridge, but amid the groans and shrieks and cries,
shouted orders and all that vast orchestra of sounds that broke
upon the air they must have been faint periods of punctuation

BAND PLAYED ITS OWN DIRGE

The band had broken out in the strains of "Nearer, My
God, to Thee," some minutes before Murdock lifted the
revolver to his head, fired and toppled over on his face.
Moody saw all this in a vision that filled his brain, while his
ears drank in the tragic strain of the beautiful hymn that
the band played as their own dirge, even to the moment when
the waters sucked them down.

Wherever Murdock's eye swept the water in that instant,
before he drew his revolver, it looked upon veritable seas of
drowning men and women. From the decks there came to
him the shrieks and groans of the caged and drowning, for
whom all hope of escape was utterly vanished. He evidently
never gave a thought to the possibility of saving himself, his
mind freezing with the horrors he beheld and having room
for just one central idea--swift extinction.

The strains of the hymn and the frantic cries of the dying
blended in a symphony of sorrow.

Led by the green light, under the light of stars, the boats
drew away, and the bow, then the quarter, then the stacks
and last the stern of the marvel ship of a few days before
passed beneath the waters. The great force of the ship's
sinking was unaided by any violence of the elements, and the
suction, not so great as had been feared, rocked but mildly
the group of boats now a quarter of a mile distant from it.

Just before the Titanic disappeared from view men and
women leaped from the stern. More than a hundred men,
according to Colonel Gracie, jumped at the last. Gracie
was among the number and he and the second officer were
of the very few who were saved.

As the vessel disappeared, the waves drowned the majestic

{illust. caption = DEPTH OF OCEAN WHERE THE TITANIC WENT DOWN

The above etching shows a diagram of the ocean depths between the
shore of Newfoundland (shown at the top to the left, by the heavily shaded
part) to 800 miles out, where the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank. Over
the Great Bank of Newfoundland the greatest depth is about 35 fathoms, or
210 feet. Then there is a sudden drop to 105 fathoms, or 630 feet, and then
there is a falling away to 1650 fathoms or 9900 feet, then 2000 fathoms or
12,000 feet, and about where the Titanic sank 2760 fathoms or 16,560 feet.}

hymn which the musicians played as they went to their watery
grave. The most authentic accounts agree that this hymn
was not "Nearer, My God, to Thee," which it seems had been

{illust. caption = CARPATHIA

The Cunard liner which brought the survivors of the Titanic to New York.}

{illust. caption = THE HERO WIRELESS OPERATOR OF THE TITANIC

Photograph of Harold ...}

played shortly before, but "Autumn," which is found in
the Episcopal hymnal and which fits appropriately the
situation on the Titanic in the last moments of pain and
darkness there. One line, "Hold me up in mighty waters,"
particularly may have suggested the hymn to some minister
aboard the doomed vessel, who, it has been thought, thereupon
asked the remaining passengers to join in singing the
hymn, in a last service aboard the sinking ship, soon to be
ended by death itself.

Following is the hymn:

God of mercy and compassion!
Look with pity on my pain:
Hear a mournful, broken spirit
Prostrate at Thy feet complain;
Many are my foes, and mighty;
Strength to conquer I have none;
Nothing can uphold my goings
But Thy blessed Self alone.

Saviour, look on Thy beloved;
Triumph over all my foes;
Turn to heavenly joy my mourning,
Turn to gladness all my woes;
Live or die, or work or suffer,
Let my weary soul abide,
In all changes whatsoever
Sure and steadfast by Thy side.
When temptations fierce assault me,
When my enemies I find,
Sin and guilt, and death and Satan,
All against my soul combined,
Hold me up in mighty waters,
Keep my eyes on things above,
Righteousness, divine Atonement,
Peace, and everlasting Love.

It was a little lame schoolmaster, Tyrtaeus, who aroused the
Spartans by his poetry and led them to victory against the
foe.

It was the musicians of the band of the Titanic--poor men,
paid a few dollars a week--who played the music to keep up
the courage of the souls aboard the sinking ship.

"The way the band kept playing was a noble thing," says
the wireless operator. "I heard it first while we were working
the wireless, when there was a rag-time tune for us, and the
last I saw of the band, when I was floating, struggling in the
icy water, it was still on deck, playing `Autumn.' How those
brave fellows ever did it I cannot imagine."

Perhaps that music, made in the face of death, would not
have satisfied the exacting critical sense. It may be that the
chilled fingers faltered on the pistons of the cornet or at the
valves of the French horn, that the time was irregular and
that by an organ in a church, with a decorous congregation,
the hymns they chose would have been better played and
sung. But surely that music went up to God from the souls
of drowning men, and was not less acceptable than the song
of songs no mortal ear may hear, the harps of the seraphs
and the choiring cherubim. Under the sea the music-makers
lie, still in their fingers clutching the broken and battered
means of melody; but over the strident voice of warring
winds and the sound of many waters there rises their chant
eternally; and though the musicians lie hushed and cold at
the sea's heart, their music is heard forevermore.

LAST MOMENTS

That great ship, which started out as proudly, went down
to her death like some grime silent juggernaut, drunk with
carnage and anxious to stop the throbbing of her own heart
at the bottom of the sea. Charles H. Lightoller, second
officer of the Titanic, tells the story this way:

"I stuck to the ship until the water came up to my ankles.
There had been no lamentations, no demonstrations either
from the men passengers as they saw the last life-boat go,
and there was no wailing or crying, no outburst from the men
who lined the ship's rail as the Titanic disappeared from sight.

"The men stood quietly as if they were in church. They
knew that they were in the sight of God; that in a moment
judgment would be passed upon them. Finally, the ship
took a dive, reeling for a moment, then plunging. I was
sucked to the side of the ship against the grating over the
blower for the exhaust. There was an explosion. It blew
me to the surface again, only to be sucked back again by the
water rushing into the ship

"This time I landed against the grating over the pipes,
which furnish a draught for the funnels, and stuck there.
There was another explosion, and I came to the surface. The
ship seemed to be heaving tremendous sighs as she went down.
I found myself not many feet from the ship, but on the other
side of it. The ship had turned around while I was under
the water.

"I came up near a collapsible life-boat and grabbed it.
Many men were in the water near me. They had jumped
at the last minute. A funnel fell within four inches of me
and killed one of the swimmers. Thirty clung to the capsized
boat, and a life-boat, with forty survivors in it already,
finally took them off.

