Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/329

 influenced by the manifest delight of his sweetheart over the novel experience.

But the last gun is fired, the buoy mark is demolished, and, within forty-eight hours, Capt. Meade tells Jack, the America will be lying at anchor in the harbor of Key West.

"And she will return to Santiago, when?" the correspondent inquires. "I must be back at the finish, if the insurgents capture the city and it is shelled by the Spanish fleet."

Capt. Meade shakes his head. "That depends on instructions received at Key West. I suppose though, that the cruiser would be ordered directly back to Santiago after coaling."

Just then the captain is summoned to the bridge, where it is evident that some unusual occurrence is engrossing the attention of the officers.

Jack observes that the captain has his glass turned toward the northwest, and he also looks in that direction. Trails of black smoke low down on the horizon, evidently from two steamers, are all that reward his gaze, but he notices that the course of the America has been changed and that her speed has been materially accelerated.

"What is in the wind?" he inquires, casually, of the youthful ensign.

"That's just what we're going to find out," is the reply, and Ashley follows Capt. Meade to the bridge.

"Nothing special that we know of," is that official's response to Jack's query as to the cause of the change of course. "Some stranger, probably a Spanish gunboat, is in pursuit of another steamer, and as it is not much out of our course I concluded to run up nearer the scene."

The white cruiser is now rushing along at a speed that reminds Jack of his first memorable trip upon her, and is rapidly reducing the cloud of smoke on the horizon to the outlines of a formidable man-of-war.

"The Spanish cruiser Infanta Isabel," is the conclusion of Capt. Meade, after a long and careful study of the distant steamer. "But the craft she is in pursuit of I cannot quite make out. She is a large steamship of some sort