About nine, a quarter-master swam ashore, and reported all the officers and some sixty men alive but in pitiable case; some with broken limbs, others insensible from the drenching of the breakers.

Later in the forenoon, certain valorous Samoans succeeded in reaching the wreck and returning with a line; but it was speedily broken; and all subsequent attempts proved unavailing, the strongest adventurers being cast back again by the bursting seas.
Thenceforth, all through that day and night, the deafened survivors must continue to endure their martyrdom; and one officer died, it was supposed from agony of mind, in his inverted cabin.
Three ships still hung on the next margin of destruction, steaming desperately to their moorings, dashed helplessly together.

The _Calliope_ was the nearest in; she had the _Vandalia_ close on her port side and a little ahead, the _Olga_ close a-starboard, the reef under her heel; and steaming and veering on her cables, the unhappy ship fenced with her three dangers.

About a quarter to nine she carried away the _Vandalia's_ quarter gallery with her jib-boom; a moment later, the _Olga_ had near rammed her from the other side.

By nine the _Vandalia_ dropped down on her too fast to be avoided, and clapped her stern under the bowsprit of the English ship, the fastenings of which were burst asunder as she rose.