ic
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 comm