me to wake up the saloon passengers and tell them to come on deck.
'Sounds a curious sort of message that to deliver on a dead still
night. The people tumbled up in their dressing-gowns and _pyjamas_,
and wouldn't believe me. We were just sinking as fast as we could, and
I had to tell 'em that. Then the deck-passengers got wind of it, and
all Hell woke up along the decks.

'The rule in these little affairs is to get your saloon passengers off
first, then to fill the boats with the balance, and afterwards--God
help the extras, that's all. I was getting the starboard stern boat--the
mail-boat--away. It hung as it might be over yonder, and as I came
along from the cuddy, the deck-passengers hung round me, shoving their
money-belts into my hand, taking off their nose-rings and earrings,
and thrusting 'em upon me to buy just one chance for life. If I hadn't
been so desperately busy, I should have thought it horrible. I put
biscuits and water into the boat, and got the two ladies in. One of
'em was the Captain's wife. She had to be put in by main force. You've
no notion how women can struggle. The other woman was the wife of an
officer going to meet her husband; and there were a couple of passengers
beside the lascars. The Captain said he was going to stay with the
ship. You see the rule in these affairs, I believe, is that the Captain
has to bow gracefully from the bridge and go down. I haven't had a
ship under my charge wrecked yet. When that comes, I'll have to do
like the others. After the boats were away, and I saw that there was
nothing to be got by waiting, I jumped overboard exactly as I might
have vaulted over into a flat green field, and struck out for the
mail-boat. Another officer did the same thing, but he went for a boat
full of natives, and they whacked him on the chest with oars, so he
had some difficulty in climbing in.