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 CALLIOPEsheered 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 3P.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 the TRENTON'S quarters,first from one side,then from the other,and losing at the same time two of her own cables.Captain von Ehrhardt instantly slipped the remainder of his moorings,and setting fore and aft canvas,and going full steam ahead,succeeded in beaching his ship in Matautu;whither Knappe,recalled by this new disaster,had returned.The berth was perhaps the best in the harbour,and von Ehrhardt signalled that ship and crew were in security.
The TRENTON,guided apparently by an under-tow or eddy from the discharge of the Vaisingano,followed in the course of the NIPSICand VANDALIA,and skirted south-eastward along the front of the shore reef,which her keel was at times almost touching.Hitherto she had brought disaster to her foes;now she was bringing it to friends.She had already proved the ruin of the OLGA,the one ship that had rid out the hurricane in safety;now she beheld across her course the submerged VANDALIA,the tops filled with exhausted seamen.Happily the approach of the TRENTON was gradual,and the time employed to advantage.Rockets and lines were thrown into the tops of the friendly wreck;the approach of danger was transformed into a means of safety;and before the ships struck,the men from the VANDALIA'S main and mizzen masts,which went immediately by the board in the collision,were already mustered on the TRENTON'Sdecks.Those from the foremast were next rescued;and the flagship settled gradually into a position alongside her neighbour,against which she beat all night with violence.Out of the crew of the VANDALIA forty-three had perished;of the four hundred and fifty on board the TRENTON,only one.