The stranger has drawn near, and is soon made out to be a merchantman, an ocean liner, one of the greyhounds that had plied between New York and Harborport before the outbreak of hostilities. Large volumes of black smoke from her immense smoke-pipes show she has scented danger, and is making all speed to escape.
The young officers in the foretop are thrilled with excitement as their glass shows them the character of the stranger. The younger is a boy of eighteen, his light hair and blue eyes betokening his Saxon ancestry. He is clad in a neat-fitting blue uniform, and his cap set jauntily on the back of his head revealed a mass of light curly locks. With his eyes fairly sparkling, he bears a striking contrast to his companion. Dark and sullen, with lowering eyes and heavy forehead, the other showed not by a single sign that he realizes that in a short time the first and long-cherished battle of his life will be enacted.
The younger lad has dreamed of battles both in his sleep and his waking moments, in which he has cut his way with his sword to honor and distinction. He has oftentimes pictured his friends, his mother, and his sweetheart reading of his heroic deeds in the daily papers of his home, and now it seems to his youthful mind his dreams are to be fulfilled.
As his glass scans the stranger he realizes that in the eyes of naval experts the stranger is nearly equal to the Minneapolis in fighting qualities. He knows that these fast ships have been subsidized by the hostile government, and are heavily armed and protected. His dreams fairly dance before his eyes. But another picture flashes across his mental vision. He is on the battery-deck; the decks are wet and slippery with blood; the terribly mangled dead and wounded are lying all about him; he sees brave men struck down around. A cold shiver runs through his well-knit frame as he shakes from him the ghastly nightmare.
The other lad is not a dreamer. Morose, almost cynical, he never gives himself up to such reveries. To him everything appears in a less gilded light. He knows that if the stranger has not superior speed, his services and his companion's will soon be needed on the deck below.
The two lads scramble down through the hollow mast as the drummers are beating the long-roll to quarters. All during the hot sultry day the chase continues, and when night settles down on the watery waste the Minneapolis is still out of gun-shot astern. The night is bright, and when morning dawns the blood-hound is still upon the trail. The crew of the 8-inch breech-loading rifle on the forecastle is called to quarters, and a shell is sent speeding over the water in the direction of the fleeing ship. Slowly the distance diminishes. Suddenly a white cloud of smoke bursts from the liner, and a heavy shell strikes close aboard the American ship.
All hands are soon at their stations, and in a short time all is in readiness for battle. The stars and stripes at her trucks flaunt a challenge to the enemy's ensign at the Calabria's gaff.
The two ships are now within battle range, and the thunder of their heavy ordnance breaks the stillness of the ocean.
Shells go speeding through the unarmored sides of the ships, their explosions making terrific havoc among their unprotected crews. The picture before the midshipman's eyes is now a reality. Tirelessly the two lads work; their guns are next to each other. As they give their commands in sharp decisive voices, the contrast seems less striking. A shell comes in the gun-port and strikes down the captain of the younger lad's gun; the lock-string falls from his lifeless hand. Gently laying the dead man aside, he takes the lanyard.
As he stood at his gun before the heat of action, he was seized with an awful trembling, and he feared lest he might show by his actions the white feather to his men. Then came the bursting of shells and the explosion of discharges, and then the shell striking down his gun-captain, spluttering his life-blood all about him. At once his fears left him, his eyes brightened, and a terrible anger awoke in him, the like of which he had never known. He fired his gun at the enemy with a fierce exultancy, wondering in a cruel way how many lives the shell had cut down. It seems ages since the battle started. With his eyes always on the enemy, he is spared from seeing his friend, struck by a flying splinter, being carried below to the surgeons. He sees the Calabria, her sides ablaze with fire, sweep majestically across his small horizon, and then disappear. He is always aware of her awful presence from the never-ceasing bursting of her shells around him. Then again she appears, and is once more in his angle of fire. During this small space of time his gun has done all that could be expected; he has watched shell after shell from it explode aboard the enemy; he can see large rents in her black hull, and he notices her fire is becoming more desultory; the fight will soon be over. As she disappears again, he musters up courage to look about him. There is but little life on the battery-deck, that only a half-hour before was the scene of so much activity. The gun next his is not in action; a shell has completely shattered the breech-plug; nearly its entire crew are lying about on the deck, their dark life-blood staining the white planking. His companion's cap is lying near a dark mass on the deck. Is it his blood? His senses are so paralyzed that he feels his mind must give way. The enemy emerges into view; his hand is upon the lock-string; the elevator and trainer are attentively watching for their orders. They do not come. His thoughts are far away in the midst of a modest New England home. He sees a beautiful motherly woman, her face pale and anxious, and by her side is a young girl in the first blush of womanhood.