The maestre and men flee to the Niña instead of anchoring astern

… These, although it was night, made a sound that could be heard and seen a long league off, and she went onto it so gently that it was hardly felt. The boy, who felt the rudder and heard the sound of the sea, cried out, and at his cries the Admiral came out, and was so quick that no one yet had felt that they were aground. Then the maestre of the ship, whose watch it was, came out; and the Admiral told him and the others to haul in the boat they were towing astern, and take an anchor and cast it astern; and he and many others jumped into the boat, and the Admiral thought they were doing what he had ordered them; they cared for nothing but to flee to the caravel, which lay half a league to windward. The caravel, acting virtuously, would not take them in, and for this they came back to the ship, but the caravel’s boat reached her first. When the Admiral saw that they were fleeing, and that they were his own people, and that the waters were falling and the ship now lay broadside to the sea, seeing no other remedy he ordered the mast cut away and the ship lightened of all they could, to see whether they could get her off; …