nd government officials,
as well as officials of the line, moved nervously about.

Seated where they had been assigned beneath the big customs letters
corresponding to the initials of the names of the survivors they came to
meet, sat the mass of 2000 on the pier.

Women wept, but they wept quietly, not hysterically, and the sound of
the sobs made many times less noise than the hum and bustle which is
usual on the pier among those awaiting an incoming liner.

Slowly and majestically the ship slid through the water, still bearing
the details of that secret of what happened and who perished when the
Titanic met her fate.

Convoying the Carpathia was a fleet of tugs bearing men and women
anxious to learn the latest news. The Cunarder had been as silent for
days as though it, too, were a ship of the dead. A list of survivors
had been given out from its wireless station and that was all. Even the
approximate time of its arrival had been kept a secret.

NEARING PORT

There was no response to the hail from one tug, and as others closed in,
the steamship quickened her speed a little and left them behind as she
swung up the channel.

There was an exploding of flashlights from some of the tugs, answered
seemingly by sharp stabs of lightning in the northwest that served to
accentuate the silence and absence of light aboard the rescue ship. Five
or six persons, apparently members of the crew or the ship's officers,
were seen along the rail; but otherwise the boat appeared to be
deserted.

Off quarantine the Carpathia slowed down and, hailing the immigration
inspection boat, asked if the health officer wished to board. She
was told that he did, and came to a stop while Dr. O'Connell and two
assistants climbed on board. Again the newspaper men asked for some
word of the catastrophe to the Titanic, but there was no answer, and the
Carpathia continued toward her pier.

As she passed the revenue cutter Mohawk and the derelict destroyer
Seneca anchored off Tompkinsville the wireless on the Government vessels
was seen to flash, but there was no answering spark from the Carpathia.
Entering the North River she laid her course close to the New Jersey
side in order to have room to swing into her pier.

By this time the rails were lined with men and women. They were very
silent. There were a few requests for news from those on board and a few
answers to questions shouted from the tugs.

The liner began to slacken her speed, and