"There are the destroyers! The Pluton and Furor! Our ships are not speedy enough to keep out of their way! Now is the Spaniard's chance to pay for the loss of the Teresa!"
Teddy had heard of these torpedo-boats, and knew what it was possible for them to do unless, perchance, they might be checked at long range, and yet the commanders of the Yankee battle-ships apparently gave no heed to the dangerous enemies which had been designed for the sole purpose of destroying such as they.
Straight toward the Brooklyn these formidable craft were headed, and the stowaway involuntarily cried aloud in terror, for was not his father on board that vessel which appeared to be in such peril?
Then, coming up swiftly, as a hawk darts out upon its prey, the lad saw the little yacht Gloucester swim directly inshore to meet these mighty engines of destruction, when one well-directed shot from their guns would have sent her to the bottom, crushed out of all semblance of a vessel.
At that moment Teddy and Bill Jones saw what much resembled the attack of a fly upon two huge spiders.
The tiny Gloucester steamed straight down upon the destroyers, cutting them off from their intended prey, and pelting them with shells from her small 6-pounders, but doing the work with such accuracy and precision of aim that it seemed as if the battle was no more than begun before these two mighty machines turned toward the shore to follow the Teresa, but sinking even while one could say they were beaten.
"Hurrah for Wainwright! Bully little Gloucester!"
Two hundred voices rose high with shouts of triumph and exultation that the Yankee gunners had not only done their work well, but with bravery such as could not be excelled, and meanwhile the big ships went tearing madly on lest the Vizcaya, the Cristobal Colon, and the Almirante Oquendo, all that were left of the Spanish fleet, should escape them.
The Iowa and the Texas had selected the Vizcaya as their prey, and while the remainder of the fleet stretched away in pursuit of the other ships, these two cut off the big Spaniard, forcing her to fight whether she liked or not.