es if they could.

And up on deck a chilly conviction of doom was slowly but certainly
taking the place of that bland confidence in the unsinkable ship in
which the previous hour had been lightly passed. That confidence had
been dreadfully overdone, so much so that the stewards had found the
greatest difficulty in persuading the passengers to dress themselves and
come up on deck, and some who had done so had returned to their
state-rooms and locked themselves in. The last twenty minutes, however,
must have shown everyone on deck that there was not a chance left. On a
ship as vast and solid as the _Titanic_ there is no sensation of actual
sinking or settling. She still seemed as immovable as ever, but the
water was climbing higher and higher up her black sides. The sensation
was not that of the ship sinking, but of the water rising about her. And
the last picture we have of her, while still visible, still a firm
refuge amid the waters, is of the band still playing and a throng of
people looking out from the lamplit upper decks after the disappearing
boats, bracing themselves as best they might for the terrible plunge and
shock which they knew was coming. Here and there men who were determined
still to make a fight for life climbed over the rail and jumped over; it
was not a seventy foot drop now--perhaps under twenty, but it was a
formidable jump. Some were stunned, and some were drowned at once before
the eyes of those who waited; and the dull splashes they made were
probably the first visible demonstration of the death that was coming.
Duties were still being performed; an old deck steward, who had charge
of the chairs, was busily continuing to work, adapting his duties to the
emergency that had arisen and lashing chairs together. In this he was
helped by Mr. Andrews, who was last seen engaged on this strangely
ironic task of throwing chairs overboard--frail rafts thrown upon the
waters that might or might not avail some struggling soul when the
moment should arrive, and the great ship of his designing float no
longer. Throughout he had been untiring in his efforts to help and
hearten people; but in this the last vision of him, there is something
not far short of the sublime.

The last collapsible boat was being struggled with on the upper deck,
but there were no seamen about who understood its stiff mechanism;
unaccustomed hands fumbled desperately with it, and finally pushed it
over the side in its collapsed conditi