gun in her bow, steamed swiftly shoreward and opened
fire; skirmish lines were thrown out through the tangle of foliage, and
only when a dark form was seen, which might have been that of a Spaniard,
or only the swaying branches of the trees, did the boys in blue have a
target.

It was guerrilla warfare, and well-calculated to test the nerves of the
young soldiers who were receiving their "baptism of blood."

Until midnight this random firing continued, and then a large body of
Spanish troops charged up the hill until they were face to face with the
defenders of the camp, when they retreated, being lost to view almost
immediately in the blackness of the night.

_June 12._ Again and again the firing was renewed from this quarter or
that, but the enemy did not show himself until the morning came like a
flash of light, as it does in the tropics, disclosing scurrying bands of
Spanish soldiers as they sought shelter in the thicket.

Now more guns were brought into play at the camp; the war-ships began
shelling the shore, and the action was speedily brought to an end. Four
Americans had been killed, and among them one of the surgeons.

At intervals during the day the crack of a rifle would tell that Spanish
sharpshooters were hovering around the camp; but not until eight o'clock
in the evening did the enemy approach in any great numbers.

Then the battle was on once more; again did the little band of bluejackets
stand to their posts, fighting against an unseen foe. Again the war-ships
flashed their search-lights and sent shell after shell into the thicket,
and all the while the Spanish fire was continued with deadly effect.

Lieutenants Neville and Shaw, each with a squad of ten men, were sent out
to dislodge the advance line of the enemy, and as the boys in blue swung
around into the thicket with a steady, swinging stride, the Spaniards gave
way, firing rapidly while so doing.

The Americans, heeding not the danger, pursued, following the foe nearly
to a small stone house near the coast, which had been used as a fort. They
were well up to this structure when the bullets rained upon them in every
direction from out the darkness. Sergeant Goode fell fatally wounded, and
the Spaniards charged, forcing the Americans to the very edge of a cliff,
over which one man fell and was killed; another fell, but with no further
injury than a broken leg. A third was shot through the arm, after which he
and the man with the broken lim