This done, he headed the sharpie for shore. The long fuse was used because he desired to be close under the shore before the red fire burned. The southeast wind was just right for him, and the sharpie fairly flew through the water. He was close enough in, and was pouring sand into the second can fastened to a board, when the red light blazed up.
What a glare it made! Certainly that lurid light must be visible for twenty miles.
It was green fire that Benito poured into his second can, and for this he used a much shorter fuse—just long enough to give him time to escape from the circle of light that was sure to follow. The red fire had hardly died out before the green fire blazed up, but by that time Benito was half a mile away.
"That will stir them up," he said to himself. The sharpie was making a long run to the northeast then, seaward and away from the cruiser; but he kept an eye on her lights. "It's plain enough what that means. First the red light, a signal from a party about to land; then the green light, an answering signal from their friends on shore. At least that's what I want the cruiser to think, and I believe she will; and she'll hunt those lights."
"Ah!" he exclaimed, a moment later, "the cruiser has seen the lights, for she's moving. I've started her, sure. Now the excitement begins."
The cruiser's lights grew larger and larger. She was standing down the coast, almost straight toward the green light, which still burned. She ran up within a half-mile of it, and fire belched from one of her turrets.
C-r-a-s-h! crash! Not one great boom, but a continuous roar.
"That's her Gatling!" Benito exclaimed. "Lucky I didn't burn my lights on the boat, as I thought of doing."
Spain's cruisers are as modern as our American vessels, and fitted with every deadly appliance. The one thing that El Rey lacks is a search-light; if she had carried a search-light that night Benito would not be alive to tell this story.
The green light disappeared under the shower of bullets, and the cruiser kept on her course. That was against the wind, and the sharpie could not compete with steam against the wind; but Benito was heading out seaward, off to the northeast, further and further away from the schooner.