The stars paled in the sky; the darkness became a little lighter; the gray daylight began to come. Out of the surrounding gloom a wider and wider area of sea became visible, with here and there a boat discernible on it, and here and there some fragments of wreckage. By this time the boats had rowed away from the dreadful region, and but few floating bodies were visible. The waves rose and fell, smooth as oil, first gray in colour, and then, as the light increased, the pure dark blue of mid-ocean. The eastern sky began to grow red under the cloud bank, and from red to orange, and from orange to gold, the lovely pageantry of an Atlantic dawn began to unfold itself before the aching eyes that had been gazing on prodigies and horrors. From out that well of light in the sky came rays that painted the wave-backs first with rose, and then with saffron, and then with pure gold. And in the first flush of that blessed and comforting light the draggled and weary sufferers saw, first a speck far to the south, then a smudge of cloud, and then the red and black smoke-stack of a steamer that meant succour and safety for them. XV From every quarter of the ocean, summoned by the miracle of the wireless voice, many ships had been racing since midnight to the help of the doomed liner. From midnight onwards captains were being called by messages from the wireless operators of their ships, telling them that the _Titanic_ was asking for help; courses were being altered and chief engineers called upon to urge their stokehold crews to special efforts; for coal means steam, and steam means speed, and speed may mean life. Many ships that could receive the strong electric impulses sent out from the _Titanic_ had not electric strength enough to answer; but they turned and came to that invisible spot represented by a few figures which the faithful wireless indicated. Even as far as five hundred miles away, the _Parisian_ turned in her tracks in obedience to the call and came racing towards the north-west. But there were tragedies even with the wireless. The Leyland liner _Californian_, bound for Boston, was only seventeen miles away from the _Titanic_ when she struck, and could have saved every soul on board; but her wireless apparatus was not working, and she was deaf to the agonized calls that were being sent out from only a few miles away. The _Parisian_, five hundred miles away, could hear and come, though it was useless; the _Californian_ could not hear and so did not come though, if she had, she would probably have saved every life on board. The _Cincinnati_, the _Amerika_, the _Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm_, the _Menominee_, the _La Provence_, the _Prinz Adalbert_, the _Virginian_, the _Olympic_, and the _Baltic_ all heard the news and all turned towards Lat. 41° 46′ N., Long. 50° 14′ W. The dread news was being whispered all over the sea, and even ashore, just as the dwellers on the North Atlantic seaboard were retiring to rest,