g through it for only
about half a minute when he turned excitedly to Terry and gasped out,
"Rouse the ship, man--and quickly, too; there is a launch approaching,
and she carries a spar-torpedo; she is making straight for us, _and
evidently means to torpedo the flagship_!"

Like a flash Terry disappeared to rouse the crew, while Douglas
continued to watch the approach of the launch, in a perfect agony of
apprehension. The little craft was very close indeed now, and, steaming
at the rate of some nine knots, she would be alongside the _Blanco
Encalada_ in a couple of minutes; and once alongside the battleship,
nothing could save the latter from destruction.

But anxiety lent wings to Terry's feet, and in a few seconds the men
made their appearance on deck, in all stages of undress, for they fully
appreciated the dangers of the situation and had not waited to clothe
themselves. Their officers also had dashed up from below, and hurried
words of command flew from one quarter of the ship to another. Admiral
Williams himself rushed up from below, upon the alarm being given, and
he now instructed the ship's bugler to sound the alarm, and to sound it
with all his strength, while at the same time a blank charge was fired
as a warning to the other ships to be on the alert. Immediately
afterward a bugle was heard shrilling from the _Almirante Cochrane_, and
this was taken up by every ship in the squadron, for the whole fleet was
now thoroughly alarmed and on the alert.

For a few moments a state nearly approaching to panic reigned aboard the
flagship; but the men were quickly at their quarters, and every gun in
the ship was promptly trained upon the position indicated by Douglas.
It was too dark to enable the gunners to aim with precision, but the
sound guided them to some extent, and suddenly a perfect volcano of
machine-gun fire broke out on board the _Blanco Encalada_, followed by a
hoarse scream of agony from the torpedo-launch. An iron bucket was
partly filled with paraffin and this was lighted as a flare, throwing a
lurid glare over the sea and disclosing plainly to view a couple of
rapidly approaching launches, each of which carried a spar over her
bows, from which a torpedo was suspended, the launches heading directly
for the _Blanco Encalada_. But upon the nearest launch the effect of
the flagship's fire was terrible. The helmsman had been cut nearly to
pieces by the hail of bullets, and he now hung dead over the