"She's going down! We'll be drawn in!"
As they pushed off, they saw the electric lights on the Leyden go out one by one.
Of the people on the raft more than one watched the death-throes of the ship with wet eyes, as though she were something sentient, human. Her angle of subsidence had changed sharply. The bow sank, leaving the stern nearly upright. Her mast was gone. For an instant her funnel lay along the water, and then with a dull roar as of the engines breaking loose and crashing down to the bottom, the rest of the Leyden sank out of sight.
The end of the great ship had come with a horrible quietness, in contrast to the cries of men struggling for their lives in the wash among the wreckage.
The captain had gone down with the ship. When those in charge of the raft heard that some one had seen him jump clear, they sent up a rocket. By that addition to the starlight, for a few instants a single, half-empty lifeboat could be seen rocking violently on the swell. Several men were clinging to the gunwale. As raft and boat were swept nearer, the officer in charge of the raft raised a shout. He had recognized the captain climbing into the boat, and hauling up after him the limp body of one of his companions.
The captain's first care, when he came alongside, was to relieve the congestion on the raft. He ordered the chief engineer to transfer eight or ten. The chief engineer remembered his helpers. Grant and Newcomb were told off. Yes, the captain said, they must bring the only woman into the lifeboat.
When the transference had been effected, another rocket was sent up in order that the surviving boats might come together.
"Look!" The girl grasped Grant's arm.
The captain, too, turned his head.
"By God!" he said.