The timbers at the bluff of the bow crack
almost vertically, until the ship's nose is well-nigh torn out.
The tension is too great and the port cable snaps. The starboard
one is tougher. But were it ever so tough it would not save the
ship, for its anchor is dragging. Back she sags, gathered into her
doom by the whitening waters; until at length, thus lifted along,
her keel rests athwart the bank, and she heels over. Her sailing
days are done. As the consecutive seas sweep up the reef, she lifts
her head and drops it again and again, like a poor recumbent brute
in its death-hour. But the wind must sometime cease, and the waves
forget their anger. Then will she take a long repose, leaning on
her shattered side--the very type of a picturesque wreck.
About this time Messrs. Ruin & Ruin were more than usually interested
in the shipping news, and one morning they saw, under the heading
of "Wrecks and Casualties," this:
"MINICOY (MALDIVE ISLANDS).--The ship Chrysolite, of London, went
ashore yesterday night on the southern reefs, and is now a total
wreck. All hands saved except John Anderson, master, who was killed
by a falling spar.
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