As one battery after another was silenced, several of the warships elevated their guns still more and put in large charges of powder, and, as a result, one shell was carried far up the harbor to where the Vizcaya lay and burst directly over her deck, doing considerable damage and injuring several sailors and an under-officer.
Presently a terrific explosion rent the air. One of the shots from the Texas had landed in a powder magazine and sent it skyward. The spectacle thus caused was magnificent, and for a moment all in the squadrons watched the timbers, rocks, and dirt as they sailed through the air, some coming down inland and some falling with loud splashes into the sea.
"That's a shot worth making!" cried Caleb. "Hurrah for the man as trained that gun!"
And the cheer was given with a will.
CHAPTER XXVI
IN WHICH THE ARMY OF INVASION ARRIVES
"Maybe I ain't hot and tired, Walter. I could sleep standing up and go in an ice-house and do it."
It was Si who spoke, as he was washing himself in a bucket of water set on the gun-track. The water had been fresh when Si began his ablutions and was now dirty, but the Yankee youth was still far from clean, for gun smoke and gun dirt have a disagreeable knack of getting into the pores of one's skin.
The bombardment had lasted over an hour and every land battery had been silenced. Yet, as the American ships drew away, one or two guns spat out spitefully after them.