"I reckon not, Teddy; but if I've made a mistake in holdin' off, it was done through fear I might speak too soon."
"Don't think I'm blamin' you," the boy replied, quickly, pressing his comrade's arm in a friendly fashion. "If you never did anything more, I'd feel as if you'd been mighty good to me, for I couldn't have run across many sailors who'd lay themselves out to help a stowaway."
"That part of it is—"
Bill Jones was interrupted by a shout,—Teddy will never know who uttered it, or what the words were,—and instantly, without the slightest apparent cause, all was seeming confusion on board the ship.
It was to the lad as if the very air bristled with excitement; he saw men darting here and there, heard sharp, quick words of command, and as if at the very same instant, the Texas seemed to leap forward with a bound, huge clouds of black smoke suddenly pouring out of her stacks.
"The Spaniards! The Spaniards!" Bill Jones yelled in the lad's ear, at the same time pointing toward the entrance to the harbour, from out of which could be seen the dark hull of an enemy's ship.
It was as if in that small fraction of time very much took place.
Teddy saw long lines of signal-flags run up to the Brooklyn's masthead; he heard the roar of a 6-pounder as the Iowa fired the first shot at the foe, and understood, rather than saw, that every vessel in the squadron was under a full head of steam almost immediately.
At one instant the blockading squadron lay motionless and apparently lifeless off the harbour, rocking lazily on the long swell, and then, before one could speak, as it were, every listless hull was a war machine, quivering with life, and pouring forth deadly shot and shell.
The transformation was so sudden and complete that it is little wonder Teddy and Bill Jones stood transfixed with astonishment until the chase was well under way.