They watched her slowly dissolve in the night.
Phil’s pulses beat fast. The moment was fraught with grave perils. The unseen torpedo-boat might be even then aiming a deadly blow at the motionless cruiser.
The crew were all watching intently; keyed to the highest pitch of nervous excitement; their eyes set fixedly, staring into the total gloom about them; alert for the first sound of the approaching enemy.
The attitude of the prisoners was reassuring; they could not load as rapidly as O’Neil had made the soldiers do; but they were used to naval warfare, they were on their own element, the night and the unseen danger held for them many terrors, but they were not so terrified as their soldier comrades; also they had been told that they would all be drowned if the “Aquadores” was torpedoed and that if they refused to fire they would suffer death from the soldiers’ rifles. Phil felt confident the sailors could be depended upon. He glanced aloft at the search-light platforms, high above the bridge deck; the operators stood ready, like shrouded statues, silhouetted against the starless sky.
Captain Garcia was the man of action, one hand on the telegraph to the engine room and his other on the switch for the search-lights, his eyes peering into the night.
Phil read his intention at a glance: on the discovery of the enemy to start ahead at full speed and flash both search-lights on her simultaneously.
“The ‘Barcelo’ should be there by now,” the captain said in a tense voice to the lad beside him. “Will my strategy fail? Have I made an error in my judgment of my countrymen?”
Phil was silent. His nerves were at too high tension to speak.
“The ‘Barcelo’s’ orders were if she discovered the torpedo-boat,” Captain Garcia continued in a nervous whisper, “to turn her search-light upon the enemy and steam at full speed toward us. We shall remain dark. My dread is that our enemy may be now returning to the harbor and will suddenly find me in her path.”
“But even if that happens will she be able to fire a torpedo immediately?” questioned Phil in a voice he tried hard to control.