Page:How the Mail Steamer Went Down.pdf/5

 They were just in time, for the steamer began to sway as they floated, and they flung themselves into the water. Then I was left with a great multitude, whose agonized clamour stunned me. I felt a mighty, convulsive movement; then the sea seemed to flash down on me in one mass, as if the wall of water fell from a high crag. Then I heard a humming noise in my ears, and with a gasp I was up amid a blackened, wriggling sheet of drowning creatures. A boat came past me, and I struck out lustily. I raised myself to the gunwale. 'Shall I hit his fingers,' said a man. 'No, let him come,' and then I was laid, sick and dizzy, on the bottom boards of a crowded boat. You know that we were picked up after a nasty time, and I am at home minus my kit.

[.—This is exactly what might take place and what will take place if the liners are sent to sea short of boats.—.]