Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/183

 course of the Semiramis. Her broadside is now visible to the anxious watchers on the yacht. She is apparently an armored cruiser of perhaps 5,000 tons, her hull painted a dull and featureless gray. No flag or emblem is as yet displayed from her taut and business-like rigging.

"She is painted and cleared for action. She is—ah! I thought so!"

A flag is broken from the cruiser's masthead, and Capt. Beals, as he focuses his binocular upon the streaming emblem, mutters between his teeth: "The flag of Castile!"

"'Tis a Spanish warship, Senor Van Zandt!" exclaims Manada, who has been studying the stranger. "Can your beautiful craft bear us from harm's way? I fear that yonder ship is the Infanta Isabel, the latest and most formidable accession to the navy of our hated oppressors. She has been detailed to intercept vessels supposed to bear arms and re-enforcements to our friends, and especially to watch for and destroy our gallant Pearl of the Antilles."

"Have no fears, Don Manada. Your cargo is safe. We will show the Spaniard a trick or two; eh, Beals?"

Capt. Beals does not reply in words to his employer's confident assertion, but an observant man might distinguish a slight relaxation of the muscles about his mouth.

The Semiramis holds steadily on her course. Only the increasing clouds of smoke that pour from her funnels indicate that anything out of the ordinary is expected of the yacht.

Only six miles distant! Five! Four!

A puff of white that rolls lazily from the forward deck of the cruiser is succeeded by a dull roar.

"Show the Don our colors," Capt. Beals orders the second officer.

While the smoke from the cannon yet lingers above the Spaniard's deck the glorious stars and stripes unfurl from the mainmast of the Semiramis, and snap gayly, defiantly, upon the breeze. And still the American yacht continues to steadily lessen the distance that separates the two craft.

Boom!