"George D. Widener and Harry Elkins Widener were among
those who jumped at the last minute. So did Robert Williams
Daniel. The three of them went down together. Daniel
struck out, lashing the water with his arms until he had made
a point far distant from the sinking monster of the sea. Later
he was picked up by one of the passing life-boats.

"The Wideners were not seen again, nor was John B. Thayer,
who went down on the boat. `Jack' Thayer, who was literally
thrown off the Titanic by an explosion, after he had
refused to leave the men to go with his mother, floated around
on a raft for an hour before he was picked up."

AFLOAT WITH JACK THAYER

Graphic accounts of the final plunge of the Titanic were
related by two Englishmen, survivors by the merest chance.
One of them struggled for hours to hold himself afloat on an
overturned collapsible life-boat, to one end of which John B.
Thayer, Jr., of Philadelphia, whose father perished, hung
until rescued.

The men gave their names as A. H. Barkworth, justice of
the peace of East Riding, Yorkshire, England, and W. J.
Mellers, of Christ Church Terrace, Chelsea, London. The
latter, a young man, had started for this country with his
savings to seek his fortune, and lost all but his life.

Mellers, like Quartermaster Moody, said Captain Smith
did not commit suicide. The captain jumped from the bridge,
Mellers declares, and he heard him say to his officers and crew:
"You have done your duty, boys. Now every man for himself."
Mellers and Barkworth, who say their names have
been spelled incorrectly in most of the lists of survivors, both
declare there were three distinct explosions before the Titanic
broke in two, and bow section first, and stern part last, settled
with her human cargo into the sea.

Her four whistles kept up a deafening blast until the explosions,
declare the men. The death cries from the shrill throats
of the blatant steam screechers beside the smokestacks so
rent the air that conversation among the passengers was possible
only when one yelled into the ear of a fellow-unfortunate.

"I did not know the Thayer family well," declared Mr.
Barkworth, "but I had met young Thayer, a clear-cut chap,
and his father on the trip. The lad and I struggled in the
water for several hours endeavoring to hold afloat by grabbing
to the sides and end of an overturned life-boat. Now and
again we lost our grip and fell back into the water. I did
not recognize young Thayer in the darkness, as we struggled
for our lives, but I did recall having met him before when
we were picked up by a life-boat. We were saved by the
merest chance, because the survivors on a life-boat that
rescued us hesitated in doing so, it seemed, fearing perhaps
that additional burdens would swamp the frail craft.

"I considered my fur overcoat helped to keep me afloat.
I had a life preserver over it, under my arms, but it would
not have held me up so well out of the water but for the
coat. The fur of the coat seemed not to get wet through,
and retained a certain amount of air that added to buoyance.
I shall never part with it.

"The testimony of J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of
the White Star Line, that he had not heard explosions before
the Titanic settled, indicates that he must have gotten some
distance from her in his life-boat. There were three distinct
explosions and the ship broke in the center. The bow settled
headlong first, and the stern last. I was looking toward
her from the raft to which young Thayer and I had clung."

HOW CAPTAIN SMITH DIED

Barkworth jumped, just before the Titanic went down.
He said there were enough life-preservers for all the
passengers, but in the confusion many may not have known
where to look for them. Mellers, who had donned a life-
preserver, was hurled into the air, from the bow of the ship
by the force of the explosion, which he believed caused the
Titanic to part in the center.

"I was not far from where Captain Smith stood on the
bridge, giving full orders to his men," said Mellers. "The
brave old seaman was crying, but he had stuck heroically
to the last. He did not shoot himself. He jumped from
the bridge when he had done all he could. I heard his final
instructions to his crew, and recall that his last words were:
`You have done your duty, boys. Now every man for himself.'

"I thought I was doomed to go down with the rest. I
stood on the deck, awaiting my fate, fearing to jump from
the ship. Then came a grinding noise, followed by two
others, and I was hurled into the deep. Great waves engulfed
me, but I was not drawn toward the ship, so that I believe
there was little suction. I swam about for more than one
hour before I was picked up by a boat."

A FAITHFUL OFFICER

Charles Herbert Lightoller, previously mentioned, stood
by the ship until the last, working to get the passengers
away, and when it appeared that he had made his last trip
he went up high on the officers' quarters and made the best
dive he knew how to make just as the ship plunged down to
the depths. This is an excerpt from his testimony before
the Senate investigating committee:

"What time did you leave the ship?"

"I didn't leave it."

"Did it leave you?"

"Yes, sir."

Children shall hear that episode sung in after years and
his own descendants shall recite it to their bairns. Mr.
Lightoller acted as an officer and gentleman should, and he
was not the only one.

A MESSAGE FROM A NOTORIOUS GAMBLER

That Jay Yates, gambler, confidence man and fugitive
from justice, known to the police and in sporting circles as
J. H. Rogers, went down with the Titanic after assisting many
women aboard life-boats, became known when a note, written
on a blank page torn from a diary: was delivered to his
sister. Here is a fac-simile of the note:

{illust.}

This note was given by Rogers to a woman he was helping
into a life-boat. The woman, who signed herself "Survivor,"
inclosed the note with the following letter.

"You will find note that was handed to me as I was leaving
the Titanic. Am stranger to this man, but think he was
a card player. He helped me aboard a life-boat and I saw
him help others. Before we were lowered I saw him jump
into the sea. If picked up I did not recognize him on the
Carpathia. I don't think he was registered on the ship under
his right name."

Rogers' mother, Mrs. Mary A. Yates, an old woman,
broke down when she learned son had perished.

"Thank God I know where he is now," she sobbed. "I
have not heard from him for two years. The last news I
had from him he was in London."

FIFTY LADS MET DEATH

Among the many hundreds of heroic souls who went bravely
and quietly to their end were fifty happy-go-lucky youngsters
shipped as bell boys or messengers to serve the first cabin
passengers. James Humphreys, a quartermaster, who commanded
life-boat No. 11, told a li{t}tle story that shows
how these fifty lads met death.

Humphreys said the boys were called to their regular posts
in the main cabin entry and taken in charge by their captain,
a steward. They were ordered to remain in the cabin and not
get in the way. Throughout the first hour of confusion and
terror these lads sat quietly on their benches in various parts
of the first cabin.

Then, just toward the end when the order was passed around
that the ship was going down and every man was free to save
himself, if he kept away from the life-boats in which the women

{illust. caption =
"WHO HATH MEASURED THE WATERS IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS HAND."--Isaiah XL:xii}

were being taken, the bell boys scattered to all parts of the
ship.

