He was aware all these people did not know enough to take intelligent notice of that strange noise.

The ship of iron, the men with white faces, all the sights, all the sounds, everything on board to that ignorant and pious multitude was strange alike, and as trustworthy as it would for ever remain incomprehensible.

It occurred to him that the fact was fortunate.
The idea of it was simply terrible.
'You must remember he believed, as any other man would have done in his place, that the ship would go down at any moment; the bulging, rust-eaten plates that kept back the ocean, fatally must give way, all at once like an undermined dam, and let in a sudden and overwhelming flood.

He stood still looking at these recumbent bodies, a doomed man aware of his fate, surveying the silent company of the dead.

They _were_ dead! Nothing could save them! There were boats enough for half of them perhaps, but there was no time.