Her slight strength made a difference, and the boat forged ahead--thirty, forty, seventy yards--till they reached a rock to which, exhausted, he grappled with a hook, bidding her hold on to the floating seaweed.

Thus they rested for thirty seconds, perhaps, when she spoke for the first time: "Look!" she said.
As she spoke the steamer slid and lifted off the reef.

For a few moments she wallowed; then suddenly her stern settled, her prow rose slowly in the air till it stood up straight, fifty or sixty feet of it.

Then, with a majestic, but hideous rush, down went the Trondhjem and vanished for ever.
All round about her the sea boiled and foamed, while in the great hollow which she made on the face of the waters black lumps of wreckage appeared and disappeared.
"Tight! hold tight!" he cried, "or she will suck us after her." Suck she did, till the water poured over the gunwale.

Then, the worst passed, and the boat rose again.