Humphreys said he saw numbers of them smoking cigarettes
and joking with the passengers. They seemed to think that
their violation of the rule against smoking while on duty was
a sufficient breach of discipline.

Not one of them attempted to enter a life-boat. Not one
of them was saved.

THE HEROES WHO REMAINED

The women who left the ship; the men who remained--
there is little to choose between them for heroism. Many of
the women compelled to take to the boats would have stayed,
had it been possible, to share the fate of their nearest and
dearest, without whom their lives are crippled, broken and
disconsolate.

The heroes who remained would have said, with Grenville.
"We have only done our duty, as a man is bound to do."
They sought no palms or crowns of martyrdom. "They also
serve who only stand and wait," and their first action was
merely to step aside and give places in the boats to women
and children, some of whom were too young to comprehend
or to remember.

There was no debate as to whether the life of a financier,
a master of business, was rated higher in the scale of values
than that of an ignorant peasant mother. A woman was a
woman, whether she wore rags or pearls. A life was given for
a life, with no assertion that one was priceless and the other
comparatively valueless.

Many of those who elected to remain might have escaped.
"Chivalry" is a mild appellation for their conduct. Some
of the vaunted knights of old were desperate cowards by comparison.
A fight in the open field, or jousting in the tournament,
did not call out the manhood in a man as did the waiting
till the great ship took the final plunge, in the knowledge that
the seas round about were covered with loving and yearning
witnesses whose own salvation was not assured.

When the roll is called hereafter of those who are "purged
of pride because they died, who know the worth of their days,"
let the names of the men who went down with the Titanic
be found written there in the sight of God and men.

THE OBVIOUS LESSON

And, whatever view of the accident be taken, whether the
moralist shall use it to point the text of a solemn or denunciatory
warning, or whether the materialist, swinging to the
other extreme, scouts any other theory than that of the
"fortuitous concurrence of atoms," there is scarcely a thinking
mortal who has heard of what happened who has not been
deeply stirred, in the sense of a personal bereavement, to a
profound humility and the conviction of his own insignificance
in the greater universal scheme.

Many there are whom the influences of religion do not move,
and upon whose hearts most generous sentiments knock in
vain, who still are overawed and bowed by the magnitude of
this catastrophe. No matter what they believe about it,
the effect is the same. The effect is to reduce a man from the
swaggering braggart--the vainglorious lord of what he sees--
the self-made master of fate, of nature, of time, of space, of
everything--to his true microscopic stature in the cosmos.
He goes in tears to put together again the fragments of the
few, small, pitiful things that belonged to him.

"Though Love may pine, and Reason chafe,
There came a Voice without reply."

The only comfort, all that can bring surcease of sorrow, is
that men fashioned in the image of their Maker rose to the
emergency like heroes, and went to their grave as bravely as
any who have given their lives at any time in war. The hearts
of those who waited on the land, and agonized, and were impotent
to save, have been laid upon the same altars of sacrifice.
The mourning of those who will not be comforted rises from
alien lands together with our own in a common broken intercession.
How little is the 882 feet of the "monster" that we
launched compared with the arc of the rainbow we can see
even in our grief spanning the frozen boreal mist!
"The best of what we do and are,
Just God, forgive!"

THE ANCIENT SACRIFICE

And still our work must go on. It is the business of men
and women neither to give way to unavailing grief nor to
yield to the crushing incubus of despair, but to find hope
that is at the bottom of everything, even at the bottom
of the sea where that glorious virgin of the ocean is dying.
"And when she took unto herself a mate
She must espouse the everlasting sea."

Even so, for any progress of the race, there must be the
ancient sacrifice of man's own stubborn heart, and all his pride.
He must forever "lay in dust life's glory dead." He cannot
rise to the height it was intended he should reach till he has
plumbed the depths, till he has devoured the bread of the
bitterest affliction, till he has known the ache of hopes deferred,
of anxious expectation disappointed, of dreams that are not
to be fulfilled this side of the river that waters the meads of
Paradise. There still must be a reason why it is not an unhappy
thing to be taken from "the world we know to one a
wonder still," and so that we go bravely, what does it matter,
the mode of our going? It was not only those who stood
back, who let the women and children go to the boats, that
died. There died among us on the shore something of the
fierce greed of bitterness, something of the sharp hatred of
passion, something of the mad lust of revenge and of knife-
edge competition. Though we are not aware of it, perhaps,
we are not quite the people that we were before out of the
mystery an awful hand was laid upon us all, and what we had
thought the colossal power of wealth was in a twinkling shown
to be no more than the strength of an infant's little finger,
or the twining tendril of a plant.

"Lest we forget; lest we forget!"

{"illustration", really "music" Lyrics =

God of mercy and compassion, Look with pity on my pain;
Hear a mournful, broken spirit Prostrate at Thy feet complain;
Many are my foes and mighty; Strength to conquer I have none;
Nothing can uphold my goings But they blessed Self alone. AMEN

{2nd Stanza}
Saviour, look on Thy beloved,
Triumph over all my foes,
Turn to heavenly joy my mourning,
Turn to gladness all my woes;
Live or die, or work or suffer
Let my weary soul abide,
In all changes whatsoever,
Sure and steadfast by Thy side:

{3rd Stanza}
When temptations fierce assault me,
When my enemies I find,
Sin and guilt, and death and Satan,
All against my soul combined,
Hold me up in mighty waters,
Keep my eyes on things above--
Rightousness,{sic} divine atonement
Peace and everlasting love,}

{illust. caption = LATITUDE 41.46 NORTH, LONGITUDE 50.14 WEST
WHERE MANHOOD PERISHED NOT}

{illust. caption = LOWERING OF THE LIFE-BOATS FROM THE TITANIC

It is easy to understand why...}

{illust. caption = PASSENGERS LEAVING THE TITANIC IN THE LIFE-BOATS

The agony and despair which possessed the occupants of these boats
as they were carried away from the doomed giant, leaving husbands and
brothers behind, is almost beyond description. It is little wonder that the
strain of these moments, with the physical and mental suffering which
followed during the early morning hours, left many of the women still
hysterical when they reached New York.}

WHERE MANHOOD PERISHED NOT

Where cross the lines of forty north
And fifty-fourteen west
There rolls a wild and greedy sea
With death upon its crest.
No stone or wreath from human hands
Will ever mark the spot
Where fifteen hundred men went down,
But Manhood perished not.

