ght.

The lieutenant had no more than given his orders when an interruption,
startling and unwelcome, occurred. He had been anxiously scanning the
outlines of the fortifications and congratulated himself that no
movement was visible in that quarter. The Spaniards were napping, he
thought, and all was well.

But the reverse was the case, as he quickly discovered. No sooner had
one of the sailors began to saw away at the cable than suddenly and
without warning a shower of bullets rained around them in the water and
the ominous boom of a cannon from the shore told they had been
discovered.

"A masked battery to the left!" cried Clif. "They have ambushed us!"

This was true. The fortifications which had alone received the
lieutenant's attention remained silent, while from the left a concealed
battery kept up a raking fire upon the small boat and the intrepid crew.

The Spaniards had not yet gotten the range, it is true, but it was a
tight place to be in--in an open boat, unarmed, helpless and exposed to
the raking fire from shore.

But the men in that boat were full of nerve. Not once did they falter
while shells and shot whistled and burst over their heads, beyond them
and even among them.

"Hurry up, Wilson," cried the lieutenant to the sailor sawing the cable.
"That cable must be cut before we leave the spot."

"Ay, ay, sir," responded the other. "If it kills every man of us!"

It began to look as if that would be their fate. The Spanish shot and
shell, which at first fell harmlessly into the water, now dropped nearer
and nearer. Clif heard an awful buzzing and whizzing sound in the air,
and seemed to feel something hit him in the face and head. It was not
his first time under fire, and he knew that a shell had passed near
them.

The fire from shore increased in rapidity and with more accuracy. From
another quarter, a jut of land nearer to the boat, came a fusilade from
Mauser rifles, and their bullets passed near the heads of the American
crew.

It was a hot place, but the men worked coolly on, determined that their
orders should be executed at all hazards. By rapid work one piece of the
cable was cut, but that was not enough. Another cut must be made at
least fifty feet away, so that the Spaniards could not repair it by
splicing. As the last strands parted and the free end of the cable fell
back into the water, it was discovered that the sailor held the shore
end in his grasp, and that to complete their w