FACE TO FACE ..WITH DEATH. 195 an officer of the United States Intelligence Department, rushed back to his cabin, probably to secure some valuable papers, and was never seen again. Another officer, Assistant-Engineer Merritt, was swept overboard and drowned.

the ship's bottom. But there were other magazinesin the after part,and the men whose duty it was went bravely down into the ship andletin the water,to removethisdanger. In those three minutes help had come from Americans and Spaniards. Both the warship Vizcaya and the City of Washington had turned on their electric searchlights and lowered away their boats. The first two lowered from the liner were found to be so riddled with flying debris from the Maine that they were dangerously leaky. Other boats put off from the wharves. All of them were soon busy taking the men off the stern part of the Maine, or picking up survivors, many of them badly injured, out of the water. Most of the wounded were taken on board the City of Washington, where they werelaidon mattresses placed on the deck as soon as the cabins were full. Others were conveyed to the Spanish warship and to the shore. The fire brigade had, on the first alarm, turned out with its engines,expecting to have to grapple with some disaster on land. The men had pushed on to the wharves,and, trained as they are to handle wounded men, these Havana firemen proved very useful in the transportof the injured sailors to the hospital. MarshalBlanco himself was on the wharf superintending their removal. The captain of the Alfonso XII and his surgeons werealso most helpful. Ifa Spanish hand dealt the blow, there were other Spaniards who did their duty well and bravely that night in succouring the victims.

But what of the crew, more than three hundredstrong? Agoodhalfof them wereeither blown to fragments or killed by the shock,by thestunningblow,as theylay in their hammocks. The divers who subsequently examined the wreck found man after man lying with his hammock around or under him, and his hands raised above his head, roused (it would seem) from sleep by the first shock, and then killed as he lay instinctively stretching out his hands to grasp the hammock and turn out. Others, more fortunate, found themselves awake and afloat in the dark water. One man who was at work on one of the lower decks was hurled through the air into the bay and escaped uninjured, the iron deck above him havingopened withthe blast that dr,ove him upward. Of the men on duty on deck, all who were in front of the funnels were gone. From the after stoke-hold and from the part of the men's quarters forward that had escaped total destruction somesixty men rushed on deck. And to the honour of the American navy be it said there was no panic orconfusion. Though they hardly knew what was happening around them, and only felt that they were face to face with death, the half-dazed handful of survivors hurried towardstheirposts andpromptly obeyed Sigsbee's call to lower away the only two boats that had escaped damage and save life; and they only left the burning wreck when they heard their officer's orders to enter the boats.

The last to leave the wrecked and burning cruiser was Captain Sigsbee. The second last wasFather Chidwick, a Catholic priest, whowas the chaplain of the Maine. They both made their way to the American steamer ;and while the priest joined the surgeons in helping the wounded and dying, the Captain put himself in communication withFitzhughLee,theAmerican consul, and with the Spanish governor, and sent a short despatch by wire to Washington. It was a despatch that showed how calmly he could face the terrible situation that the disaster had created. General Blanco was so stricken with grief at the dread tragedy that no one could suppose he had any part in treachery,if treachery there was. But while for the moment all thought only of accident as the cause of the explosion,it was clear that it was capable of an interpretation thatmight well makeit the cause of all but instant war. So braveSigsbeein this first brief message spoke only of accident, and In three minutes the Maine had sunk under the feet of her crew;but as she had only five feet of waterbelow her keel, most of the superstructure remainedabove water. As she went down she heeled over a little to one side,and then righted herself. The forward military mast had gone overthe side with the explosion, but the other mast was standing. So werethe two tall funnels (or " smoke-stacks," as the Americans call them). All in front of the funnels was a raging mass of flame, burning fiercely. There was,for a brief interval,danger of further explosions. In the fore part of the ship,it is true that whatever had not gone up in the blast of fire had been flooded by the waterthat poured in through the great rent in