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. To avoid cutting her down, it was necessary for the _Calliope_ to stop and even to reverse her engines; and her rudder was at the moment--or it seemed so to the eyes of those on board--within ten feet of the reef. "Between the _Vandalia_ and the reef" (writes Kane, in his excellent report) "it was destruction." To repeat Fritze's manoeuvre with the _Adler_ was impossible; the _Calliope_ was too heavy. The one possibility of escape was to go out. If the engines should stand, if they should have power to drive the ship against wind and sea, if she should answer the helm, if the wheel, rudder, and gear should hold out, and if they were favoured with a clear blink of weather in which to see and avoid the outer reef--there, and there only, were safety. Upon this catalogue of "ifs" Kane staked his all. He signalled to the engineer for every pound of steam--and at that moment (I am told) much of the machinery was already red-hot. The ship was sheered well to starboard of the _Vandalia_, the last remaining cable slipped. For a time--and there was no onlooker so cold-blooded as to offer a guess at its duration--the _Calliope_ lay stationary; then gradually drew ahead. The highest speed claimed for her that day is of one sea-mile an hour. The question of times and seasons, throughout all this roaring business, is obscured by a dozen contradictions; I have but chosen what appeared to be the most consistent; but if I am to pay any attention to the time named by Admiral Kimberley, the _Calliope_, in this first stage of her escape, must have taken more than two hours to cover less than four cables. As she thus crept seaward, she buried bow and stem alternately under the billows.