University of Virginia Library

II

THE captain called from the pilot-house: "Mr. Shackles! Oh, Mr. Shackles!"

The correspondent moved hastily to a window.

"What is it, captain?"

The skipper of the Adolphus raised a battered finger and pointed over the bows. "See 'er?" he asked, laconic but quietly jubilant. Another steamer was smoking at full speed over the sunlit seas. A great billow of pure white was on her bows.

"Great Scott!" cried Shackles: "another Spaniard?"

"No," said the captain; "that there is a United States cruiser."

"What?" Shackles was dumbfounded into muscular paralysis. "No! Are you sure?"

The captain nodded. "Sure. Take the glass. See her ensign? Two funnels; two masts with fighting tops. She ought to be the Chancellorville."

Shackles choked. "Well, I'm blowed!"

"Ed!" said the captain.

"Yessir!"

"Tell the chief there is no hurry."

Shackles suddenly bethought him of his companions. He dashed to them and was full of quick scorn of their gloomy faces. "Hi, brace up there! Are you blind? Can't you see her?"

"See what?"

"Why, the Chancellorville, you blind mice!" roared Shackles. "See 'er? See 'er? See 'er?"

The others sprang up, saw, and collapsed. Shackles was a madman for the purpose of distributing the news. "Cook!" he shrieked; "don't you see 'er, cook? Great Scott, man, don't you see 'er?" He ran to the lower deck and howled his information everywhere. Suddenly, the whole ship smiled. Men clapped each other on the shoulder and joyously shouted. The captain thrust his head from the pilot-house to look back at the Spanish ships. Then he looked at the American cruiser. "Now, we'll see," he said, grimly and vindictively to the mate. "Guess somebody else will do some runnin'." The mate chuckled.

The two gunboats were still headed hard for the Adolphus, and she kept on her way. The American cruiser was coming swiftly. "It's the Chancellorville!" cried Shackles. "I know her. We'll see a fight at sea, my boys! A fight at sea!" The enthusiastic correspondents pranced in Indian revels.

The Chancellorville—2000 tons, 18.6 knots, ten 5-inch guns—came on tempestuously, sheering the water high with her sharp bow. From her funnels the smoke raced away in driven sheets. She loomed with extraordinary rapidity, like a ship bulging and growing out of the sea. She swept by the Adolphus so close that one could have thrown a walnut on board. She was a glistening grey apparition, with a blood-red water-line, with brown gun-muzzles and white-clothed motionless Jack-tars; and in her rush she was silent, deadly silent. Probably there entered the mind of every man on board of the Adolphus a feeling of almost idolatry for this living thing, stern, but, to their thought, incomparably beautiful. They would have cheered but that each man seemed to feel that a cheer would be too puny a tribute.

It was at first as if she did not see the Adolphus. She was going to pass without heeding this little vagabond of the high seas. But suddenly a megaphone gaped over the rail of her bridge, and a voice was heard measuredly, calmly intoning: "Halloa—there! Keep—well—to—the—north'ard—and—out of my— way—and I'll—go—in—and—see—what—those—people—want." Then nothing was heard but the swirl of water. In a moment the Adolphus was looking at a high gray stern. On the quarter-deck sailors were poised about the breech of the after-pivot gun.

The correspondents were revelling. "Captain," yelled Shackles, "we can't miss this! We must see it!"

But the skipper had already flung over the wheel. "Sure," he answered, almost at once, "we can't miss it."

The cook was arrogantly, grossly triumphant. His voice rang on the lower deck. "There, now! How will the Spinachers like that? Now, it's our turn! We've been doin' the runnin' away, but now we'll do the chasin'!" Apparently feeling some twinge of nerves from the former strain, he suddenly demanded: "Say, who's got any whiskey? I'm near dead for a drink."

When the Adolphus came about, she laid her course for a position to the northward of a coming battle, but the situation suddenly became complicated. When the Spanish ships discovered the identity of the ship that was steaming toward them they did not hesitate over their plan of action. With one accord they turned and ran for port. Laughter arose from the Adolphus. The captain broke his orders, and instead of keeping to the northward, he headed in the wake of the impetuous Chancellorville. The correspondents crowded on the bow.

The Spaniards, when their broadsides became visible, were seen to be ships of no importance—mere little gun-boats for work in the shallows at the back of the reefs; and it was certainly discreet to refuse encounter with the 5-inch guns of the Chancellorville. But the joyful Adolphus took no account of this discretion. The pursuit of the Spaniards had been so ferocious that the quick change to heels-over-head flight filled that corner of the mind which is devoted to the spirit of revenge. It was this that moved Shackles to yell taunts futilely at the faraway ships. "Well, how do you like it, eh? How do you like it?" The Adolphus was drinking compensation for her previous agony.

The mountains of the shore now shadowed high into the sky, and the square white houses of a town could be seen near a vague cleft which seemed to mark the entrance to a port. The gunboats were now near to it.

Suddenly white smoke streamed from the bow of the Chancellorville and developed swiftly into a great bulb which drifted in fragments down the wind. Presently the deep-throated boom of the gun came to the ears on board the Adolphus. The shot kicked up a high jet of water into the air astern of the last gunboat. The black smoke from the funnels of the cruiser made her look like a collier on fire, and in her desperation she tried many more long shots, but presently the Adolphus, murmuring disappointment, saw the Chancellorville sheer from the chase.

In time they came up with her, and she was an indignant ship. Gloom and wrath was on the forecastle, and wrath and gloom was on the quarter-deck. A sad voice from the bridge said, "Just missed 'em." Shackles gained permission to board the cruiser, and in the cabin he talked to Lieutenant-Commander Surrey, tall, bald-headed and angry.

"Shoals," said the captain of the Chancellorville, "I can't go any nearer, and those gunboats could steam along a stone sidewalk if only it was wet." Then his bright eyes became brighter. "I tell you what! The Chicken, the Holy Moses, and the Mongolian are on station off Nuevitas. If you will do me a favor—why, to-morrow I will give those people a game!"