e 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 listen