“Mr. Wick kissed his wife good-by, and our boat, the first on that side of the ship, was lowered to the sea. There were about twenty-five women in the boat, with two sailors and a steward to row. These were the only men. The boat would have held many more. “As the boat was being loaded the officer in charge pointed out a light that glowed dimly in the distance on the surface of the sea and directed our sailors to row to that, land their passengers and return to the Titanic for more. “As we were rowed away we saw that the great liner was settling. We kept our boat pointed toward the light to which we were to row. As a matter of fact, there were two lights--one red and the other white. Sailormen on the Carpathia told us subsequently that the lights might have been those of a fishing boat caught in the ice and drifting with it--but who can tell? “After a while our sailors ceased rowing, saying it was of no use to keep on. Then we women tried to row, with the double light our objective. We rowed and rowed, but did not seem to gain on the light, which, like a will-o’-the-wisp, seemed ever to evade us. Finally we gave up and sat huddled in the lifeboat. “Some of the women complained of the cold, but the members of our own party did not suffer, being provided with plenty of wraps. “From the distance of a mile or more we heard the explosion and saw the Titanic go down. The lights did not go out all at once. As the ship slowly settled the rows of lights, one after another, winked out, disappearing beneath the surface. Finally the ship plunged down, bow first, and the stern slipped beneath the waves. HAD HOPED ALL ON BOARD WOULD BE SAVED. “Even then we had hoped that all on board might be saved. It was only after we had been taken aboard the Carpathia, and somehow few of us there were compared with the great company aboard the Titanic, that we got the first glimmer of the appalling reality.” “I never dreamed that it was serious,” said Alfred White, one of the two oilers from the engine room who were saved by being picked up. “I was on the whale deck in the bow calling the watch that was to relieve me when the ice first came aboard. It was a black berg that we struck--that is, it was composed of black ice. It could not be seen at all at night. “The striking opened seams below the water line, but did not even scratch the paint above the line. I know that because I was one of those who helped make an examination over the side with a lantern. “I went down into the light engine room, where my station was, at 12.40 o’clock. We even made coffee, showing that there wasn’t much thought of danger. An hour later I was still working around the light engines. I heard the chief engineer tell one of his subordinates that No. 6 bulkhead had given away. “At that time things began to look bad, for the Titanic was far down by the bow. I was told to go up and see how things were going, and made my way up through the dummy funnel to the bridge deck.