go forth--"They come--they
come!" The greatest confusion prevailed. There was no organization, no
discipline; everybody for himself, and all running at the cry
of--"They come!"

One morning about ten o'clock the hostile fleet did come.

XVII.

THE BARBARIAN MEETS HIS INGOMAR.

A heavy fog was clearing from the sea, when from out of the mist rose
the black hull and conning tower of the Cochrane. The senior officers
of the flagship stood grouped on the starboard rail. The wind changed
suddenly to the west, and, as it changed, it rolled up patches of the
fog and revealed the black hull and conning tower of the Enlado. A
heavy cloud of smoke poured from their funnels; decks cleared for
action when they should put into practice the desperate objects of
their existence.

A boat was lowered from the flagship and rowed to the wharf of
Mollendo by sturdy Chileans, while an officer bore a message to the
Prefecto for all noncombatants to leave the city, as bombardment would
begin in an hour.

As the boat was leaving, it was fired upon. Then the ear-splitting
reports which followed showed how the flagship took this breach of the
rules of war. There was the rushing swishing sound, the terrifying
screech of projectiles passing through the air, followed by terrific
explosions and the crash of falling buildings.

In the city, pandemonium reigned. Men and women with blanched faces,
were fleeing to the hills. Others threw themselves upon the ground,
too terror-stricken to move. I heard a voice at my elbow calling in
English. It was the voice of a woman, young and fair. "This way," said
I, and we hurried toward the massive rock from whose summit I had
watched the battle of the Huascar and Amythist two years before.

"We are safe now," I said, as we stood behind the thousands of tons of
granite, "safe as if we were behind the rock of Gibraltar."

"Oh, mother, sister and Mr. Robinson--heaven help them at this hour!"
she exclaimed. A shell struck a stone building and exploded by
impact; fragments screamed like a panther in the air.

The young woman's face was blanched to a death-like pallor, but she
was calm, and, kneeling by my side, she asked God to help us. Aloud
she prayed, a beautiful, impressive prayer, one that must have gone
straight to the throne of heaven and received its answer, for soon the
wind shifted and those belching volcanoes of the sea were curtained by
the fog; the firing ceased.

We hurried to her