Mrs. Cliff's Yacht by Frank R. Stockton

With her engines in motion and her wheel in the hands of Captain Burke, the _Summer Shelter_ was in no danger of being run into by the _Dunkery Beacon_, for she was much the more easily managed vessel.

As soon as they had recovered a moderate command of their senses, Burdette and Portman hurried below to find out what damage had been sustained by the yacht; but, although she must have been greatly strained and might be leaking through some open seams, the tough keelson of the well-built vessel, running her length like a stiff backbone, had received and distributed the shock, and although her bowsprit was shivered to pieces and her cut-water splintered, her sides were apparently uninjured. Furniture, baggage, coils of rope, and everything movable had been pitched forward and heaped in disordered piles all over the vessel. A great part of the china had been broken. Books, papers, and ornaments littered the floors, and even the coal was heaped up in the forward part of the bunkers.