"I heard no cries of distress until after the ship went
down," he said.

"How far away were the cries from your life-boat?"

"Several hundred yards, probably, some of them."

"Describe the screams."

"Don't, sir, please! I'd rather not talk about it."

"I'm sorry to press it, but what was it like? Were the
screams spasmodic?"

"It was one long continuous moan."

The witness said the moans and cries continued an hour.

Those in the life-boats longed to return and pick up some of
the poor drowning souls, but they feared this would mean
swamping the boats and a further loss of life.

Some of the men tried to sing to keep the women from hearing
the cries, and rowed hard to get away from the scene of
the wreck, but the memory of those sounds will be one of the
things the rescued will find it difficult to forget.

The waiting sufferers kept a lookout for lights, and several
times it was shouted that steamers' lights were seen, but they
turned out to be either a light from another boat or a star