er mounted at every step.

"What does it mean?" he kept asking. "Are we at war? You saw the
Chilian flag. Is there no Treaty of Paris, then? Does he go out to
filch every ship he meets? Will he do this, and our Government take no
steps? Can't you answer me that?" But he poured out his questions with
such rapidity, and he was so overcome, that we followed him in silence
as he walked beneath the awnings of the upper decks, and showed us
women still talking hysterically, men unnerved and witless as children,
seamen yet finding curses for the atrocity that had been. By this time,
the first of the American ships had come up with us, and the commander
of her put out a boat, and having gone aboard the maimed cruiser, he
came afterwards to the Black Anchor ship, and joined us in the
chart-room. I will make no attempt to set down for you his surprise nor
his incredulity. I believe that the scene in the fo'castle alone
convinced him that we were not all raving madmen; but, when once he
grasped our story, he was not a whit behind us, either in intensity of
expression or of sympathy.

"It's an international question, I guess," he said; "and if he doesn't
pay with his neck for the twenty men dead on my cruiser, to say nothing
of the twenty thousand pounds or more damage to her, I will--why, we'll
run her down in four-and-twenty hours. You took his course?"

"West by south-west, almost dead," said the captain; and I heard it
agreed between them that the second cruiser of the American fleet
should start at once in pursuit, while the iron-clads should accompany
us to New York, so making a little convoy for safety's sake.

With this arrangement we left the ship and regained the _Celsis_. Paolo
stood at the top of the ladder as I came on deck, and listened, I
thought, to our protestations that the danger was over with something
of a sneer on his face.

Indeed, I thought that I heard him mutter, as he went to his cabin,
"_Vedremo_--" but I did not know then how much the laugh was to be
against us, and that we should leave the convoy long before we reached
New York.

CHAPTER X.

THE SPREAD OF THE TERROR.

For full five days we steamed with the other vessels, under no stress
to keep the sea with them, since they made no more than twelve knots,
for the sake of the cruiser which had been so fearfully maimed in the
short action with the nameless ship. During this time there was little
power of wind; and the breeze continuing