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Captain Inman Sealby, commander of the steamer Republic, which was the first vessel to use the wireless telegraph to save her passengers in a collision, spoke highly of the commander of the wrecked Titanic, calling him one of the ablest seamen in the world. "I am sure that Captain Smith did everything in his power to save his passengers.
Presently the work of transfer was ended, the tenders cast off, and at 1.30 P.M., with the screws churning up the sea bottom again, the Titanic turned slowly through a quarter-circle until her nose pointed down along the Irish coast, and then steamed rapidly away from Queenstown, the little house on the left of the town gleaming white on the hillside for many miles astern.
A few white clouds floated lazily beneath us, like snowy birds of an intolerable brightness and titanic size. Then they joined together in a glittering flock, and lost the semblance of birds. The mass became a sparkling silver sea, with here and there a dark gulf in it like a whirlpool. The air grew biting cold.
Together they made a mountain of darkness pierced by a titanic gateway through which one looked into heavenly spaces. The chant of the wind swelled louder. It was like the moan of distant breakers. The night fell, and the stars came out one by one until the blue vault was thickly studded. Up and down the sides of the ravine flickered millions of fireflies. Their restless glimmer wearied the eyes.
And therefore they assume an air of impatient superiority and make objections however sick at heart they may be. And I hope they are; at least, as much as a grocer who has sold a tin of imperfect salmon which destroyed only half a dozen people. And you know, the tinning of salmon was "progress" as much at least as the building of the Titanic. More, in fact. I am not attacking shipowners.
A grander spectacle never was of laborious man's creation; and the work of the Lord combined to show it to the best advantage dark headlands in the distance standing as a massive background, long pellucid billows lifting bulk Titanic, and lace-like maze, sweet air wandering from heaven, early sun come fresh from dew, all the good-will of the world inspiring men to merriness.
The flame, the red light from the guns, grew more vivid, and was so rapid and incessant that it became a steady glare, illuminating the vast scene on which the battle was outspread; the black stems of the oaks and pines, the guns some wheelless and broken now, the charging lines, fallen horses scattered in the scrub, all the medley and strain of a titanic battle. The sparks flew in vast showers.
Confidence in the ability of the Titanic to remain afloat doubtlessly led many of the passengers to death. The theory that the great ship was unsinkable remained with hundreds who had entrusted themselves to the gigantic hulk, long after the officers knew that the vessel could not survive.
At 4.15 Monday morning the Canadian Government Marine Agency received a wireless message that the Titanic was sinking and that the steamers towing her were trying to get her into shoal water near Cape Race, for the purpose of beaching her.
Here in the cliff face there was a cleft, though one invisible even from a few paces away, since its outer edge projected over the inner wall of rock. Moreover, this opening was not above four feet in width, a mere split in the huge mountain mass caused by some titanic convulsion in past ages.
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