Old Ocean takes but little heed
Of human tears or woe.
No shafts adorn the ocean graves,
Nor weeping willows grow.
Nor is there need of marble slab
To keep in mind the spot
Where noble men went down to death,
But manhood perished not!

Those men who looked on death and smiled,
And trod the crumbling deck,
Have saved much more than precious lives
From out that awful wreck.
Though countless joys and hopes and fears
Were shattered at a breath,
'Tis something that the name of Man
Did not go down to death.

'Tis not an easy thing to die,
E'en in the open air,
Twelve hundred miles from home and friends,
In a shroud of black despair.
A wreath to crown the brow of man,
And hide a former blot
Will ever blossom o'er the waves
Where Manhood perished not.
HARVEY P. THEW{spelling uncertain due to poor printing}

CHAPTER VIII

THE CALL FOR HELP HEARD

THE VALUE OF THE WIRELESS--OTHER SHIPS ALTER THEIR
COURSE--RESCUERS ON THE WAY

"WE have struck an iceberg. Badly damaged.
Rush aid."

Seaward and landward, J. G. Phillips, the
Titanic's wireless man, had hurled the appeal for help. By fits
and starts--for the wireless was working unevenly and blurringly
--Phillips reached out to the world, crying the Titanic's
peril. A word or two, scattered phrases, now and then a
connected sentence, made up the message that sent a thrill
of apprehension for a thousand miles east, west and south
of the doomed liner.

The early despatches from St. John's, Cape Race, and
Montreal, told graphic tales of the race to reach the Titanic,
the wireless appeals for help, the interruption of the calls, then
what appeared to be a successful conclusion of the race when
the Virginian was reported as having reached the giant liner.

MANY LINES HEAR THE CALL

Other rushing liners besides the Virginian heard the call
and became on the instant something more than cargo carriers
and passenger greyhounds. The big Baltic, 200 miles to the
eastward and westbound, turned again to save life, as she did
when her sister of the White Star fleet, the Republic, was
cut down in a fog in January, 1909. The Titanic's mate, the
Olympic, the mightiest of the seagoers save the Titanic herself,
turned in her tracks. All along the northern lane the miracle
of the wireless worked for the distressed and sinking White
Star ship. The Hamburg-American Cincinnati, the Parisian
from Glasgow, the North German Lloyd Prinz Friedrich
Wilhelm, the Hamburg-American liners Prinz Adelbert and
Amerika, all heard the C. Q. D. and the rapid, condensed
explanation of what had happened.

VIRGINIAN IN DESPERATE HASTE

But the Virginian was nearest, barely 170 miles away, and
was the first to know of the Titanic's danger. She went about
and headed under forced draught for the spot indicated in one
of the last of Phillips' messages--latitude 41.46 N. and longitude
50.14 W. She is a fast ship, the Allan liner, and her
wireless has told the story of how she stretched through the
night to get up to the Titanic in time. There was need for
all the power of her engines and all the experience and skill
of her captain. The final fluttering Marconigrams that were
released from the Titanic made it certain that the great ship
with 2340 souls aboard was filling and in desperate peril.

Further out at sea was the Cunarder, Carpathia, which
left New York for the Mediterranean on April 13th. Round
she went and plunged back westward to take a hand in
saving life. And the third steamship within short sailing of
the Titanic was the Allan liner Parisian away to the eastward,
on her way from Glasgow to Halifax.

While they sped in the night with all the drive that steam
could give them, the Titanic's call reached to Cape Race and
the startled operator there heard at midnight a message
which quickly reached New York:

"Have struck an iceberg. We are badly damaged. Titanic
latitude 41.46 N., 50.14 W."

Cape Race threw the appeal broadcast wherever his apparatus
could carry.

Then for hours, while the world waited for a crumb of news
as to the safety of the great ship's people, not one thing more
was known save that she was drifting, broken and helpless
and alone in the midst of a waste of ice. And it was not until
seventeen hours after the Titanic had sunk that the words
came out of the air as to her fate. There was a confusion
and tangle of messages--a jumble of rumors. Good tidings
were trodden upon by evil. And no man knew clearly what
was taking place in that stretch of waters where the giant
icebergs were making a mock of all that the world knew best
in ship-building.

TITANIC SENT OUT NO MORE NEWS

It was at 12.17 A. M., while the Virginian was still plunging
eastward, that all communication from the Titanic ceased.
The Virginian's operator, with the Virginian's captain at his
elbow, fed the air with blue flashes in a desperate effort to
know what was happening to the crippled liner, but no message
came back. The last word from the Titanic was that
she was sinking. Then the sparking became fainter. The
call was dying to nothing. The Virginian's operator labored
over a blur of signals. It was hopeless. So the Allan ship
strove on, fearing that the worst had happened.

It was this ominous silence that so alarmed the other
vessels hurrying to the Titanic and that caused so much
suspense here.

CHAPTER IX

IN THE DRIFTING LIFE-BOATS

SORROW AND SUFFERING--THE SURVIVORS SEE THE TITANIC
GO DOWN WITH THEIR LOVED ONES ON BOARD--A NIGHT
OF AGONIZING SUSPENSE--WOMEN HELP TO ROW--HELP
ARRIVES--PICKING UP THE LIFE-BOATS

SIXTEEN boats were in the procession which entered
on the terrible hours of rowing, drifting and suspense.
Women wept for lost husbands and sons, sailors sobbed
for the ship which had been their pride. Men choked back
tears and sought to comfort the widowed. Perhaps, they
said, other boats might have put off in another direction.
They strove, though none too sure themselves, to convince
the women of the certainty that a rescue ship would appear.

In the distance the Titanic looked an enormous length,
her great bulk outlined in black against the starry sky, every
port-hole and saloon blazing with light. It was impossible
to think anything could be wrong with such a leviathan, were
it not for that ominous tilt downwards in the bows, where
the water was now up to the lowest row of port-holes. Presently,
about 2 A. M., as near as can be determined, those in
the life-boats observed her settling very rapidly with the
bows and the bridge completely under water, and concluded
it was now only a question of minutes before she went. So
it proved She slowly tilted straight on end with the stern
vertically upwards, and as she did, the lights in the cabins
and saloons, which until then had not flickered for a moment,
died out, came on again for a single flash, and finally went
altogether. At the same time the machinery roared down
through the vessel with a rattle and a groaning that could
be heard for miles, the weirdest sound surely that could be
heard in the middle of the ocean, a thousand miles away from
land. But this was not yet quite the end.

