Conceive a table:
the _Eber_ in the darkness had been smashed against the rim and flung
below; the _Adler_, cast free in the nick of opportunity, had been thrown
upon the top. Many were injured in the concussion; many tossed into the
water; twenty perished. The survivors crept again on board their ship,
as it now lay, and as it still remains, keel to the waves, a monument of
the sea's potency. In still weather, under a cloudless sky, in those
seasons when that ill-named ocean, the Pacific, suffers its vexed shores
to rest, she lies high and dry, the spray scarce touching her--the hugest
structure of man's hands within a circuit of a thousand miles--tossed up
there like a schoolboy's cap upon a shelf; broken like an egg; a thing to
dream of.
The unfriendly consuls of Germany and Britain were both that morning in
Matautu, and both displayed their nobler qualities. De Coetlogon, the
grim old soldier, collected his family and kneeled with them in an agony
of prayer for those exposed. Knappe, more fortunate in that he was
called to a more active service, must, upon the striking of the _Adler_,
pass to his own consulate. From this he was divided by the Vaisingano,
now a raging torrent, impetuously charioting the trunks of trees.
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