struck home.

"The day of the destroyers was done. As the big _Maria Teresa_ turned
toward the shore, these two destroyers, like stricken wild fowl, fled
fluttering and splashing in the same direction, and they floundered as
they fled.

"While the _Infanta Maria Teresa_ was on fire, and running for the beach,
her crew was still working their guns, and the big _Vizcaya_ was handily
by to double the storm of projectiles she was hurling at the _Iowa_ and
_Texas_.

"It was not that the _Vizcaya's_ crew were manfully striving to protect
the _Teresa_; they were making the snarling, clawing fight of a lifetime
to escape the relentless Yankees that were closing upon them. For both the
_Texas_ and the _Iowa_ had the range, and it was only when the smoke of
their own guns blinded them that their fire was withheld, or a shot went
astray.

"The _Iowa_ and the _Texas_ had headed off both the _Vizcaya_ and the
_Infanta Maria Teresa_, while the _Indiana_ was coming with tremendous
speed to join them.

"And then came the finishing stroke. A 12-inch shell from the _Texas_ went
crashing into the stoke-hole, and the _Vizcaya_,--the ship whose beauty and
power once thrilled the hearts of New Yorkers with mingled pleasure and
fear--was mortally wounded. Hope was gone, and with helm aport she headed
away for the beach, as her consort had done.

"The battle had opened on our side at 9.33 o'clock, and at 9.58 two of the
magnificent armoured cruisers of the Spanish navy were quivering, flaming
wrecks on the Cuban beach, with the _Texas_ rounding to less than a
thousand yards away off the stern of the _Vizcaya_.

"For a moment the _Texas_ tarried there to let the smoke clear, and to see
accurately the condition of the enemy, but while her gunners were taking
aim for a final broadside a half-naked quartermaster on the _Vizcaya_,
with clawing hands on the halliards, hauled down the fever-hued ensign
from her peak and hoisted the white flag instead.

"'Cease firing!' commanded Captain Jack Philip of the _Texas_.

"So far as the _Vizcaya_ and the _Infanta Maria Teresa_ were concerned,
the battle--and for that matter the war--was ended.

"Huge volumes of black smoke, edged with red flame, rolled from every port
and shot hole of the _Vizcaya_, as from the _Teresa_. They were both
furnaces of glowing fire. Though they had come from the harbour to certain
battle, not a wooden bulkhead, nor a partition in the quarters either of
officers or me