Page:Fighting in Cuban Waters.djvu/353

Rh "The Vizcaya, boys, the Vizcaya!" came the cry from the quarterdeck. "Don't let her screen the Colon!"

"We'll pound 'em both!" was the answer. "Remember the Maine! Remember Manila Bay!"

And then the mighty guns of the Brooklyn and Oregon roared out swifter than ever, and the Vizcaya, doing her best to sink one or the other of the American warships, was raked as if passing through a blizzard of fire, until her men were forced again and again from their posts, and at last the guns were abandoned. Then fire caught the craft in its awful embrace, and rolling from side to side, she, too, sought for a harbor of refuge, but found none. Down came her colors, and at the same instant she struck with a crash on the rocks. The fight had started at quarter to ten. Now it was but quarter past eleven,—just an hour and a half,—and all the Spanish ships but one had been destroyed. Such is the appalling swiftness of modern naval warfare. Where in olden days jack tars had fought for hours, they now fought for minutes.

But the destruction of the Vizcaya had taken time, and the Colon was forging onward, panting