About midnight I heard the hull scrape against something that sounded as though she’d struck bottom when crossing a bar, or perhaps it was an iceberg. She keeled over until I thought she was a goner but straining and giving in every part of her superstructure she gradually rolled back and righted herself again. The saloon and second cabin passengers came tumbling out of their rooms in nighties and pajamas but what they lacked in clothes they made up in life preservers. Wherever you find danger there you will find among the panic-stricken a few cool, calm and collected men and women and sure enough two or three men and as many women appeared a few minutes later fully dressed and ready for anything that might happen. The officers assured all hands that nothing had or could happen and nearly all of them returned to their rooms. The third class passengers were locked in the steerage and here pandemonium reigned. They pounded on the hatchways and demanded that they be allowed to go on deck; they were scared stiff. Like the other and more fortunate passengers they were soon quieted by cool headed stewards and returned to their miserable quarters in the fo’cas’le. Within the next couple of hours one of the assistant engineers discovered that the seams of the hull had parted aft and the water was pouring into her hold. The Captain ordered all the bulkhead doors closed, to keep the water out of the other compartments, and her great pumps going, but once started the mighty pressure of the inrushing water ripped her seams farther along and broadened the gap. Knowing she could not stay afloat for any great length of time the Captain ordered me to send out the call for help and to be quick about it. I got busy with the key sending out _C Q D C Q D C Q D_ listening inbetween the calls as I never listened before to get an _O K_ to my signals. It seemed as if all the operators were either asleep, dead or on the other side of the Equator, but after an eternity of time--which probably amounted to as much as five minutes by the clock--I caught the signal _O K_ and then, “what’s up, old man.” It was the s. s. _Arapahoe_ that had answered and I was nearly frantic with joy for I felt that all of the responsibility for saving those 1200 souls on board rested entirely on me. I sent back the name of our ship, told him we were fast sinking, gave our latitude and longitude so that the _Arapahoe_ would know where to find us if by good fortune we were still afloat when she reached us and, I added “for God’s sake put on all speed.” In the meantime all the passengers had been notified, told to dress and to put on their life preservers while the sailors had been ordered to man the life-boats. When the passengers came on deck the situation was calmly explained to them together with the hopeful information that three steamers were bound for us as fast as steam could carry them for I had got the _O K_ from two others--the _Morocco_ and the _Carlisle_.