Directly she hove in sight Jim signalled to the Miraflores to close up and come alongside him, at a distance of half a cable’s-length away, and both ships quickened up their speed, by such small degrees as to be imperceptible, to nine knots, which was as fast as the cruiser’s consort could steam. Presently a long, dismal wail came floating across the water from the Union, and Douglas saw that she wished to attract his attention to a signal which she had just hoisted.
He at once dived into the chart-house for the signal-book, and presently he and his second lieutenant were poring over it in an effort to read the communication. But, to Jim’s intense annoyance, the signal, when translated, seemed to have no meaning, and he realised that the corvette was making a private and pre-arranged signal, which he was, of course, unable to read.
“Confound it, Aranjuez!” he exclaimed, angrily, to his second lieutenant, “what are we to do now? I did not anticipate this; and if we are not careful he will take alarm and sheer off. I wish I had thought of looking among the papers of the Miraflores’ captain; they might have contained the key to this private signal.”
“Well, señor,” replied the lieutenant, “we must delay making a signal of any sort until the very last moment. Then, when he shows signs of becoming suspicious and sheering off, we will hoist, very slowly, a string of flags meaning nothing in particular. It will take him some little time to decipher the flags; and we shall gain a few minutes while he tries to fathom their meaning from his own private signal-book. We ought, by that time, to be close enough to him for you to be able to open fire effectively if the men will only keep calm and shoot straight. Should we fail to disable him with the first few shots, however, he will be off and we may be unable to catch him again.”
“Precisely! This is the best—the only thing we can do, Aranjuez,” replied Jim, gazing steadily through his telescope at the Union. “I am not afraid of being unable to catch him if he will stick to deep water; but I feel convinced that if he takes the alarm he will be certain to run for shoal water at once. Have you got that bunting ready?” he continued, “for, if so, we had better run up a string of flags; he seems to be slowing down, as though he didn’t altogether like our looks. Quick! bend on and send them up. There, that’s it—not too fast now; not too fast. Ah, he has begun to move again, Aranjuez. Don’t hoist that signal any farther; if he only keeps as he is going for another ten minutes he will be under our guns. Oh, good luck, good luck! he’s coming along at full speed, or I’m a Dutchman!”
Jim was right; the Union was coming along at full speed; yet her captain was not quite such a fool as the young man took him to be. He had seen the two Chilians from his mastheads before they had seen him; and he had been watching them closely ever since; with the result that he had arrived at the conclusion that some trick was being played on him. But he fell into the error of mistaking the cruiser for the Huemul, and of believing that the crews of both vessels, corrupted by Chilian gold, had seized the ships, after murdering their officers. Villavicencio, therefore, promptly made up his mind to retake the gun-runners, which he felt certain were no longer in Peruvian hands, since his signals remained unanswered; and when he had approached to within a mile and a half of the two Chilian craft, he very much astonished Jim Douglas by opening fire upon him with his heavy 8-inch bow-guns.
Although he could not account for this sudden commencement of hostilities on the part of the Union, Jim on his own part had only been waiting for the proper moment to open fire himself, and now he, in turn, gave Villavicencio a most unpleasant surprise by returning his fire with a very much larger gun than the Peruvian imagined that the Huemul carried. For a few seconds the skipper of the Union hesitated as to whether he should not, even now, turn and run; for, taken altogether, matters seemed to be rather in the nature of an elaborately-laid trap.
But Villavicencio, now that Admiral Grau was dead, was the bravest man in the naval service of Peru; and his hesitation was but momentary. He continued to steam ahead at full speed, but put his helm over to starboard, causing the corvette to swerve slightly to port, and thus presented her whole starboard broadside to the approaching Chilians, who now hauled down the Peruvian flag and hoisted their own ensign. Then, as soon as his broadside guns bore on the enemy, Villavicencio fired, and a storm of shot and shell came flying round the Angamos and her consort, hulling the latter badly, and dismounting two of the recently replaced 12-pounder breech-loaders.
Jim ground his teeth as he saw the terrible execution wrought by the Union’s broadside; and, exhorting his men to keep cool, ordered them to load and fire as fast as they could. Once more the cruiser’s 8-inch gun roared out, sending its vengeful messenger shrieking toward the corvette. The shell struck right at the base of that ship’s foremast, and there exploded, scattering death and destruction all round it. The huge spar remained upright for a second or two, then it swayed slightly forward and to one side; the rigging, which had been badly cut up by fragments of flying shell, suddenly parted; and the mast went over the side with a crash that was plainly audible aboard the Chilian ships; and high above the crash of rending wood rang, loud and painfully clear, the agonised shrieks of the poor maimed wretches who had been crushed by its fall.
“Now’s your time,” shouted Jim, “they are lumbered up with the wreck of the foremast, and will not be able to fire their big gun until they have cleared it away. Fire into her now with every gun that will bear, and keep at it until she strikes. Miraflores ahoy! pass under my stern and take up a position on the Union’s port side when we come level with her; I will engage her to starboard. That’s the style, lads,” he continued enthusiastically, as a couple of 12-pounder shells exploded, one on the corvette’s navigating bridge and the other at the base of her conning-tower,—“that’s the style! Keep it up, and show them how the Chilians fight.”