In the fairway of the entrance the flagship Trenton still held on.  Her rudder was broken, her wheel carried away; within she was flooded with water from the peccant hawse-pipes; she had just made the signal “fires extinguished,” and lay helpless, awaiting the inevitable end.  Between this melancholy hulk and the external reef Kane must find a path.  Steering within fifty yards of the reef (for which she was actually headed) and her foreyard passing on the other hand over the Trenton’s quarter as she rolled, the Calliope sheered between the rival dangers, came to the wind triumphantly, and was once more pointed for the sea and safety.  Not often in naval history was there a moment of more sickening peril, and it was dignified by one of those incidents that reconcile the chronicler with his otherwise abhorrent task.  From the doomed flagship the Americans hailed the success of the English with a cheer.  It was led by the old admiral in person, rang out over the storm with holiday vigour, and was answered by the Calliopes with an emotion easily conceived.  This ship of their kinsfolk was almost the last external object seen from the Calliope for hours; immediately after, the mists closed about her till the morrow.  She was safe at sea again—­una de multis—­with a damaged foreyard, and a loss of all the ornamental work about her bow and stern, three anchors, one kedge-anchor, fourteen lengths of chain, four boats, the jib-boom, bobstay, and bands and fastenings of the bowsprit.

Shortly after Kane had slipped his cable, Captain Schoonmaker, despairing of the Vandalia, succeeded in passing astern of the Olga, in the hope to beach his ship beside the Nipsic.  At a quarter to eleven her stern took the reef, her hand swung to starboard, and she began to fill and settle.  Many lives of brave men were sacrificed in the attempt to get a line ashore; the captain, exhausted by his exertions, was swept from deck by a sea; and the rail being soon awash, the survivors took refuge in the tops.

Out of thirteen that had lain there the day before, there were now but two ships afloat in Apia harbour, and one of these was doomed to be the bane of the other.  About 3 P.M. the Trenton parted one cable, and shortly after a second.  It was sought to keep her head to wind with storm-sails and by the ingenious expedient of filling the rigging with seamen; but in the fury of the gale, and in that sea, perturbed alike by the gigantic billows and the volleying discharges of the rivers, the rudderless ship drove down stern foremost into the inner basin; ranging, plunging, and striking like a frightened horse; drifting on destruction for herself and bringing it to others.  Twice the Olga (still well under command) avoided her impact by the skilful use of helm and engines.  But about four the vigilance of the Germans was deceived, and the ships collided; the Olga cutting into