heavy body meeting another. And presently the same thing repeated with
about the same intensity. The thought came to me that they must have
still further increased the speed. And all this time the Titanic was
being cut open by the iceberg and water was pouring in her side, and
yet no evidence that would indicate such a disaster had been presented
to us. It fills me with astonishment now to think of it. Consider the
question of list alone. Here was this enormous vessel running
starboard-side on to an iceberg, and a passenger sitting quietly in
bed, reading, felt no motion or list to the opposite or port side, and
this must have been felt had it been more than the usual roll of the
ship--never very much in the calm weather we had all the way. Again,
my bunk was fixed to the wall on the starboard side, and any list to
port would have tended to fling me out on the floor: I am sure I
should have noted it had there been any. And yet the explanation is
simple enough: the Titanic struck the berg with a force of impact of
over a million foot-tons; her plates were less than an inch thick, and
they must have been cut through as a knife cuts paper: there would be
no need to list; it would have been better if she had listed and
thrown us out on the floor, for it would have been an indication that
our plates were strong enough to offer, at any rate, some resistance
to the blow, and we might all have been safe to-day.

And so, with no thought of anything serious having happened to the
ship, I continued my reading; and still the murmur from the stewards
and from adjoining cabins, and no other sound: no cry in the night; no
alarm given; no one afraid--there was then nothing which could cause
fear to the most timid person. But in a few moments I felt the engines
slow and stop; the dancing motion and the vibration ceased suddenly
after being part of our very existence for four days, and that was the
first hint that anything out of the ordinary had happened. We have all