ng fine and his ship sailing along the
coast with a light land breeze, he decided to lie down to get some sleep.
There were no difficulties in navigation to be feared, because the ship's
boats had been rowed the day before a distance of about ten miles ahead
on the course which they were then steering and had seen that there was
open water all the way. The wind fell calm; and the man at the helm,
having nothing to do, and feeling sleepy, called a ship's boy to him,
gave him the helm, and went off himself to lie down. This of course was
against all rules; but as the Admiral was in his cabin and there was no
one to tell them otherwise the watch on deck thought it a very good
opportunity to rest. Suddenly the boy felt the rudder catch upon
something, saw the ship swinging, and immediately afterwards heard the
sound of tide ripples. He cried out; and in a moment Columbus, who was
sleeping the light sleep of an anxious shipmaster, came tumbling up to
see what was the matter. The current, which flows in that place at a
speed of about two knots, had carried the ship on to a sand bank, but she
touched so quietly that it was hardly felt. Close on the heels of,
Columbus came the master of the ship and the delinquent watch; and the
Admiral immediately ordered them to launch the ship's boat--and lay out
an anchor astern so that they could warp her off. The wretches lowered
the boat, but instead of getting the anchor on board rowed off in the
direction of the Nina, which was lying a mile and a half to windward.
As soon as Columbus saw what they were doing he ran to the side and,
seeing that the tide was failing and that the ship had swung round across
the bank, ordered the remainder of the crew to cut away the mainmast and
throw the deck hamper overboard, in order to lighten the ship. This took
some time; the tide was falling, and the ship beginning to heel over on
her beam; and by the time it was done the Admiral saw that it would be of
no use, for the ship's seams had opened and she was filling.

At this point the miserable crew in the ship's boat came back, the loyal
people on the Nina having refused to receive them and sent them back to
the assistance of the Admiral. But it was now too late to do anything to
save the ship; and as he did not know but that she might break up,
Columbus decided to tranship the people to the Nina, who had by this time
sent her own boat. The whole company boarded the Nina, on which the
Admira