As she thus
crept seaward, she buried bow and stem alternately under the billows.
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.
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