And then the mighty guns of the Brooklyn and Oregon roared out swifter than ever, and the Vizcaya, doing her best to sink one or the other of the American warships, was raked as if passing through a blizzard of fire, until her men were forced again and again from their posts, and at last the guns were abandoned. Then fire caught the craft in its awful embrace, and rolling from side to side, she, too, sought for a harbor of refuge, but found none. Down came her colors, and at the same instant she struck with a crash on the rocks. The fight had started at quarter to ten. Now it was but quarter past eleven,—just an hour and a half,—and all the Spanish ships but one had been destroyed. Such is the appalling swiftness of modern naval warfare. Where in olden days jack tars had fought for hours, they now fought for minutes.
But the destruction of the Vizcaya had taken time, and the Colon was forging onward, panting and throbbing like a thing of life trying to escape from unspeakable terrors. Down in the bowels of the warship the furnaces were at a white heat, and the engineers had long since pushed their engines far past the danger point. "Faster! faster!" came the cry from the deck and tower. "It will be better to blow up than to allow the Yankee pigs to sink us. We must save at least one ship!" And the engines pounded and quivered, threatening each instant to blow into a million pieces. For once Don Quixote was making the run of his life.
Unable to stand the heat, Walter had obtained permission to lay off for a few minutes and get some fresh air. A look from the spar deck had showed him the Colon dashing far ahead, enveloped in a thin line of smoke. Every few seconds a flash of fire would come from her stern guns, but the marksmanship was poor and no serious damage was done to the Brooklyn.
The boy returned to his gun to find Caleb and the others in deep perplexity. Something was wrong with a shell, and it had become wedged in the gun and could not be pushed forward to its proper place or hauled back. "We can't use Polly any more!" groaned Caleb.
"I'll fix her!" cried Si Doring, and caught up a rammer. In a moment the brave Yankee lad was crawling out over the smoking piece toward the muzzle. But he had scarcely reached the outward end of the gun than the Brooklyn gave a lurch and down he slipped over the side and into space!
CHAPTER XXX
FINAL SCENES OF THE GREAT FIGHT
"Si has fallen overboard!"
The cry came from half a dozen throats at once, and Walter's heart almost stopped beating, so attached had he become to the Yankee lad.