A boat was being lowered with haste from the two davits abreast the
funnel on one side, but when she was full of men and, due to the angle
of the ship, well down by the bow, someone inboard let go the foremost
fall or else it broke, for the bows of the boat fell downwards and half
a dozen figures were projected in grotesque attitudes into the sea. For
a few seconds the boat swung backwards and forwards, like a pendulum.
When she came to rest, hanging vertically downwards from the stern, I
noticed that a few men were still clinging like flies to her thwarts.
Truly, anything is better than the Atlantic in winter. Meanwhile the
ship had ceased to sink as far as outward signs went.
I mentioned this to Von Weissman, who was at my side with a slight
smile on his face, amused doubtless at the eagerness with which I
watched every detail of this, to me, novel tragedy. He answered me that
I need not worry, that she was being supported by an air lock somewhere
forward, that the water was slowly creeping into her and her boilers
would probably soon go.
This remarkable man was absolutely correct.
There was an interval of about five minutes, during which another boat,
evidently successfully lowered from the other side, came round her
stern, picked up one or two men from the water and also collected the
survivors in the hanging boat; then the steamer suddenly sank another
two feet, there was a dull rumbling, as of heavy machinery falling from
a height, a muffled report, a cloud of steam and smoke, a sucking noise
and then a pool in the water, in the middle of which odd bits of wood
and other buoyant debris kept on bobbing up.
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