the
half-hours.

Interesting, however, as Key West harbor might seem in the daytime, it
was far more beautiful and impressive at night. One clear, still
evening late in May, when the rosy flush of the short tropical twilight
had faded, and the Sand Key beacon began to glow faintly, like a setting
planet, on the darkening horizon in the west, I went up on the
hurricane-deck alone and looked about the harbor. The city, the
war-ships, and the massive square outlines of Fort Taylor had all
vanished in the gathering darkness and gloom, but in their places were
rows, clusters, and constellations innumerable of steadily burning
lights. A long, slender shaft of bluish radiance streamed out from the
corner of Fort Taylor, widening as it extended seaward, until it struck
and illuminated with a sort of ghostly phosphorescence the whitish hull
of a gunboat stealing noiselessly into the harbor from the direction of
the Cuban coast. The strange craft hung out a perpendicular string of
red and white lights, which winked solemnly once or twice, changed color
two or three times, and then vanished. A second search-light from the
monitor _Miantonomoh_ sent another slender electric ray of inquiry in
the direction of the intruder, as if still doubtful of its character;
but when the straight blue sword of the Fort Taylor search-light rose to
the clouds and fell to the water three times, as if striking a whole
league of ocean three successive and measured blows, the _Miantonomoh_
understood that all was well, and her own search-light left the gunboat
and swept across the starry sky overhead like the tail of a huge blue
comet swinging at its perigee around a darkened sun.

In a moment the monitor itself hung out a string of lights which winked,
changed color, vanished, reappeared, and again vanished, leaving only a
red light at the masthead. In a moment an answering signal-rocket was
thrown up by an invisible war-ship in the direction of Fort Taylor, and
instantly two powerful search-lights were focused upon a pale, whitish
object, far out at sea, which looked in the bluish, ghostly glare like
the mainsail of the _Flying Dutchman_. Before I had time to form a
conjecture as to the significance of these mysterious signals and
apparitions, I was startled by a sudden flash and the thunder of a heavy
gun from the darkness ahead; and away out at sea, in the strip of green
water illuminated by the search-lights, a heavy projectile plunged into
the