red off Havana, in which the
_Vicksburg_ and the cutter _Morrill_ were very nearly enticed to
destruction.

A small schooner was sent out from Havana harbour shortly before daylight
to draw some of the Americans into an ambuscade.

She ran off to the eastward, hugging the shore with the wind on her
starboard quarter. About three miles east of the entrance of the harbour
she came over on the port tack.

A light haze fringed the horizon, and she was not discovered until three
miles off shore, when the _Mayflower_ made her out and signalled the
_Vicksburg_ and _Morrill_. Captain Smith of the _Vicksburg_ immediately
clapped on all steam and started in pursuit.

The schooner instantly put about and ran for Morro Castle before the wind.
On doing so, she would, according to the plot, lead the two American
war-ships directly under the guns of the Santa Clara batteries.

These works are a short mile west of Morro, and are a part of the defences
of the harbour. There were two batteries, one at the shore, which had been
recently thrown up, of sand and mortar, with wide embrasures for 8-inch
guns, and the other on the crest of the rocky eminence which juts out into
the waters of the gulf at the point. The upper battery mounted modern 10
and 12-inch Krupp guns, behind a six-foot stone parapet, in front of which
were twenty feet of earthwork and belting of railroad iron.

The American vessels were about six miles from the schooner when the chase
began. They steamed after her at full speed, the _Morrill_ leading, until
within a mile and a half of the Santa Clara batteries.

Commander Smith of the _Vicksburg_ was the first to realise the danger
into which the reckless pursuit had led them. He concluded it was time to
haul off, and sent a shot across the bow of the schooner.

The Spanish skipper instantly brought his vessel about, but while she was
still rolling in the trough of the sea with her sails flapping, an 8-inch
shrapnel shell came hurtling through the air from the water-battery, a
mile and a half away.

It passed over the _Morrill_, between the pilot-house and the smoke-stack,
and exploded less than fifty feet away on the port quarter.

Two more shots followed in quick succession, both shrapnel. One burst
close under the starboard quarter, filling the engine-room with the smoke
of the exploding shell, and the other, like the first, passed over and
exploded just beyond.

The Spanish gunners had the range, and their