length which made the
bulkhead system ineffective."

After telling of the shock and the lowering of the boats the account
continues:

"Some of the boats, crowded too full to give rowers a chance, drifted
for a time. Few had provisions or water, there was lack of covering
from the icy air, and the only lights were the still undimmed arcs and
incandescents of the settling ship, save for one of the first boats.
There a steward, who explained to the passengers that he had been
shipwrecked twice before, appeared carrying three oranges and a green
light.

"That green light, many of the survivors say, was to the shipwrecked
hundreds as the pillar of fire by night. Long after the ship had
disappeared, and while confusing false lights danced about the boats,
the green lantern kept them together on the course which led them to the
Carpathia.

"As the end of the Titanic became manifestly but a matter of moments,
the oarsmen pulled their boats away, and the chilling waters began to
echo splash after splash as passengers and sailors in life-preservers
leaped over and started swimming away to escape the expected suction.

"Only the hardiest of constitutions could endure for more than a few
moments such a numbing bath. The first vigorous strokes gave way to
heart-breaking cries of 'Help! Help!' and stiffened forms were seen
floating on the water all around us.

"Led by the green light, under the light of the stars, the boats drew
away, and the bow, then the quarter, then the stacks and at last the
stern of the marvel-ship of a few days before, passed beneath the
waters. The great force of the ship's sinking was unaided by any
violence of the elements, and the suction, not so great as had been
feared, rocked but mildly the group of boats now a quarter of a mile
distant from it.

"Early dawn brought no ship, but not long after 5 A. M. the Carpathia,
far out of her path and making eighteen knots, instead of her wonted
fifteen, showed her single red and black smokestack upon the horizon. In
the joy of that moment, the heaviest griefs were forgotten.

"Soon afterward Captain Rostron and Chief Steward Hughes were welcoming
the chilled and bedraggled arrivals over the Carpathia's side.

"Terrible as were the San Francisco, Slocum and Iroquois disasters, they
shrink to local events in comparison with this world-catastrophe.

"True, there were others of greater qualifications and longer experience
than I nearer the tragedy--but th