was against all rules; but as the Admiral was in his cabin and there was no one to tell them otherwise the watch on deck thought it a very good opportunity to rest.  Suddenly the boy felt the rudder catch upon something, saw the ship swinging, and immediately afterwards heard the sound of tide ripples.  He cried out; and in a moment Columbus, who was sleeping the light sleep of an anxious shipmaster, came tumbling up to see what was the matter.  The current, which flows in that place at a speed of about two knots, had carried the ship on to a sand bank, but she touched so quietly that it was hardly felt.  Close on the heels of, Columbus came the master of the ship and the delinquent watch; and the Admiral immediately ordered them to launch the ship’s boat—­and lay out an anchor astern so that they could warp her off.  The wretches lowered the boat, but instead of getting the anchor on board rowed off in the direction of the Nina, which was lying a mile and a half to windward.  As soon as Columbus saw what they were doing he ran to the side and, seeing that the tide was failing and that the ship had swung round across the bank, ordered the remainder of the crew to cut away the mainmast and throw the deck hamper overboard, in order to lighten the ship.  This took some time; the tide was falling, and the ship beginning to heel over on her beam; and by the time it was done the Admiral saw that it would be of no use, for the ship’s seams had opened and she was filling.

At this point the miserable crew in the ship’s boat came back, the loyal people on the Nina having refused to receive them and sent them back to the assistance of the Admiral.  But it was now too late to do anything to save the ship; and as he did not know but that she might break up, Columbus decided to tranship the people to the Nina, who had by this time sent her own boat.  The whole company boarded the Nina, on which the Admiral beat about miserably till morning in the vicinity of his doomed ship.  Then he sent Diego de Arana, the brother of Beatriz and a trusty friend, ashore in a boat to beg the help of the King; and Guacanagari immediately sent his people with large canoes to unload the wrecked ship, which was done with great efficiency and despatch, and the whole of her cargo and fittings stored on shore under a guard.  And so farewell to the Santa Maria, whose bones were thenceforward to bleach upon the shores of Hayti, or incongruously adorn the dwellings of the natives.  She may have been “a bad sailer and unfit for discovery”; but no seaman looks without emotion upon the wreck of a ship whose stem has cut the waters of home, which has carried him safely over thousands of uncharted miles, and which has for so long been his shelter and sanctuary.