“It’s the worst thing I ever heard of,” sighed Vi. “Why must we have such storms as this to tear such a big ship apart!”
A groan went up from the watchers, and many of them turned away. They could not see the end.
But the girls stared, fascinated, too dazed by the tragedy to turn their eyes away.
The life-savers, who had almost reached the ship, backed off a little, knowing that they could not help the passengers now and fearful of being drawn under by the suction themselves.
The great ship hesitated a moment, trembled convulsively through all her frame, then her stern reared heavenward as though protesting against her fate, and slowly, majestically, she sank from view beneath the swirling waters.
Then the girls did turn their eyes away, and blindly, sobbingly, they stumbled back through the crowd toward the lighthouse.
“Oh, Billie, Billie, they will all be drowned!” sobbed Laura. The tears were running down her face unchecked. “Oh, what shall we do?”
“If they could only have held on just a few minutes more,” said Vi, white-faced, “the life-savers would then have had a chance to have taken them off.”
“They may save some of them anyway,” said Billie, her voice sounding strange even to herself. “The life-savers will pick up anybody who manages to get free of the wreck, you know.”
“Yes; but Uncle Tom says that when a ship sinks like that it is hard to save anybody,” said Connie, twisting her handkerchief into a damp little ball. “Girls,” she said, turning upon them eyes that were wide with horror, “it makes me crazy to think of it. Out there, those people are drowning!”