After this, the sailors themselves lost all courage. Two hours later, the vessel was sunk in the water to the height of the port-holes.
A terrible spectacle was presented meanwhile on the deck. Mothers pressed their children to their breasts in despair; friends exchanged embraces and bade each other farewell; some went down into the cabins that they might die without seeing the sea. One passenger shot himself in the head with a pistol, and fell headlong down the stairs to the cabin, where he expired. Many clung frantically to each other; women writhed in horrible convulsions. There was audible a chorus of sobs, of infantile laments, of strange and piercing voices; and here and there persons were visible motionless as statues, in stupor, with eyes dilated and sightless,—faces of corpses and madmen. The two children, Giulietta and Mario, clung to a mast and gazed at the sea with staring eyes, as though senseless.
The sea had subsided a little; but the vessel continued to sink slowly. Only a few minutes remained to them.
“Launch the long-boat!” shouted the captain.
A boat, the last that remained, was thrown into the water, and fourteen sailors and three passengers descended into it.
The captain remained on board.
“Come down with us!” they shouted to him from below.
“I must die at my post,” replied the captain.
“We shall meet a vessel,” the sailors cried to him; “we shall be saved! Come down! you are lost!”
“I shall remain.”