TITANIC STOOD UPRIGHT

To the amazement of the awed watchers in the life-boats,
the doomed vessel remained in that upright position for a time
estimated at five minutes; some in the boat say less, but it
was certainly some minutes that at least 150 feet of the Titanic
towered up above the level of the sea and loomed black against
the sky.

SAW LAST OF BIG SHIP

Then with a quiet, slanting dive she disappeared beneath
the waters, and the eyes of the helpless spectators had looked
for the last time upon the gigantic vessel on which they had
set out from Southampton. And there was left to the survivors
only the gently heaving sea, the life-boats filled
with men and women in every conceivable condition of
dress and undress, above the perfect sky of brilliant stars
with not a cloud, all tempered with a bitter cold that made
each man and woman long to be one of the crew who toiled
away with the oars and kept themselves warm thereby--a
curious, deadening; bitter cold unlike anything they had
felt before.

"ONE LONG MOAN"

And then with all these there fell on the ear the most appalling
noise that human being has ever listened to--the cries of
hundreds of fellow-beings struggling in the icy cold water,
crying for help with a cry that could not be answered.

Third Officer Herbert John Pitman, in charge of one of
the boats, described this cry of agony in his testimony before
the Senatorial Investigating Committee, under the questioning
of Senator Smith:

"I heard no cries of distress until after the ship went
down," he said.

"How far away were the cries from your life-boat?"

"Several hundred yards, probably, some of them."

"Describe the screams."

"Don't, sir, please! I'd rather not talk about it."

"I'm sorry to press it, but what was it like? Were the
screams spasmodic?"

"It was one long continuous moan."

The witness said the moans and cries continued an hour.

Those in the life-boats longed to return and pick up some of
the poor drowning souls, but they feared this would mean
swamping the boats and a further loss of life.

Some of the men tried to sing to keep the women from hearing
the cries, and rowed hard to get away from the scene of
the wreck, but the memory of those sounds will be one of the
things the rescued will find it difficult to forget.

The waiting sufferers kept a lookout for lights, and several
times it was shouted that steamers' lights were seen, but they
turned out to be either a light from another boat or a star
low down on the horizon. It was hard to keep up hope.

WOMEN TRIED TO COMMIT SUICIDE

"Let me go back--I want to go back to my husband--I'll
jump from the boat if you don't," cried an agonized voice
in one life-boat.

"You can do no good by going back--other lives will be
lost if you try to do it. Try to calm yourself for the sake of
the living. It may be that your husband will be picked up
somewhere by one of the fishing boats."

The woman who pleaded to go back, according to Mrs.
Vera Dick, of Calgary, Canada, later tried to throw herself
from the life-boat. Mrs. Dick, describing the scenes in the
life-boats, said there were half a dozen women in that one boat
who tried to commit suicide when they realized that the
Titanic had gone down.

"Even in Canada, where we have such clear nights," said
Mrs. Dick, "I have never seen such a clear sky. The stars
were very bright and we could see the Titanic plainly, like a
great hotel on the water. Floor after floor of the lights went
out as we watched. It was horrible, horrible. I can't bear
to think about it. From the distance, as we rowed away,
we could hear the band playing `Nearer, My God to Thee.'

"Among the life-boats themselves, however, there were
scenes just as terrible, perhaps, but to me nothing could outdo
the tragic grandeur with which the Titanic went to its death.
To realize it, you would have to see the Titanic as I saw it
the day we set sail--with the flags flying and the bands playing.
Everybody on board was laughing and talking about the
Titanic being the biggest and most luxurious boat on the ocean
and being unsinkable. To think of it then and to think of it
standing out there in the night, wounded to death and gasping
for life, is almost too big for the imagination.

SCANTILY CLAD WOMEN IN LIFE-BOATS

"The women on our boat were in nightgowns and bare feet
--some of them--and the wealthiest women mingled with the
poorest immigrants. One immigrant woman kept shouting:
`My God, my poor father! He put me in this boat and would
not save himself. Oh, why didn't I die, why didn't I die?
Why can't I die now?'

"We had to restrain her, else she would have Jumped over-
board. It was simply awful. Some of the men apparently
had said they could row just to get into the boats. We paid
no attention to cowardice, however. We were all busy with
our own troubles. My heart simply bled for the women who
were separated from their husbands.

"The night was frightfully cold, although clear. We had
to huddle together to keep warm. Everybody drank sparingly
of the water and ate sparingly of the bread. We did not
know when we would be saved. Everybody tried to remain
cool, except the poor creatures who could think of nothing
but their own great loss. Those with the most brains seemed
to control themselves best."

PHILADELPHIA WOMEN HEROINES

How Mrs. George D. Widener, whose husband and son
perished after kissing her good-bye and helping her into one of
the boats, rowed when exhausted seamen were on the verge
of collapse, was told by Emily Geiger, maid of Mrs. Widener,
who was saved with her.

The girl said Mrs. Widener bravely toiled throughout the
night and consoled other women who had broken down under
the strain.

Mrs. William E. Carter and Mrs. John B. Thayer were in
the same life-boat and worked heroically to keep it free from
the icy menace. Although Mrs. Thayer's husband remained
aboard the Titanic and sank with it, and although she had
no knowledge of the safety of her son until they met, hours
later, aboard the Carpathia, Mrs. Thayer bravely labored at
the oars throughout the night.

In telling of her experience Mrs. Carter said:

"When I went over the side with my children and got in
the boat there were no seamen in it. Then came a few men,
but there were oars with no one to use them. The boat had
been filled with passengers, and there was nothing else for
me to do but to take an oar.

"We could see now that the time of the ship had come. She
was sinking, and we were warned by cries from the men above
to pull away from the ship quickly. Mrs. Thayer, wife of
the vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was in my
boat, and she, too, took an oar.

"It was cold and we had no time to clothe ourselves with
warm overcoats. The rowing warmed me. We started to
pull away from the ship. We could see the dim outlines of the
decks above, but we could not recognize anybody."

MANY WOMEN ROWING

Mrs. William R. Bucknell's account of the part women
played in the rowing is as follows:

"There were thirty-five persons in the boat in which the
captain placed me. Three of these were ordinary seamen,
supposed to manage the boat, and a steward.

