AS THE last lifeboat bobbed away from the Titanic on the bitterly cold night of April 15, 1912, Laura Mabel Francatelli shivered inside her lifejacket and prayed for rescue.

In the inky darkness, she could hear the screams of less fortunate passengers as the luxury liner, once regarded as unsinkable, slipped beneath the waves.

It was to be daybreak the next morning before the exhausted young secretary was hauled to safety by the crew of the Carpathia, along with her mistress Lady Duff Gordon and her husband Sir Cosmo, from Maryculter, Aberdeenshire.

So relieved was Miss Francatelli that she collected the signatures of the other survivors from the rescue boat on her life-preserver.

For the last 40 years, the keepsake has lain away from the public gaze, after it was inherited by her nephew in 1967.

But now this unique memento is expected to fetch up to £80,000 when it comes up for auction at Christie’s, in London, next month.

It is being sold, along with a moving letter written by Miss Francatelli just days after she was rescued.

The document throws new light on a murky chapter in the Titanic legend.

After their dramatic rescue, Sir Cosmo and his wife—a celebrated fashion designer of her day—were accused of bribing the others in their boat not to return and pick up drowning passengers.

Miss Francatelli does not refer to the events directly in her letter. In her version, she and the Duff Gordons were among the last to abandon the Titanic, only accepting the precious seats in the boat after being told Sir Cosmo could go, too.

“We went down into the blackness of the water,” she wrotes. “We rowed away from the ship, which was sinking fast so to get away from swell or sucksion (sic). Then all the rest is too terrible for me to write.

“The screams of the hundreds of dear women, children and the bravest of men fighting in the icy cold waves, I still hear.”