It was on a wet Friday morning; we were scrubbing deck paintwork when the "wheel" sang out, "Steamer ahoy!"
This was unusual, and all hands were astonished at the closeness of a cloud of smoke that was tearing toward us from somewhere to windward. Captain Nichols came out on deck and got the long telescope to bear. He pronounced her a cruiser.
She was coming for us fast; suddenly she altered her course fully four points and came in under our stern. She was a dirty white, streaked with rust, a fair-sized armored cruiser, two funnels with a military mast between them.
"Break out the ensign, Mr. Zerk. Might as well show her who we are." Indeed, the cruiser was reading our name and hailing-port on the broad transom in letters of shining gold.
"She's a Spaniard, one of them has a mast between two funnels," someone said. I remembered this, having in mind the pictures of the Spanish ships in West Indian waters, published in the magazines while we were in Honolulu.
"All out for Barcelona!" shouted the mate. The ensign went up, and we dipped. The cruiser ran up the Argentine colors, answered our salute and resumed her course.
"Hey, you loafers, get back on that paint work; this ain't no Spanish prison!"
Of course we all grinned at the great humor of the joke, and began to rub with our brick dust rags; the starboard watch went below at once, for it was unhealthy to be seen standing around on deck during a watch below. We all knew that the afternoon below would soon be gone and hoped to stall off the day of doom as long as possible.