"One of these men seemed to think that we should not
start away from the sinking ship until it could be learned
whether the other boats would accommodate the rest of the
women. He seemed to think that; more could be crowded
into ours, if necessary.

" `I would rather go back and go down with the ship than
leave under these circumstances.' he cried.

"The captain shouted to him to obey orders and to pull
for a little light that could just be discerned miles in the
distance. I do not know what this little light was. It may have
been a passing fishing vessel, which, of course could not know
our predicament. Anyway, we never reached it.

"We rowed all night, I took an oar and sat beside the Countess
de Rothes. Her maid had an our and so did mine. The
air was freezing cold, and it was not long before the only man
that appeared to know anything about rowing commenced
to complain that his hands were freezing: A woman back of
him handed him a shawl from about her shoulders.

"As we rowed we looked back at the lights of the Titanic.
There was not a sound from her, only the lights began to get
lower and lower, and finally she sank. Then we heard a
muffled explosion and a dull roar caused by the great suction
of water.

"There was not a drop of water on our boat. The last
minute before our boat was launched Captain Smith threw
aboard a bag of bread. I took the precaution of taking a good
drink of water before we started, so I suffered no inconvenience
from thirst."

Mrs. Lucien Smith, whose young husband perished, was
another heroine. It is related by survivors that she took
turns at the oars, and then, when the boat was in danger of
sinking, stood ready to plug a hole with her finger if the cork
stopper became loose.

In another boat Mrs. Cornell and her sister, who had a
slight knowledge of rowing, took turns at the oars, as did
other women.

The boat in which Mrs. J. J. Brown, of Denver, Col., was
saved contained only three men in all, and only one rowed.
He was a half-frozen seaman who was tumbled into the boat
at the last minute. The woman wrapped him in blankets
and set him at an oar to start his blood. The second man
was too old to be of any use. The third was a coward.

Strange to say, there was room in this boat for ten other
people. Ten brave men would have received the warmest
welcome of their lives if they had been there. The coward,
being a quartermaster and the assigned head of the boat,
sat in the stern and steered. He was terrified, and the women
had to fight against his pessimism while they tugged at the
oars.

The women sat two at each oar. One held the oar in place,
the other did the pulling. Mrs. Brown coached them and
cheered them on. She told them that the exercise would
keep the chill out of their veins, and she spoke hopefully of
the likelihood that some vessel would answer the wireless calls.
Over the frightful danger of the situation the spirit of this
woman soared.

THE PESSIMIST

And the coward sat in his stern seat, terrified, his tongue
loosened with fright. He assured them there was no chance
in the world. He had had fourteen years' experience, and he
knew. First, they would have to row one and a half miles
at least to get out of the sphere of the suction, if they did not
want to go down. They would be lost, and nobody would
ever find them.

"Oh, we shall be picked up sooner or later," said some of
the braver ones. No, said the man, there was no bread in
the boat, no water; they would starve--all that big boatload
wandering the high seas with nothing to eat, perhaps for days.

"Don't," cried Mrs. Brown. "Keep that to yourself,
if you feel that way. For the sake of these women and chil-
dren, be a man. We have a smooth sea and a fighting chance.
Be a man."

But the coward only knew that there was no compass and
no chart aboard. They sighted what they thought was a
fishing smack on the horizon, showing dimly in the early
dawn. The man at the rudder steered toward it, and the
women bent to their oars again. They covered several miles
in this way--but the smack faded into the distance. They
could not see it any longer. And the coward said that everything
was over.

They rowed back nine weary miles. Then the coward
thought they must stop rowing, and lie in the trough of the
waves until the Carpathia should appear. The women tried
it for a few moments, and felt the cold creeping into their
bodies. Though exhausted from the hard physical labor they
thought work was better than freezing.

"Row again!" commanded Mrs. Brown.

"No, no, don't," said the coward.

"We shall freeze," cried several of the women together.
"We must row. We have rowed all this time. We must
keep on or freeze."

When the coward still demurred, they told him plainly
and once for all that if he persisted in wanting them to stop
rowing, they were going to throw him overboard and be done
with him for good. Something about the look in the eye of
that Mississippi-bred oarswoman, who seemed such a force
among her fellows, told him that he had better capitulate.
And he did.

COUNTESS ROTHES AN EXPERT OARSWOMAN

Miss Alice Farnam Leader, a New York physician, escaped
from the Titanic on the same boat which carried the Countess
Rothes. "The countess is an expert oarswoman," said
Doctor Leader, "and thoroughly at home on the water. She
practically took command of our boat when it was found that
the seaman who had been placed at the oars could not row
skilfully. Several of the women took their place with the
countess at the oars and rowed in turns, while the weak and
unskilled stewards sat quietly in one end of the boat."

MEN COULD NOT ROW

"With nothing on but a nightgown I helped row one of the
boats for three hours," said Mrs. Florence Ware, of Bristol,
England.

"In our boat there were a lot of women, a steward and a
fireman. None of the men knew anything about managing
a small boat, so some of the women who were used to boats
took charge.

"It was cold and I worked as hard as I could at an oar
until we were picked up. There was nothing to eat or drink
on our boat."

DEATHS ON THE LIFE-BOATS

"The temperature must have been below freezing," testified
another survivor, "and neither men nor women in my boat
were warmly clothed. Several of them died. The officer
in charge of the life-boat decided it was better to bury the

{illust. caption = SURVIVORS OF THE GREAT MARINE DISASTER

The first authentic photograph, ...}

{illust. caption =
Copyright by Campbell Studio. N. Y.

COLONEL AND MRS. JOHN JACOB ASTOR

Mrs, Astor, nee Miss Madeline Force, was rescued. Colonel Astor
who bravely refused to take a place in the life-boats, went down with the
Titanic.}

bodies. Soon they were weighted so they would sink and were
put overboard. We could also see similar burials taking
place from other life-boats that were all around us."

GAMBLERS WERE POLITE

In one boat were two card sharps. With the same cleverness
that enabled them to win money on board they obtained
places in the boats with the women.

In the boat with the gamblers were women in their night-
gowns and women in evening dress. None of the boats were
properly equipped with food, but all had enough bread and
water to keep the rescued from starving until the expected
arrival of help.

To the credit of the gamblers who managed to escape, it
should be said that they were polite and showed the women
every courtesy. All they wanted was to be sure of getting
in a boat. That once accomplished, they reverted to their
habitual practice of politeness and suavity. They were even
willing; to do a little manual labor, refusing to let women do
any rowing.

