h-west, directly for the
spot where the _Covadonga_ was creeping along under the land, and Jim
could see the dull red glare above their funnels which showed that the
stokers were coaling up vigorously.

Condell now shouted down the voice-tube to the engine-room, ordering the
staff to let him have as much steam as the boilers would carry, and rang
for full speed at the same time. The little gunboat began to quiver
from stem to stern, from truck to keel, under the increased pulsations
of the throbbing screw, while the curl of white water at her bows
gradually crept higher and still higher up her stem as her speed
increased, until she swept along at her best pace of about nine knots in
the hour.

As she ran down the coast the _Huascar_ and the _Union_ both pointed
their bows more and more shoreward, as if to cut off the gunboat; and it
began to look very much as though there was no hope for the _Covadonga_,
when suddenly another rocket, blue this time, soared up from the
monitor, and she described a wide circle seaward once more, her consort
following her example. Jim immediately guessed that Admiral Grau had,
like a prudent man, had a leadsman at work on board his ship, and that
the Peruvian skipper had suddenly found himself in danger of running
aground through standing so close inshore.

The two hostile warships then eased down to half-speed, and kept on a
course parallel with the shore, and at a distance of about a mile away
from it. As the _Covadonga_ herself was obliged, by reason of shoals
and sunken reefs, to keep at a distance of quite half a mile from the
beach, this left her an avenue of escape just about half a mile in
width. But although the _Huascar_ and the _Union_ could not approach
closer than eight or nine hundred yards from the gunboat, she would
still have to run the gauntlet of their fire, and they could easily
destroy her, by gun-fire alone, at six times that distance. There did
not appear to be very much hope for the _Covadonga_, thought Jim, unless
she could somehow manage to disable her antagonists--a very unlikely
contingency, owing to the smallness of her guns, or unless a Chilian
ship should happen to be in the neighbourhood and be attracted to the
spot by the sound of the firing which was bound to open in a few
minutes.

When the _Covadonga_ had approached to within about a mile of the
Peruvian ironclads, Jim saw the _Huascar_ go about and heave-to, with
her bows pointing to the south