Explore "All Taut" by Oliver Optic on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Thunderer had foundered; but not being provided with ballast she did not go to the bottom, as it is set down in poetry and prose that she should do when she fills with water. All the Topovers of the present party had been educated in the manly sports of the locality, and they could all swim. The disaster was not, therefore, a very appalling catastrophe. But they were not required to swim any great distance, and the useful art they had acquired was of more service in enabling them to retain their self-possession than for the purpose of reaching the shore.
The clumsy craft went out from under them, for it was no longer able to hold them up. As she rolled over, she filled with water to the gunwales, and emptied her living freight into the lake. But the event occurred not ten feet from the Goldwing's moorings; and while one half of the crew swam to the sloop, the other half clung to the wreck. Among the latter was Captain Topover, who possibly believed that the master should be the last to leave the ill-fated bark.