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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
something and hang on," the red-faced man said to me.
All his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the
contagion of preternatural calm. "And listen to the women scream,"
he said grimly--almost bitterly, I thought, as though he had been
through the experience before.
The vessels came together before I could follow his advice. We
must have been struck squarely amidships, for I saw nothing, the
strange steamboat having passed beyond my line of vision. The
Martinez heeled over, sharply, and there was a crashing and rending
of timber. I was thrown flat on the wet deck, and before I could
scramble to my feet I heard the scream of the women. This it was,
I am certain,--the most indescribable of blood-curdling sounds,--
that threw me into a panic. I remembered the life-preservers
stored in the cabin, but was met at the door and swept backward by
a wild rush of men and women. What happened in the next few
minutes I do not recollect, though I have a clear remembrance of
pulling down life-preservers from the overhead racks, while the
red-faced man fastened them about the bodies of an hysterical group
of women. This memory is as distinct and sharp as that of any
picture I have seen. It is a picture, and I can see it now,--the
jagged edges of the hole in the side of the cabin, through which
the grey fog swirled and eddied; the empty upholstered seats,
littered with all the evidences of sudden flight, such as packages,
hand satchels, umbrellas, and wraps; the stout gentleman who had
been reading my essay, encased in cork and canvas, the magazine
still in his hand, and asking me with monotonous insistence if I
thought there was any danger; the red-faced man, stumping gallantly
around on his artificial legs and buckling life-preservers on all
corners; and finally, the screaming bedlam of women.
This it was, the screaming of the women, that most tried my nerves.
It must have tried, too, the nerves of the red-faced man, for I
have another picture which will never fade from my mind. The stout
gentleman is stuffing the magazine into his overcoat pocket and
looking on curiously. A tangled mass of women, with drawn, white
faces and open mouths, is shrieking like a chorus of lost souls;
and the red-faced man, his face now purplish with wrath, and with
arms extended overhead as in the act of hurling thunderbolts, is
shouting, "Shut up! Oh, shut up!"
I remember the scene impelled me to sudden laughter, and in the
next instant I realized I was becoming hysterical myself; for these
were women of my own kind, like my mother and sisters, with the
fear of death upon them and unwilling to die. And I remember that
the sounds they made reminded me of the squealing of pigs under the
knife of the butcher, and I was struck with horror at the vividness
of the analogy. These women, capable of the most sublime emotions,
of the tenderest sympathies, were open-mouthed and screaming. They
wanted to live, they were helpless, like rats in a trap, and they
screamed.
The horror of it drove me out on deck. I was feeling sick and
squeamish, and sat down on a bench. In a hazy way I saw and heard
men rushing and shouting as they strove to lower the boats. It was
just as I had read descriptions of such scenes in books. The
tackles jammed. Nothing worked. One boat lowered away with the
plugs out, filled with women and children and then with water, and
capsized. Another boat had been lowered by one end, and still hung
in the tackle by the other end, where it had been abandoned.
Nothing was to be seen of the strange steamboat which had caused
the disaster, though I heard men saying that she would undoubtedly
send boats to our assistance.
I descended to the lower deck. The Martinez was sinking fast, for
the water was very near. Numbers of the passengers were leaping
overboard. Others, in the water, were clamouring to be taken
aboard again. No one heeded them. A cry arose that we were
sinking. I was seized by the consequent panic, and went over the
side in a surge of bodies. How I went over I do not know, though I
did know, and instantly, why those in the water The Sea Wolf page 2 The Sea Wolf page 4 |