The people on that particular boat were a sad group.
Fathers had kissed their daughters good-bye and husbands
had parted from their wives. The card sharps, however
philosophized wonderfully about the will of the Almighty and
how strange His ways. They said that one must be prepared
for anything; that good always came from evil, and that
every cloud had a silvery lining{.}

"Who knows?" said one. "It may be that everybody on
board will be saved." Another added: "Our duty is to the
living. You women owe it to your relatives and friends not
to allow this thing to wreck your reason or undermine your
health." And they took pains to see that all the women who
were on the life-boat had plenty of covering to keep them from
the icy blasts of the night.

HELP IN SIGHT

The survivors were in the life-boats until about 5.30 A. M.
About 3 A. M. faint lights appeared in the sky and all rejoiced
to see what was supposed to be the coming dawn, but after
watching for half an hour and seeing no change in the intensity
of the light, the disappointed sufferers realized it was the Northern
Lights. Presently low down on the horizon they saw a
light which slowly resolved itself into a double light, and they
watched eagerly to see if the two lights would separate and
so prove to be only two of the boats, or whether these lights
would remain together, in which case they should expect
them to be the lights of a rescuing steamer.

To the inexpressible joy of all, they moved as one! Immediately
the boats were swung around and headed for the lights.
Someone shouted: "Now, boys, sing!" and everyone not
too weak broke into song with "Row for the shore, boys."
Tears came to the eyes of all as they realized that safety was
at hand. The song was sung, but it was a very poor imitation
of the real thing, for quavering voices make poor songs. A
cheer was given next, and that was better--you can keep in
tune for a cheer.

THE "LUCKY THIRTEEN"

"Our rescuer showed up rapidly, and as she swung round
we saw her cabins all alight, and knew she must be a large
steamer. She was now motionless and we had to row to her.
Just then day broke, a beautiful quiet dawn with faint pink
clouds just above the horizon, and a new moon whose crescent
just touched the horizon. `Turn your money over, boys,'
said our cheery steersman, `that is, if you have any with you,'
he added.

"We laughed at him for his superstition at such a time, but
he countered very neatly by adding: `Well, I shall never
say again that 13 is an unlucky number; boat 13 has been the
best friend we ever had.' Certainly the 13 superstition is
killed forever in the minds of those who escaped from the
Titanic in boat 13.

"As we neared the Carpathia we saw in the dawning light
what we thought was a full-rigged schooner standing up near
her, and presently behind her another, all sails set, and we
said: `They are fisher boats from the Newfoundland bank
and have seen the steamer lying to and are standing by to
help.' But in another five minutes the light shone pink on
them and we saw they were icebergs towering many feet in
the air, huge, glistening masses, deadly white, still, and peaked
in a way that had easily suggested a schooner. We glanced
round the horizon and there were others wherever the eye
could reach. The steamer we had to reach was surrounded
by them and we had to make a detour to reach her, for between
her and us lay another huge berg."

A WONDERFUL DAWN

Speaking of the moment when the Carpathia was sighted.
Mrs. J. J. Brown, who had cowed the driveling quartermaster,
said:

"Then, knowing that we were safe at last, I looked about
me. The most wonderful dawn I have ever seen came upon
us. I have just returned from Egypt. I have been all over
the world, but I have never seen anything like this. First
the gray and then the flood of light. Then the sun came up
in a ball of red fire. For the first time we saw where we were.
Near us was open water, but on every side was ice. Ice ten
feet high was everywhere, and to the right and left and back
and front were icebergs. Some of them were mountain high.
This sea of ice was forty miles wide, they told me. We did
not wait for the Carpathia to come to us, we rowed to it.
We were lifted up in a sort of nice little sling that was lowered
to us. After that it was all over. The passengers of the
Carpathia were so afraid that we would not have room enough
that they gave us practically the whole ship to ourselves."

It had been learned that some of the passengers, in fact all
of the women passengers of the Titanic who were rescued,
refer to "Lady Margaret," as they called Mrs. Brown as the
strength of them all.

TRANSFERRING THE RESCUED

Officers of the Carpathia report that when they reached
the scene of the Titanic's wreck there were fifty bodies or
more floating in the sea. Only one mishap attended the transfer
of the rescued from the life-boats. One large collapsible
life-boat, in which thirteen persons were seated, turned turtle
just as they were about to save it, and all in it were lost.

THE DOG HERO

Not the least among the heroes of the Titanic disaster was
Rigel, a big black Newfoundland dog, belonging to the first
officer, who went down with the ship. But for Rigel the fourth
boat picked up might have been run down by the Carpathia.
For three hours he swam in the icy water where the Titanic
went down, evidently looking for his master, and was instrumental
in guiding the boatload of survivors to the gangway
of the Carpathia.

Jonas Briggs, a seaman abroad the Carpathia, now has
Rigel and told the story of the dog's heroism. The Carpathia
was moving slowly about, looking for boats, rafts or anything
which might be afloat. Exhausted with their efforts, weak
from lack of food and exposure to the cutting wind and terror-
stricken, the men and women in the fourth boat had drifted
under the Carpathia's starboard bow. They were dangerously
close to the steamship, but too weak to shout a warning loud
enough to reach the bridge.

The boat might not have been seen were it not for the sharp
barking of Rigel, who was swimming ahead of the craft, and
valiantly announcing his position. The barks attracted the
attention of Captain Rostron; and he went to the starboard
end of the bridge to see where they came from and saw the
boat. He immediately ordered the engines stopped, and the
boat came alongside the starboard gangway.

Care was taken to get Rigel aboard, but he appeared little
affected by his long trip through the ice-cold water. He
stood by the rail and barked until Captain Rostron called
Briggs and had him take the dog below.

A THRILLING ACCOUNT OF RESCUE

Mr. Wallace Bradford, of San Francisco, a passenger
aboard the Carpathia, gave the following thrilling account
of the rescue of the Titanic's passengers.

"Since half-past four this morning I have experienced one
of those never-to-be-forgotten circumstances that weighs
heavy on my soul and which shows most awfully what poor
things we mortals are. Long before this reaches you the news
will be flashed that the Titanic has gone down and that our
steamer, the Carpathia, caught the wireless message when
seventy-five miles away, and so far we have picked up twenty
boats estimated to contain about 750 people.

