been made to lower the boat, I asked the first officer if I could
accompany the crew, but he said no. I could, therefore, do nothing but
wait. A change came on the crowd. It became painfully silent, none
speaking save in whispers, and all watching with anxious faces either the
receding heads in the water or the unfortunate boat's crew. Hungerford
showed himself a thorough sailor. Hanging to the davit, he quietly,
reassuringly, gave the order for righting the boat, virtually taking the
command out of the hands of the first officer, who was trembling with
nervousness. Hungerford was right; this man's days as a sailor were
over. The accident from which he had suffered had broken his nerve,
stalwart as he was. But Hungerford was as cool as if this were ordinary
boat-practice. Soon the boat was drawn up again, and others took the
place of those who had disappeared. Then it was lowered safely, and,
with Hungerford erect in the bows, it was pulled swiftly along the path
we had come.

At length, too, the great ship turned round, but not in her tracks. It
is a pleasant fiction that these great steamers are easily managed. They
can go straight ahead, but their huge proportions are not adapted for
rapid movement. However, the work of rescue was begun. Sailors were
aloft on watch, Captain Ascott was on the bridge, sweeping the sea with
his glass; order was restored. But the ship had the feeling of a home
from which some familiar inmate had been taken, to return no more.
Children clasped their mothers' hands and said, "Mother, was it the poor
quartermaster?" and men who the day before had got help from the petty
officers in the preparation of costumes, said mournfully: "Fife the
gunner was one of them."

But who was the man first to go overboard--and who was it first gave
the alarm? There were rumours, but no one was sure. All at once I