a jacket from his feet, and showed me that they were bare, except where a
wet, ragged strip of stocking still clung to one of them. When the ship
struck the Iceberg, he had run on deck leaving his shoes in his cabin.
All through the voyage in the boat his feet had been unprotected; and not
a soul had discovered it until he dropped! As long as he could keep his
eyes open, the very look of them had cheered the men, and comforted and
upheld the women. Not one living creature in the boat, with any sense
about him, but had felt the good influence of that brave man in one way
or another. Not one but had heard him, over and over again, give the
credit to others which was due only to himself; praising this man for
patience, and thanking that man for help, when the patience and the help
had really and truly, as to the best part of both, come only from him.
All this, and much more, I heard pouring confusedly from the men's lips
while they crouched down, sobbing and crying over their commander, and
wrapping the jacket as warmly and tenderly as they could over is cold
feet. It went to my heart to check them; but I knew that if this
lamenting spirit spread any further, all chance of keeping alight any
last sparks of hope and resolution among the boat's company would be lost
for ever. Accordingly I sent them to their places, spoke a few
encouraging words to the men forward, promising to serve out, when the
morning came, as much as I dared, of any eatable thing left in the
lockers; called to Rames, in my old boat, to keep as near us as he safely
could; drew the garments and coverings of the two poor suffering women
more closely about them; and, with a secret prayer to be directed for the
best in bearing the awful responsibility now laid on my shoulders, took
my Captain's vacant place at the helm of the Long-boat.

This, as well as I can tell it, is the full and true account of how I
came to be placed in charge of the lost passengers and crew of the Golden
Mary, on the morning of the twenty-seventh day after the ship struck the