taff. Two
other tugs followed the example of the first one.

But could the enemy have taken the three little tugs for torpedo-boats?
It seemed so, for suddenly a shell, which touched the surface of the
water twice, whizzed past and hit the first steamer amidships just below
the funnel. And while the little vessel was still enveloped by the black
smoke caused by the bursting of the shell, her bow and stern rose high
out of the water and she sank immediately, torn in two. The thunder of
the shot sounded far over the water and found an echo among the houses
at Corpus Christi.

"Now they're even shooting at the ambulance flag," roared Ben Wood, who
was rushing about on the deck of the _President Cleveland_ and exhorting
the crew to hoist the anchor as fast as possible so as to get out to the
field of battle. But as the boiler-fires were low, this seemed to take
an eternity.

At last, about three o'clock in the afternoon, they succeeded in
reaching a spot where a few hundred men were clinging to the floating
wreckage. The rest had been attended to by the enemy's shots, the sea
and the sharks.

The enemy had wasted only a few shots on the transport-steamers, as a
single well-aimed explosive shell was quite sufficient to entirely
destroy one of the merchant-vessels, and the battle with the _Olympia_
had lasted only a very short time, as the distance had evidently been
too great to enable the American shots to reach the enemy. That was the
end of the _Olympia_, Admiral Dewey's flag-ship at Cavite! The two
smaller cruisers had been shot to pieces just as rapidly.

The results of this unexpected setback were terribly disheartening,
since all idea of a flank attack on the Japanese positions in the South
had to be abandoned.

* * * * *

But where had the two _Dreadnoughts_ come from? They had not been seen
by a living soul until they had appeared in the roads of Corpus Christi.
They had risen from the sea for a few hours, like an incarnation of the
ghostly rumors of flying squadrons of Japanese cruisers, and they had
disappeared from the field of action just as suddenly as they had come.
If it had not been for the cruel reality of the destruction of the
transport fleet, no one would soon have believed in the existence of
these phantom ships. But the frenzied fear of the inhabitants of the
coast-towns cannot well take the form of iron and steel, and nightmares,
no matter how vivid, cannot prod