k.'

"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, "G