caya came out I distinctly saw one of the Indiana's heavy shells strike her abaft the funnels, and the explosion of this shell was followed by a burst of flame, which for the moment obscured the afterpart of the stricken ship," says Commander Eaton, who saw the fight from the Resolute. But not the fire of one ship could stop the fleeing squadron. Each in her order turned west, with the Colon running inshore of those ahead of her, and then the boom and scream of gun and shell blended into a roar that none can describe, and none that heard it will ever forget.

Our firing began at a range of from two to three miles, but that range was quickly cut down to a trifle over a mile. And then, of all times the worst for them, came the torpedoboat destroyers, the Pluton, "at a distance of twelve hundred yards" behind the Oquendo, and the Furor behind the Pluton. In the broad light of the day, with not even a haze of the smoke of battle to conceal them, came these two sneaks of the night. They had two miles of open water to cross before they could reach any of our battle-ships. The smaller guns of the Indiana, the Oregon, the Iowa, and the Texas, with some of their larger guns as well, were turned upon them, while Richard Wainwright, of the Gloucester, lay in wait to head them off. Wainwright was from the

have been killed or badly wounded, while the beams were ripped and torn, the bulkheads were shattered," and, what was infinitely worse, the fire-main was cut by the fragments of the shell before they passed out on the farther side of the ship.

To the destructive effect of these shots was added the damage done by two twelve-inch shells that entered below the berth-deck, making one widened hole where they entered, exploding and completely wrecking the after torpedo compartment.

With these huge projectiles came a hail of five-inch and four-inch and six-pounder shells so numerous and so deadly that it is impossible to follow them in detail, but when they burst amid her splintering decks and bulkheads there was no water to quench the quick-spreading flames. Her men, driven from their guns by the sandstorm blasts of our ships, turned inboard to face death in a form still more terrible. There were piles of cartridges in the paths of the flames that were sure to explode; but worse than all that-worse even than the hurtling projectiles from our nearing ships-the fire was leaving the crew no foothold to stand upon. They had literally to choose between remaining where they would be burned alive and running for the beach, where they might have some hope of escape by swimming ashore.