The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn | Page 3

this
time quite recovered my self-possession, and was therefore able to
answer them calmly and with a steady voice. Naturally, I did not tell
them the whole truth, for that, I knew, would precipitate a panic in
which everybody would get out of hand. I therefore told them there had
been a breakdown in the engine-room, which was being attended to;
that there was no immediate danger, but that I strongly advised them,
purely as a measure of precaution, to return to their cabins, dress
themselves warmly, and put into their pockets, or into parcels, any
money or valuables they might have in their baggage, so that in the
event of anything untoward happening, whereby we might be
compelled to take to the boats, they would be prepared to do so at a
moment's notice. Some of them listened to me and allowed themselves
to be persuaded, but others seemed afraid to leave the deck for a
moment lest they should be overtaken by calamity.
After all, their apprehension was not to be wondered at; there was
excuse enough for it, and to spare. There was a very strong smell of
burning and occasional puffs of smoke coming up from below, where
the engine-room staff were fighting the flames. The ship had taken a
heavy and steadily-increasing list to starboard; she was visibly settling
in the water; and, to crown all, the crowd of miners who upon the first
alarm had taken possession of the boat-deck were refusing to leave it,
and a brisk struggle between them and the seamen was proceeding,

though as yet no firearms were being used. But I knew Hoskins's
temper; he was by no means a patient man, or one given to much verbal
argument. It was usually a word and a blow with him, and not
infrequently the blow came first; I knew also that he habitually carried
a revolver in his pocket when at sea. I should not, therefore, have been
at all surprised to hear the crack of the weapon at any moment.
I had just managed to extricate myself from the crowd, and was making
my way toward the purser's cabin, when from the interior of the ship,
and almost beneath my feet, there came a deep boom, and I knew that
the after bulkhead of the engine-room had given way, and that the
moments of the Saturn were numbered.
"No use to hunt up the purser, now," I thought; and I made a dash for
the boat-deck, to see if I could render any assistance there. But I was
too late; the sound of the bursting bulkhead, coming on top of the
previous alarms, was all that was needed to produce the panic I had all
along been dreading, and in an instant the decks were alive with frantic
people, all desperately fighting their way upward to the boat-deck,
where pandemonium now raged supreme, and where pistols were
popping freely, showing that Hoskins was by no means the only man in
the ship who went armed.
Now, what was the best thing for me to do? Could I do anything useful?
I stood on the outskirts of that seething, maddened crowd, and watched
men and women striving desperately together, trampling each other
remorselessly down; shrieking, cursing, fighting; no longer human, but
reduced by the fear of death to the condition of rabid, ferocious brutes.
No, I could do nothing: as well go down below and attempt to stay the
inrush of water with my two hands, as strive by argument to restore
those people to reason; while, as for force, what could my strength
avail against that of hundreds? No, they had all gone mad, and, in their
madness, were destroying themselves, rendering it impossible to launch
the boats, and so dooming themselves and everybody else to death. It
was awful! That scene often revisits me in dreams, even to this day, and
I awake sweating and trembling with the unspeakable horror of it.
Meanwhile the ship was rapidly sinking; she had taken so strong a list

to starboard that it was only with the utmost difficulty I could retain my
footing upon her steeply inclined deck, while she was so much down
by the stern that the sea was almost level with the deck right aft.
Scarcely knowing what I did, acting with the inconsequence of one in a
dream, I clawed my way across the bridge that led from the upper deck
to the poop, and reached the taffrail, where I stood gazing blankly
down into the black water, thinking, I am afraid, some rather rebellious
thoughts. I must have stood thus for at least five minutes before I
realised that my hands were gripping a life-buoy, one of six that were
stopped to the rail. Still acting mechanically, and