She was close down upon the reef; doomed herself, it might yet be possible to save a portion of her crew; and for this end Captain Fritze placed his reliance on the very hugeness of the seas that threatened him.

The moment was watched for with the anxiety of despair, but the coolness of disciplined courage.

As she rose on the fatal wave, her moorings were simultaneously slipped; she broached to in rising; and the sea heaved her bodily upward and cast her down with a concussion on the summit of the reef, where she lay on her beam-ends, her back broken, buried in breaching seas, but safe.

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.