It is impossible to describe the mingled emotions of dismay, curiosity, and breathless suspense with which the men awaited the sinking of the hull. There was not a soul among them who felt privileged to depart until the vessel, so noble once, so desolate and broken now, had sunk to her long home in the deep Atlantic. Something absolutely of human pathos that appealed to the heart, as the distress of a living thing might, seemed mixed up in the aspect of unutterable desolation she presented, the more defined and keen because of the mocking joyousness of the sunlight that streamed over her, and the fair and azure surface of the sea on which she rested. Her figure-head, uninjured by the gale--as perfect a piece of workmanship as ever graced a vessel’s bows--might, by no violent fantasy, have been deemed the spirit of the ship poising herself an instant ere she soared towards the sky. The two sails upon her flapped hollowly to her roll, and once there came from her silent deck a sound as of a bell being struck, which filled the listening sailors with awe, and set them bending superstitious glances in search of the Shadow that was tolling the ship’s funeral knell. All on a sudden the hull lurched in the direction of the boats and exposed her sloping decks. “She’s going now!” cried one of the men. This was true. Down sank her stern slowly, so slowly that many seconds passed ere her stern-windows were on a level with the water. She righted, and her bows, high raised, pointed the shattered jib-boom aloft, as though in her last agony she raised her mangled limbs to heaven. She then sank stern foremost, the deepest tragical dignity attending her descent: the silence unbroken, save by the sullen gurgling and bubbling of the water forcing itself through her decks. Her stern disappeared; then her bows stood black on the water; they vanished, and the fore-mast with the sail upon it alone remained visible. Lower and lower these crept, but still it was possible to trace the undulating outline of the hull in the clear water. The sponge-like sail sucked up the water quicker than it sank, and arched a brown shadow upon its snow; then the jagged top of the fore-mast only was to be seen; this vanished, and the boats were left alone upon the mighty surface of the deep. A deep silence prevailed among the men while she was sinking; and not for some moments after she had disappeared did the spell upon them break, and a long and tremulous sigh escaped them. Then the captain’s voice in the long-boat was heard: “Mr. Holdsworth, our course is east-north-east. Every boat has a compass aboard of her. Now, my men, up with your masts; we may get a breeze before sun-down. And, meanwhile, out with your oars and make what way we can towards the old country!” The stout-hearted fellows answered with a cheer; in all four boats they shipped the masts; out went the oars, and the water bubbled round the stems.