e two vessels lay, the one broadside to the other,
the Americans making signals which were unanswered; but the nameless
ship had now hundreds of men about her decks, and these were at the
machine-guns and elsewhere active in preparation. It became plain that
her captain had made up his mind to some plan, for the great hull swung
round slowly, and passed at a moderate speed past the bow of the other.
When she was nearly clear, her two great guns were fired almost
simultaneously, and, as the shells swept along the deck of the cruiser,
they carried men and masts and deck-houses with them, in one devilish
confusion of wreckage and of death. To such an onslaught there was no
answer. The cruiser was utterly unprepared for the treachery, and lay
reeling on the sea; screams and fearful cries coming from her decks,
now quivering under a torrent of fire as her opponent treated her to
the hail of her machine-guns.

The battle could have ended but in one way, had not the other American
warships now come so close to us that they opened fire with their great
guns. The huge shells hissed over our heads, and all about us, plunging
into the sea with such mighty concussions that fountains of green water
arose in twenty places, and the near surface of the Atlantic became
turbulent with foam. Such a powerful onslaught could have been resisted
by no single vessel, and, seeing that he was like to be surrounded, the
captain of the nameless ship, which had already been struck three times
in her armour, fired twice from his turrets, and then headed off at
that prodigious speed he had shown in the beginning of his flight. In
five minutes he was out of gun-shot; in ten, the American vessels were
taking men from their crippled cruiser, whose antagonists had almost
disappeared on the horizon!

Upon our own decks the noise and hubbub were almost deafening. From a
state of nervous tension and doubt our men had passed to a state of
joy. Half of them were for going aboard the damaged vessels at once;
half for getting under weigh and moving from such dangerous waters. Our
talk upon the quarter-deck soon brought us to the first-named course,
and we put out a boat with ease upon the still sea, and hailed the
passenger steamer after twenty minutes' stout rowing. She was yet a
pitiful spectacle; for as we drew near to her, I could see women
weeping hysterically on the seats aft, and men alternately helping them
and looking over in the direction whence the