The remaining passengers were left to fend for themselves, and none of them knew which way to Turn. Few jumped into the water.

Drowning was nearly as unthinkable as being incinerated. During the early nineteenth century, fewer than ten people out of a hundred knew how to swim. In any event they would have expired within minutes from hypothermia in the frigid water.

Captain Hillard rounded up a few deckhands and a small band of passengers, and directed them to throw overboard any cotton bales that had not caught fire. After a dozen were heaved over the side, Hillard and stoker Benjamin Cox climbed down and positioned themselves astride a bale, each facing the other. Their combined weight settled the cotton bale until only one-third of it was above the surface of the water.

The wind was fresh and the cur-rent carried them away from the boat at a speed of a knot and a half As Millard drifted around the stern, he noticed a lady, whom he took to be Mrs. Jarvis, shouting frantically over the railing. Somehow, one of her children had fallen overboard. The men passed the child so closely Hillard could reach out his hand and touch the little body. From its dress and long hair streaming in the water, Hillard could see it was a female. He also saw that she was already dead. Mrs. Jarvis beseeched him to pull her daughter from the icy water, but he was more concerned with saving his own life. This was a time when self-preservation prevailed before the cry of "Women and children first" became a worthy tradition of the sea.

Hillard turned away from the heart-rending scene, pulled out his watch, and calmly noted the time by the light of the fire. It was just 8 P.m.

The Lexington would take a long time to die.

An immense, billowing cloud of black smoke reached hundreds of feet into the sky, blocking out the stars. The main deck had fallen in, and the only parts of the boat the flames had yet to devour were the stern and bows forward of the capstan. Ten people still stood on the stern while thirty more milled around the forecastle, including Manchester.

"Shouldn't we jump or something?" a dazed Adolphus Hamden asked Captain Manchester.

"To do so would be to perish," replied Manchester.

"We can't just stand here and be burned to death." "Every man for himself," Manchester said solemnly.

He turned away and lowered himself over the side onto a raft of debris. There were two or three other men on it already, and his added weight sank it under the water. He grabbed a piece of the railing that was under water and used it to pull himself onto a bale of cotton that was floating nearby. He found that passenger Peter McKenna had climbed aboard the bale first. Hamden, still on the forecastle, shouted to Manchester.

"Is there room for another?"