thousands of eyes strained at the misty wall of grayish
black that enclosed them on every hand. Not one gleam of light in any
quarter. The last horrible gurglings within the waterlogged shell of
steel that a little while before had been the proudest ship of all the
seas told unmistakably that the end was at hand. Down by the head went
the giant _Titanic_ at twenty minutes past two o'clock on Monday
morning, April 15th. And she took fifteen hundred people with her.

Four hours passed before the shivering people in the small boats heard
the siren whistle that announced the approach of a steamship from the
south. There was a heavy fog and they could not see one hundred fathoms
off over the clashing and grinding ice that floated in fields on every
side. Soon after seven o'clock in the morning the ship came in sight
and presently hove to among the fleet of boats and liferafts--the
steamship _Carpathia_, out of New York on April 11th for Mediterranean
ports. She began at once to take aboard the survivors, and in a few
hours had every boat hoisted aboard. The _Olympic_ and _Baltic_,
learning by wireless that the rescues had all been effected, proceeded
on their way.

The _Virginian_ and the _Parisian_, which arrived at the scene of the
disaster a few hours later, could find no sign of any living person
afloat, though they cruised for a long time among the wreckage before
standing away on their courses. The _Carpathia_ at first was headed for
Halifax, but upon learning by wireless that that harbor was ice-bound,
Mr. J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the Board of Directors of the White
Star Line, suggested that the ship head for New York. This was done.
The _Carpathia_, with nine hundred passengers of her own and the seven
hundred survivors, reached New York in safety.

The sad international tragedy of the sinking of the _Titanic_ touched
men's souls more deeply than any other disaster in many years. To
English-speaking races in particular the horror of the occasion pressed
close home; for here was the best of British ships bearing many of the
most prominent of America's people. To these seasoned voyagers,
crossing the Atlantic had become a mere pleasant trifle, seeming no
more dangerous than an afternoon's shopping in town. Then suddenly
there was thrust upon all of them that ancient, awful knowledge that
"in the midst of life we are in death."

Both American passengers and English crew lived up to the best
traditions of their r