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, 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.