The Mena weekly star., 1912-04-25

| thought of those at home as III my
spirit might go to them, and say
goodbye forever, for similar ex-
perience had occurred in The his
tory of my wife's family and she
was even awake that night, tortured
with presentments.
Prayed for Delivermcc.
Again and again ! prayed for de-
liverence. although | felt sure that
the end had come. My greatest diff
flculty was in holding my breath
until I came to the surface. for |
knew that once | had inhaled water
would suffocate. Under the water
| / struck out with all my strength
| for the surface. | reached the sur
| face after a time that seemed UNI
ending. There was nothing in
sight save large field of ice and
the wreckage. There were dying
men and women all about me.
THE second officer and j. B.
Thayer Jr., who were swimming
near told me that just before my
head appeared above the water. one
of the Titanic's tunnels separated
and fell apart near me, scattering
| the bodies in the water.
Il saw wreckage everywhere. All
that came within my reach | chung
| to. A great crate-like block of
wood floated within my grasp and
| | grabbed it. It seemed to be suffi-
GENTLY large to keep me afloat. AT
this moment, however, | saw an
overturned boat a short distance
away and / swan to it, | caught
| the arm of a man who grasped it,
threw my leg over the boat and
rested on it.
Denied Men Room on Raft.
ION this raft, it was really boat,
there were already twenty men,
who seemed to belong to the Titan
| les crew. Two men, one in the
bow, the other in the stern, pro-
PEELED us through the wreekage
with pieces of wood.
Presently the raft became so
full that it seemed she would sink
if more came aboard and the crew,
for self-preservation, had to refuse
to permit others to climb aboard
| This at once was the most pathetic
and most horrible scene of ALL
Piteous cries OF those around us
still ring in my ears. | will remem-
Der them to my dying day.
Hold on to what you have old
boy we shouted to each man who
tried to get aboard. One more of
you aboard would sink us ALL And
many whom we refused answered
as they went down to their death,
| Good luck and God bless you
"All the time we were buoyed
and sustained by hope for rescue
And so we passed the night-with
the waves washing over us and the
raft buried deep in the water under
our feet.
did we pray? Through all that
wild night there was not a moment
that our prayers did not rise above
the waves. Men who seemed to
have forgotten long ago how to adj
dress their Creator, recalled the
prayers of their childhood and
murmured them. We said the
Lords prayer again and again to-
gether.
Feared TO OVerturn Raft.
Long before light we stood il
columns two deep, back to back
balancing ourselves, fearful &c
move lest the delicate balance
should be unbalanced and all be
thrown again into the water. W.
were standing and content to stand
and pray, knowing that, in that
alone, lay our hope for rescue. The
hand of God seemed to have sooth-
ed the sea. 1t was calm.
IAN age seemed to have passed
when we first saw the twinklin2
Of the lights of the Carpathia on
the horizon. We knew her anc
recognized her as our reseuer. The
Marconi 0perator-one of the thir-
ty-flve on the raft-eonfirmed ouI
hopes by saying that he, too, knew
that it was the Carpathia. While
we looked someone whispered that
there was also a ship behind us
We dared not turn about to look
so fearful were we that we would
disturb the balance.
The second officer finally order
ed one man to look behind while
the others stayed still. The slip
lping of one would have meant the
death, probably, of all of us. The
man who looked passed the word
that there was no ship behind.
when the day broke. four OF
| the Titanic's lifeboats were seen
on our boat side. The second OFF,
Ger blew his whistle to call atten-
ton to our precarious condition
and the head lifeboat, towing an
other, came to our help.
THE tranfer, fraught with peril
followed. The second officer was
the last man off the raft. Just be-
fore he left it he lifted into the
boat the body of sailor who had
died of cold and exposure as we
Iprayed. /, with soggy overcoat
heavy with water, pitched head
forward into the boat, trying my
utmost not to disturb the equilibri-
UNI of the raft. In this boat saw
several of my companions on the
raft. Others had gotten into the
other boat.
Our boat, however, had more
than its complement 65 persons
Fortunately the Carpathia was
close. Otherwise all in the boat
would have persisted in the mod