"None of us can tell just how many, as they have been
hustled to various staterooms and to the dining saloons to be
warmed up. I was awakened by unusual noises and imagined
that I smelled smoke. I jumped up and looked out of my
port-hole, and saw a huge iceberg looming up like a rock off
shore. It was not white, and I was positive that it was a
rock, and the thought flashed through my mind, how in the
world can we be near a rock when we are four days out
from New York in a southerly direction and in mid-ocean.

"When I got out on deck the first man I encountered told
me that the Titanic had gone down and we were rescuing the
passengers. The first two boats from the doomed vessel
were in sight making toward us. Neither of them was crowded.
This was accounted for later by the fact that it was impossible
to get many to leave the steamer, as they would not believe
that she was going down. It was a glorious, clear morning
and a quiet sea. Off to the starboard was a white area of ice
plain, from whose even surface rose mammoth forts, castles
and pyramids of solid ice almost as real as though they had
been placed there by the hand of man.

"Our steamer was hove to about two and a half miles from
the edge of this huge iceberg. The Titanic struck about
11.20 P. M. and did not go down until two o'clock. Many
of the passengers were in evening dress when they came
aboard our ship, and most of these were in a most bedraggled
condition. Near me as I write is a girl about eighteen years
old in a fancy dress costume of bright colors, while in another
seat near by is a women in a white dress trimmed with lace
and covered with jaunty blue flowers.

"As the boats came alongside after the first two all of them
contained a very large proportion of women. In fact, one
of the boats had women at the oars, one in particular containing,
as near as I could estimate, about forty-five women and
only about six men. In this boat two women were handling
one of the oars. All of the engineers went down with the
steamer. Four bodies have been brought aboard. One
is that of a fireman, who is said to have been shot by one
of the officers because he refused to obey orders. Soon after
I got on deck I could, with the aid of my glasses, count seven
boats headed our way, and they continued to come up to half
past eight o'clock. Some were in sight for a long time and
moved very slowly, showing plainly that the oars were being
handled by amateurs or by women.

"No baggage of any kind was brought by the survivors.
In fact, the only piece of baggage that reached the Carpathia
from the Titanic is a small closed trunk about twenty-four
inches square, evidently the property of an Irish female
immigrant. While some seemed fully dressed, many of the
men having their overcoats and the women sealskin and other
coats, others came just as they had jumped from their berths,
clothed in their pajamas and bath robes."

THE SORROW OF THE LIVING

Of the survivors in general it may be said that they escaped
death and they gained life. Life is probably sweet to them as it
is to everyone, but what physical and mental torture has been
the price of life to those who were brought back to land on the
Carpathia--the hours in life-boats, amid the crashing of ice,
the days of anguish that have succeeded, the horrors of body
and mind still experienced and never to he entirely absent
until death affords them its relief.

The thought of the nation to-day is for the living. They
need our sympathy, our consolation more than do the dead,
and, perhaps, in the majority of the cases they need our
protecting care as well.

CHAPTER X

ON BOARD THE CARPATHIA

AID FOR THE SUFFERING AND HYSTERICAL--BURYING THE DEAD
--VOTE OF THANKS TO CAPTAIN ROSTRON OF THE CARPATHIA--
IDENTIFYING THOSE SAVED--COMMUNICATING WITH LAND--
THE PASSAGE TO NEW YORK.

IF the scenes in the life-boats were tear-bringing, hardly
less so was the arrival of the boats at the Carpathia
with their bands of terror-stricken, grief-ridden survivors,
many of them too exhausted to know that safety was
at hand. Watchers on the Carpathia were moved to tears.

"The first life-boat reached the Carpathia about half-past
five o'clock in the morning," recorded one of the passengers
on the Carpathia. "And the last of the sixteen boats was
unloaded before nine o'clock. Some of the life-boats were
only half filled, the first one having but two men and eleven
women, when it had accommodations for at least forty.
There were few men in the boats. The women were the gamest
lot I have ever seen. Some of the men and women were in
evening clothes, and others among those saved had nothing
on but night clothes and raincoats."

After the Carpathia had made certain that there were no
more passengers of the Titanic to be picked up, she threaded
her way out of the ice fields for fifty miles. It was dangerous
work, but it was managed without trouble.

AID FOR THE SUFFERING AND HYSTERICAL

The shrieks and cries of the women and men picked up in
life-boats by the Carpathia were horrible. The women were
clothed only in night robes and wrappers. The men were in
their night garments. One was lifted on board entirely nude.
All the passengers who could bear nourishment were taken
into the dining rooms and cabins by Captain Rostron and given
food and stimulants. Passengers of the Carpathia gave up
their berths and staterooms to the survivors.

As soon as they were landed on the Carpathia many of the
women became hysterical, but on the whole they behaved
splendidly. Men and women appeared to be stunned all day
Monday, the full force of the disaster not reaching them until
Tuesday night. After being wrapped up in blankets and
filled with brandy and hot coffee, the first thoughts were for
their husbands and those at home. Most of them imagined
that their husbands had been picked up by other vessels, and
they began flooding the wireless rooms with messages. It
was almost certain that those who were not on board the Carpathia
had gone down to death.

One of the most seriously injured was a woman who had
lost both her children. Her limbs had been severely torn;
but she was very patient.

WOMEN SEEKING NEWS

In the first cabin library women of wealth and refinement
mingled their grief and asked eagerly for news of the possible
arrival of a belated boat, or a message from other steamers
telling of the safety of their husbands. Mrs. Henry B. Harris,
wife of a New York theatrical manager, checked her tears
long enough to beg that some message of hope be sent to her
father-in-law. Mrs. G. Thorne, Miss Marie Young, Mrs
Emil Taussig and her daughter, Ruth, Mrs. Martin Rothschild,
Mrs. William Augustus Spencer, Mrs. J. Stewart White
and Mrs. Walter M. Clark were a few of those who lay back,
exhausted, on the leather cushions and told in shuddering
sentences of their experiences.

Mrs. John Jacob Astor and the Countess of Rothes had been
taken to staterooms soon after their arrival on shipboard.

Before noon, at the captain's request, the first cabin
passengers of the Titanic gathered in the saloon and the passengers
of other classes in corresponding places on the rescue ship.
Then the collecting of names was begun by the purser and
the stewards. A second table was served in both cabins for
the new guests, and the Carpathia's second cabin, being
better filled than its first, the second class arrivals had be to
sent to the steerage.

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