every bridge, whose eyes were never for an instant taken from the harbor of Santiago. Within half an hour smoke had been seen between the hills to the west of the harbor-the hills of Socapa point and Smith Cay, the island a half

mile inside, behind which the Spanish squadron lay. The smoke had bulged its black head to view for only a moment, but a glimpse was enough for the lookouts, whose eager wish for the honor of first reporting the coming of the enemy had stirred them so that on the Texas the signal flags "2-5-0," which should announce the news, were kept bent to the halyards, which a man held in hand, and the bulldog Oregon was prepared to growl by keeping a man at a loaded six-pounder with his finger on the trigger. At 9.30 the squadron lay at perfect ease, but with eyes wide open. At 9.31 the sharp bow of a Spanish cruiser was seen by every lookout on our ships, cleaving the water from behind Smith Cay, and on the instant every man of them bawled "The fleet's coming out," while the quartermas ter on the Texas clawed his halyards to get his signal flags aloft, and the Oregon's gunner pulled the trigger of the lean six-pounder and fired the first shot of the battle. And then before the echo of that shot had come back from the hills. or ever the signals on the Texas had reached her truck, the electric gongs on every ship were clanging the call to clear ship for action, the officers on every bridge were jingling the bells in the engine-room for full speed ahead, and shouting to the engineers the inspiring news, while the men, breaking from the lines in which they had formed for inspection, ran, yelling for

within the closing coil of the Yankee squadron. Over to the east, and nearest of all, the Indiana, "with screws whitening the water astern" was heading for the Morro. A sixpounder on her superstructure, like that on the Oregon, awoke the echoes, and then the guns of every battery alongshore flamed in an attack upon her and all our ships to help the flying Spaniards. In five seconds more the Maria Teresa, still heading to the south to round the off-shore shoal, fired a great gun at the Brooklyn and a full broadside at the Indiana. The water around the Indiana, "was alive with the fall of projectiles," both from the shore batteries and the Spanish ship.

The guns of our entire squadron roared in reply, and then with her helm hard over, the Maria Teresa, with increasing speed, turned to the west to enter the pitiless gauntlet prepared for her; but hope was not yet lost, or ended. In her wake, at intervals of 800 yards, came the Vizcaya the Colon and the Oquendo, every one a terror in its physical strength and who could say what these combined might not accomplish?

With her first round the Indiana drove more than one projectile into the broadside of the Maria Teresa, but the Spaniard fled to the west, and the Indiana turned her guns upon the others in quick succession. "As the Viz