The Karamata Maru had crushed through the sides of the derelict and then her bow had lifted and slid high and dry across it, plunging the stern of the liner deep into the sea. In this terrible position the great liner trembled a moment and then broke in two. Her steel plates buckled and crumbled like tin, and the crash that followed as she splintered and tore asunder was greater than that when she struck. Again we heard the screams and terrified cries of the poor victims and as the sea rushed madly into the gaping compartments and the escaping steam hissed from the open seams, scores of men and women threw themselves into the water in an effort to escape what seemed a more horrible fate than drowning.
We saw and heard all this, for the Seagull had lost headway and floated gently a short distance from the scene of the tragedy. But the next moment we awoke to action. Every life preserver and rope’s end we could muster flew overboard and our boats were manned and lowered in a twinkling. Big Ned Britton, the mate, was the first to put off in the cutter, and was picking the struggling forms from the sea long before the whaler was on the scene and assisting in the work of rescue. I took the gig myself and at once found my task so arduous that I had little time to mark what the other boats were doing. I only know that we all accomplished wonders, and every man, woman and child that managed to float until we reached them was rescued. Fortunately the sea was calm, and the light breeze that had dissipated the fog merely rippled the waves.
At last, as I looked around for more survivors, someone hailed me from the wreck of the Karamata Maru and I bade my men row swiftly to her side. Already the great liner rode so low that the little group awaiting me was almost on a level with my head, and I realized that I was in a dangerous position in case she sank. The freighter also was filling rapidly.
First those on the Karamata Maru lowered an injured man into the gig, and two attendants—one the ship’s doctor, I afterward learned—came with him.
“Hurry, gentlemen,” I called to the others; but they shook their heads and retreated from the side.
“It’s no use, sir,” growled the doctor. “They’re ship’s officers and won’t leave their charge. Cast off, for God’s sake, or we’ll follow her to the bottom when she sinks!”
I obeyed, seized with a sudden panic at the warning words, and my men rowed lustily from the dangerous neighborhood of the wreck.
We reached the side of the Seagull just as Ned had assisted the last of his rescued passengers up the ladder, and I made haste to get my own aboard. The injured man had fainted. I noticed that he was a Chinaman, although dressed in European costume, and that he was an object of great solicitude on the part of his attendant and the doctor. We put him in a sling and hoisted him up the side, and after the others had followed and I was preparing to mount the ladder myself a mighty shout from our deck arrested my attention. I turned quickly, just in time to see the awful climax to this disaster. The derelict and the liner sank together, and the sea gave a great gasp and closed over them, whirling and seething about the spot as if a thousand sea-monsters were disporting themselves there. The suction was so great that had we not already caught the davit falls the gig would have assuredly been drawn into the whirlpool, while the ship to which I clung trembled in every beam, as if with horror at the sight she had witnessed.
CHAPTER II.
PRINCE KAI LUN PU.
When I gained the deck of the Seagull an affecting sight met my eyes. It was crowded thick with despairing and agitated men and women, for all had lost their possessions and many their friends and relatives within the preceding half hour. Bry had brewed huge pots of coffee, for the morning air was still chilly and the rescued ones had nearly all been pulled from the water; so, our hearts full of pity for the poor wretches, we tried to comfort and cheer them as well as lay within our power.