Page:Under Dewey at Manila.djvu/278

246 when Corregidor Island had been left in the distance, "And I don't believe they even touched us."

"We're not over the mines yet," said Barrow. "I take it we've got good cause to remember the Maine just now. If we strike anything like that—"

"Don't go for to speak of it!" cried Striker. "It's bad enough to have your nerves up like the string o' a bow, without spittin' out your tongue about it." And several nodded so vigorously at this that the word "mine" was not mentioned again. The lazy ones stretched themselves beside their "big brothers," as they called their guns, but the majority were in no humor to do aught but peer through the portholes, trying vainly to pierce the darkness of the night as the moon scurried beneath some fleeting clouds.

"Four hundred pairs of eyes on the watch and nothing to see but water and sky," mused Striker. "I hope we don't feel anything more either," he added, and that was the last reference the down-easter made to the mines.

However, by one o'clock in the morning the bugbear was a thing of the past, for all the warships were standing out into the middle of Manila Bay, where it was not likely a mine would be encountered. That they had actually passed through a field of mines,