ADMIRATION AND CONFIDENCE.
The admiration felt by passengers and crew for the matchlessly appointed vessel was translated, in those first few moments, into a confidence which for some proved deadly.
In the loading of the first boat restrictions of sex were not made, and it seemed to the men who piled in beside the women that there would be boats enough for all. But the ship’s officers knew better than this, and as the spreading fear caused an earnest advance toward the suspended craft, the order, “Women first!” was heard, and the men were pushed aside.
To the scenes of the next two hours on those decks and in the waters below, such adjectives as “dramatic” and “tragic” do but poor justice. With the knowledge of deadly peril gaining greater power each moment over those men and women, the nobility of the greater part, both among cabin passengers, officers, crew and steerage, asserted itself.
Isidor Straus, supporting his wife on her way to a lifeboat, was held back by an inexorable guard. Another officer strove to help her to a seat of safety, but she brushed away his arm and clung to her husband, crying, “I will not go without you.”
Another woman took her place, and her form, clinging to her husband’s, became part of a picture now drawn indelibly in many minds. Neither wife nor husband reached a place of safety.
Colonel Astor, holding his young wife’s arm, stood decorously aside as the officers spoke to him, and Mrs. Astor and her maid were ushered to seats. Mrs. Henry B. Harris, parted in like manner from her husband, saw him last at the rail, beside Colonel Astor. Walter M. Clark, of Los Angeles, nephew of the Montana Senator, joined the line of men as his young wife, sobbing, was placed in one of the boats.