And so the throng streamed along from Berlin, from Paris, from the Orient, converging upon London, still hastening toward the welcome ship, and narrowing every day the circle of engagements and preparations. They crowded aboard. Never had the Arctic borne such a host of passengers, nor passengers so nearly related to so many of us. The hour was come. The signal-ball fell at Greenwich. It was noon also at Liverpool. The anchors were weighed; the great hull swayed to the current; the national colors streamed abroad, as if themselves instinct with life and national sympathy. The bell strikes; the wheels revolve; the signal-gun beats its echoes, in upon every structure along the shore, and the Arctic glides joyfully forth from the jersey, and turns her prow to the winding channel, and begins her homeward run. The pilot stood at the wheel, and men saw him. Death sat upon the prow, and no eye beheld him. Whoever stood at the wheel in all the voyage, Death was the pilot that steered the craft, and none knew it. He neither revealed his presence nor whispered his errand. And so hope was effulgent, and little gayety disported itself, and joy was with every guest. Amid all the inconveniences of the voyage, there was still that which hushed every murmur,--"Home is not far away." And every morning it was still one night nearer home! Eight days had passed. They beheld that distant bank of mist that forever haunts the vast shallows of Newfoundland. Boldly they made it; and plunging in, its pliant wreaths wrapped them about. They shall never emerge. The last sunlight has flashed from that deck. The last voyage is done to ship and passengers. At noon there came noiselessly stealing from the north that fated instrument of destruction. In that mysterious shroud, that vast atmosphere of mist, both steamers were holding their way with rushing prow and roaring wheels, but invisible. At a league's distance, unconscious, and at nearer approach, unwarned; within hail, and bearing right towards each other, unseen, unfelt, till in a moment more, emerging from the gray mists, the ill-omened Vesta dealt her deadly stroke to the Arctic. The death-blow was scarcely felt along the mighty hull. She neither reeled nor shivered. Neither commander nor officers seemed that they had suffered harm. Prompt upon humanity the brave Luce (let his name be ever spoken with admiration and respect) ordered away his boat with the first officer to inquire if the stranger had suffered harm. As Gourley went over the ship's side, oh, that some good angel had called to the brave commander in the words of Paul on a like occasion, "Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved."