“It was his face, more than anything else, which made me fearful,” continued Mr. Stengel. “He looked like an old, old man. I heard him give instructions to his officers, and they took their stations at the boats. I did not see anyone shot during the whole wreck. They fired three shots in the air to show the steerage men that the guns were loaded, but I was on the boat almost to the last, and I didn’t see anyone shot. The boat which saved me was not a regular lifeboat, but a light emergency boat. There was a great rush for it. By the time it was launched the first fear had subsided. It was the last to be lowered from the starboard side.
“The Titanic seemed to be floating safely, and a lot of people preferred it to the flimsy looking rowboats. A deckhand told me that there was a vacant place in it. There I found Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, Lady Duff-Gordon and their maid, Miss Francatelli. Just as the boat was being lowered Mr. A. L. Solomon jumped in. We had gone but a little way from the ship when the first boiler explosion came. It was followed in quick succession by three others, at intervals of about one second apart.”
In the boat which harbored Mr. Stengel were three stokers and two members of the steerage. Mr. Stengel told graphically of the last plunges of the ship and its final sinking. He declared that there was a little eddy and no whirlpool when it sank. Many of the men on the Titanic jumped into sea before the decks were awash. In telling of the long night on the sea Mr. Stengel gave great credit to a member of the crew who had taken three green lanterns on board just as the small lifeboat was manned.
He said that it was the only beacon which the other lifeboats had for guidance, and said that without it many more would surely have been lost.
Mrs. Stengel spoke particularly of the calmness of the night.
“When the sun rose there was not a ripple on the water,” she said. “It was as calm as a little lake in Connecticut. Words cannot express the wonderful terrible beauty of it all—but of course I couldn’t appreciate it, because I thought my husband had gone down in the sea.
“The shout of ‘land’ ever uttered by an explorer was not half so joyful as the shout of ‘ship!’ which went up when the Carpathia appeared on the horizon that morning,” she said. “The first dim lights which appeared were eagerly watched and when it was really identified as a ship, men and women broke down and wept.”
The reunion of Mr. and Mrs. Stengel was on the Carpathia. Each was mourning the other as lost for more than an hour after they had been on the vessel, when they met on the promenade deck. Their separation and subsequent reunion was generally considered one of the most remarkable in the history of the wreck.
CHAPTER VII.
WOMAN’S THRILLING NARRATIVE.
Barber Says Good Word for Accused Shipowner—Claims He was a Witness—Saw the Whole Scene—Woman Tells Different Tale—Mrs. Carter’s Thrilling Narrative—Barber’s Story Differs From Ismay’s Own.