THE SPANISH FLEET COMES OUT 379 and that he gave his orders calmly and deliberately. "You have done your work well, pilot," he said to Lopez;"Ihope you willcome out of this safe, and that you will be well rewarded. Youhave earnedit."

gathered more way than her consorts, came rushing in between the two other battleships.

The Oregon held her fire as shedrove past them, but as her bigbow guns cleared the line of the Iowa'supperworks, she fired her starboard guns, the shells passing just over the forward deck of her neighbour. The other cruisers, steering in the wake of the Maria Teresa, came on with an interval of about 600 yards betweeneach ship. The speed had been ten knots through the narrows. As they gained the sea the engines were put to full speed, and as each ship cleared the headlands she opened fire. Theguns of Socapa andMorro joined in the cannonade, but, unluckily for the Spaniards, their fire was as ineffective as it had been on previous occasions. Between the Oquendo— the last of the cruisers— and the torpedo boats there was a gap of about threequarters of a mile, or between four and fiveminutes in time at the rate at which the squadron ran out. From the moment of the first alarm till the Pluton, the last of the squadron, shot out from behind the Morro Point,less than a quarter of an hour hadpassed.

The Brooklyn had,like the rest, headed for Morro. She had very littlesteam up andmoved slowly, and Schley saw that if he held on his course he ran a risk of being rammedby the Maria Teresa or the Cristobal Colon, both of which wererushing westward ata higher speed than he could yet command. He starboarded his helm, turningfirst eastward, then south,and finally westward again. While he swept round in this circle, the battleships came up between him and the land. But til! they masked his fire he kept everygun going that could be brought to bear on the Spaniards, then he joined in the chase, firinghis forward guns. The great speed of his fine armoured cruiser enabled him soon to range up abreast of the Oregon, which had at once got and kept the leaelof the other battleship. These were busy, anxious minutes for the American fleet. In the absence of Admiral Sampson and the New York, the Brooklyn was the flagship,and Schley was in command of the actualfighting force. The signal flags rose and fell flutteringon theBrooklyn's halyards,but the captains of the blockading fleet had so fullythought out what was to be done in such an emergency that they were ready to act, where need be, each on his own initiative. They showed ready resource and good seamanship. Without these there might wellhave been disastrousresult-, as the huge ships rushed with all the speed theycouldgather to hanga- do might be on the flank of the escaping enemy.

And most of them laboured under the serious disadvantage ofhaving verylittlesteam to work with. They first headed for the opening of the harbour, thestokers below workinglikemadmen to get their furnaces well ablaze,and the gunners in the barbettes and forward batteries sending their shells screaming towards the Spanish squadron. Then as it wasseen that theenemy's ■was westward, the Americans turned on the same course, this change bringing some of the battleships into dangerous proximity to each other. The Texas and the Iowa had been running at first towards theland on a convergingcourse. Wrapped in the smoke of their big guns, their bows were perilously near, and as they sheered off from each other, the Oi which had been following theIowa,but hadnow The New York, seven miles away to the eastward,heard the roarof gun-- and turned to join in the fight, in whichit was the Admiral's m:sfortune to have a very small share. The Ericsson ran back besideher. But before they were even abreastof MorroCastle the fate of some of the enemy's ships haelbeen decided. Close inte> the shore between Morro and Aguadores lay the gunboat Gloucester. She was a small steel steamer, built for speed. Before the war she had been a pleasure yacht, the Corsair, the propert) ol Mr. Pierpont Morgan. Shehadbeen bought by the United States Government, renamed, and fitted as a despatch boat, armed with some small quick-firers— six- and threepounder guns. Her captain was one of the smartest officers 111 the American navy, Commander W. Wainwright, who had been second in commandof the Maine when she blew up in Havana Harbour. He showed that day that a yacht, well handled, may prove herself a formidablefighting ship. He hail opened tire on the cruisers as they came out,but realising that his small gunscould dothem little harm, andrightly conjecturing that the torpedo boats wouldtollow the larger craft, he kept his station, waitingfor them to appear. He almost stoppedhis engines, holding on towards Morro, reckless of the risk he ran of being sunk by the shore batteries.

The pressure on the boilers rose so rapidly that