THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR. 328 machine gun in her bows ran close in to the shore and tried to enfilade the enemy, but still the firing went on. Only that the guerillas were such bad marksmen, the marines on the hill wouldhave lost heavily.

mutilation after death. AdmiralSampson, without further inquiry, gave official sanction to the report. " Outpost of four marines killed and their bodiesbarbarously mutilated," washis cable message to Washington. Immediately there was a loudoutcryagainstSpanish savagery. Cervera's courtesyin the affair of the Merrimac had led to expressions of kindly feeling towards the Spaniards. The news from Guantanamo caused a violent reaction,and might easily have led to a cry for no quarter in the Cuban war. Oneleading newspaper declared that,after such a deed as this, the extermination of every Spaniard in the island would be a service to At sunrise onSunday morning theMarblehead signalled from the bay that there was a mass of the enemy to theright of the camp,apparently regular infantry. She shelled their positionand thenretired. Half an hour later the battleship Texas arrived from before Santiago, and her captaingave timely help to the wearygarrison of the camp by landing a party of his marines whohad had oodnight's rest. Theybrought SKETCH MAP OF THE COUNTRY NEAR SANTIAGO.

humanity. A few days later, however, expert reports from the surgeons proved that the bodies had not been injured except by the Mauser bullets.

with them two Coltmachineguns. These were mounted in a trench on the ridge. Colonel Huntington had decided to withdraw his camp to the slope of the hill,keepingonly a firing line on the crest, as the tents on the hill formed too conspicuous a mark for theSpanishsharpshooters. The enemy kept up a desultory fire all day. It was not evenstopped by the interventionot the big guns of the Texas and theMarblehead, which shelled the woods during the morning. The enemy's riflemen even replied to tl.e artillery with their Mausers, bullets came whistling over the decks of the two ships, and the Cuban pilot of the Marbleheadwas wounded.

To return to the story of the skirmish. The firing went on all through the night. Surgeon Gibbs, attached to the marine battalion, was killed in the camp, but the only other casualty was one man wounded. The Spaniards kept under cover, only showing themselves once when soon after midnight they tried to rush the ridge. No one could sleep with the continually crackling fire of rifles and the whistle and patter of falling bullets, and there were endless narrow escapes. The warships turned their searchlights on the bush. The marines, lying down on the crest, fired at the flickeringflashes of the Mausers ; a steam launch with a It was very rarely that the enemy hidden in the trees could be seen even with the keen anxious eyes and powerful field glasses and telescopes that searched the bush from the shipsand