b joined forces, fighting on their own
account. One more was wounded, and then the Americans made a desperate
charge, forcing the enemy back into the stone house, and then out again,
after fifteen had been killed.

Meanwhile severe fighting was going on in the vicinity of the camp; but
six field-pieces were brought up, and the second battle was ended after
two Americans had been killed and seven wounded.

_June 13._ The camp was moved to a less exposed position, while the
war-ships poured shell and shrapnel into the woods, and then the marines
filed solemnly out to a portion of the hill overlooking the bay where were
six newly made graves.

All the marines could not attend the funeral, many having to continue the
work of moving camp, or to rest on their guns, keeping a constant watch
for the lurking Spaniards; but all who could do so followed the stumbling
bearers of the dead over the loose gravel, and grouped themselves about
the graves.

The stretcher bearing the bodies had just been lifted to its place, and
Chaplain Jones of the _Texas_ was about to begin the reading of the burial
service, when the Spaniards began shooting at the party from the western
chaparral.

"Fall in, Company A, Company B, Company C, fall in!"

"Fall in!" was the word from one end of the camp to the other. The graves
were deserted by all save the chaplain and escort, who still stood
unmoved.

The men sprang to arms, and then placed themselves behind the rolled
tents, their knapsacks, the bushes in the hollows, boxes and piles of
stones, their rifles ready, their eyes strained into the brush.

Howitzers roared, blue smoke arose where the shells struck and burst in
the chaparral, and rifles sounded angrily.

The _Texas_ fired seven shots at the place from which the shooting came,
and the Spaniards, as usual, fled out of sight.

The funeral services had hardly been resumed when there was another
attack; but this time the pits near the old blockhouse got the range of
the malignant marksmen and shattered them with a few shots. The _Texas_
and _Panther_ shelled the brush to the eastward, but the chaplain kept
right on with the service, and from that time until night there was little
shooting from the cover.

On this day the dynamite cruiser _Vesuvius_ joined Admiral Sampson's
fleet, and the weary marines, holding their posts on shore against
overwhelming odds, hoped that her arrival betokened the speedy coming of
the soldiers who were s