raw the fire of the
Spanish batteries on the water-front. The _Wilmington_ took a range of
about twenty-five hundred yards.

The Cardenas land defences consisted of a battery in a stone fortification
on the mole or quay, a battery of field-pieces, and of infantry armed with
long-range rifles. The gunboats were equipped with rapid-fire guns.

Firing commenced at one o'clock, and when the Cardenas batteries were
silenced at two in the afternoon, the _Wilmington_ had sent 376 shells
into them and the town. Her 4-inch guns had been fired 144 times. She had
aimed 122 shots from her 6-pounders, and 110 from her 1-pounders, over six
shots a minute.

When the _Wilmington_ ceased firing she had moved up to within one
thousand yards range of the Spanish guns, and there were only six inches
of water under her keel. The _Wilmington_ draws nine feet of water forward
and ten and a half feet aft. When the soundings showed that she was almost
touching, her guns were in full play, and the Spaniards had missed a
beautiful opportunity. The Spanish gunners must have miscalculated her
distance and misjudged her draught, else they would have done more
effective work at a range of two thousand yards.

During the engagement, when the commander of the _Winslow_ found that he
could not approach close enough to the Spanish gunboats to use his
torpedo-tubes to any advantage, he remained under fire. At that time he
could have got out of harm's way by taking shelter to the leeward of the
_Wilmington_.

Captain Todd, from his post of duty in the conning-tower of the
_Wilmington_, saw a Spanish shell, aimed for the torpedo-boat, do its
deadly work. The shell struck the water, took an up-shoot, and exploded on
the deck of the _Winslow_. There is little room for men anywhere on a
torpedo boat, and if a shot strikes at all it is almost sure to hit a
group. Such was the case in the _Winslow_. The exploding shell cost the
lives of Ensign Bagley and four seamen; it also crippled the craft by
wrecking her steam-steering gear. Later her captain and one of his crew
were wounded by separate shots.

[Illustration: THE TRAGEDY OF THE WINSLOW.]

Ensign Bagley was killed outright, two of the group of five died on the
deck of the disabled torpedo-boat, and the other two died while being
removed to the _Wilmington_.

The signal, "Many wounded," went up from the staff of the _Winslow_, and
Passed Assistant Surgeon Cook of the _Wilmington_ boarded the
torpe