It is my belief that if there had been ten
thousand eyes there, I should have seen them all, with their different
looks. And all this in a moment. But you must consider what a moment.
I saw the men, as they looked at me, fall towards their appointed
stations, like good men and true. If she had not righted, they could
have done very little there or anywhere but die--not that it is little
for a man to die at his post--I mean they could have done nothing to save
the passengers and themselves. Happily, however, the violence of the
shock with which we had so determinedly borne down direct on that fatal
Iceberg, as if it had been our destination instead of our destruction,
had so smashed and pounded the ship that she got off in this same instant
and righted. I did not want the carpenter to tell me she was filling and
going down; I could see and hear that. I gave Rames the word to lower
the Long-boat and the Surf-boat, and I myself told off the men for each
duty. Not one hung back, or came before the other.
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