which were burst
asunder as she rose. To avoid cutting her down, it was necessary for the
_Calliope_ to stop and even to reverse her engines; and her rudder was at
the moment--or it seemed so to the eyes of those on board--within ten
feet of the reef. "Between the _Vandalia_ and the reef" (writes Kane, in
his excellent report) "it was destruction." To repeat Fritze's manoeuvre
with the _Adler_ was impossible; the _Calliope_ was too heavy. The one
possibility of escape was to go out. If the engines should stand, if
they should have power to drive the ship against wind and sea, if she
should answer the helm, if the wheel, rudder, and gear should hold out,
and if they were favoured with a clear blink of weather in which to see
and avoid the outer reef--there, and there only, were safety. Upon this
catalogue of "ifs" Kane staked his all. He signalled to the engineer for
every pound of steam--and at that moment (I am told) much of the
machinery was already red-hot. The ship was sheered well to starboard of
the _Vandalia_, the last remaining cable slipped. For a time--and there
was no onlooker so cold-blooded as to offer a guess at its duration--the
_Calliope_ lay stationary; then gradually drew ahead. The highest speed
claimed for her that day is of one sea-mile an hour. The question of
times and seasons, throughout all this roaring business, is obscured by a
dozen contradictions; I have but chosen what appeared to be the most
consistent; but if I am to pay any attention to the time named by Admiral
Kimberley, the _Calliope_, in this first stage of her escape, must have
taken more than two hours to cover less than four cables. 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