The American fleet was yet five miles distant, when from the arsenal came a flame and report; but the missile was not to be seen. Another shot from Cavite, and then was strung aloft on the Olympia a line of tiny flags, telling by the code what was to be the American battle-cry: “Remember the Maine,” and from the throat of every man on the incoming ships went up a shout of defiance and exultation that the moment was near at hand when the dastardly deed done in the harbour of Havana might be avenged.
Steaming steadily onward were the huge vessels, dropping astern and beyond range the transports as they passed opposite Cavite Point, until, having gained such a distance above the city as permitted of an evolution, the fleet swung swiftly around until it held a course parallel with the westernmost shore, and distant from it mayhap six thousand yards.
Every nerve was strained to its utmost tension; each man took a mental grip upon himself, believing that he [pg 72]stood face to face with death; but no cheek paled; no hand trembled save it might have been from excitement.
The ships were coming down on their fighting course when a shell from one of the shore-batteries burst over the Olympia; the guns from the fort and from the water-batteries vomited jets of flame and screaming missiles with thunderous reports; every man on the American fleet save one believed the moment had come when they should act their part in the battle which had been begun by the enemy; but up went the signal:
“Hold your fire until close in.”
Had the American fleet opened fire then, the city of Manila would have been laid in ashes and thousands of non-combatants slain.
The Olympia was yet two miles from Cavite when, directly in front of the Baltimore, a huge shaft of water shot high into the air, and with a heavy booming that drowned the reports of the Spanish guns.
“The torpedoes!” some one on the Olympia said, in a low tone, with an indrawing of the breath; but it was as if Dewey did not hear. With Farragut in Mobile Bay he had seen the effects of such engines of destruction, and, like Farragut, he gave little heed to that which might in a single instant send his vessel to the bottom, even as the Maine had been sent.
Then, so near the Raleigh as to send a flood across her decks, another spouting of water, another dull roar, and the much vaunted mines of the Spaniards in Manila Bay had been exploded.
